In order to change the character of the government at Athens from an aristocracy to a democracy Solon gave the people control of the courts, which _exercised the supreme power over laws and men_. Aristotle says that by this method the people established a democracy where there had previously been an aristocracy. The aristocrat controlled the lawmaking power, but as the people controlled the judiciary a pure democracy resulted. Alexander Hamilton used the same device _for the opposite purpose_. He took away from the people and put into the hands of the aristocracy _the supreme control over our laws and rulers_, and our judiciary, thus controlled, has changed the United States, which under the old Confederation was a democracy, into an aristocracy. It will require a Constitutional amendment to drive the usurpers from the high place in which they are entrenched, but such an amendment cannot possibly be passed through the _Upper House of Congress_ and through the _Upper Houses of three-fourths of the states_ until a tremendous revolution shall have taken place in public sentiment. If we should attempt to curtail the powers of the Federal Judges by Constitutional amendment we should surely find “Jordan a hard road to travel.” Most of us would be dead and forgotten before the purpose could be reached by that route. What, then, can be done? _The swiftest remedy for the evil lies in the election of a President who will_ ASSERT HIS EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. The very essence of our system of government is the _Balance of Power_. The Legislative function should not encroach upon the Judicial; the Executive should not invade the Legislative, and the Judicial should not usurp prerogatives belonging to the other two. _Inherent in each of these three departments of government lies the power of self-defense._ Just as the Government, as a whole, has the inherent, inalienable right of self-preservation against external or internal attack, so each of the three separate departments of the Government has the inherent right of self-preservation as against an attack from either one or both of the other two. When John Marshall made the attempt to encroach upon the Executive, during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, the President treated the Court with contempt, and the Court was powerless to go forward. When the same partisan Judge made a decision against the state of Georgia, which President Andrew Jackson considered unjust, the Executive refused to support the Judiciary, and the decision came to naught. When Chief-Justice Taney, during President Lincoln’s administration, encroached, as the President thought, upon the Executive, the Judiciary again came to grief. _Had Mr. Cleveland been at heart in favor of the Income tax of 1893, the Supreme Court would never have dared to pronounce against it._