Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/481

 in the same person or body," says he, "there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or Senate should enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner." Again, "Were the power of judging joined with the Legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the Judge would then be the Legislator. Were it joined to the Executive power, the Judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor." Some of these reasons are more fully explained in other passages; but briefly stated as they are here, they sufficiently establish the meaning which we have put on this celebrated maxim of this celebrated author.

If we look into the Constitutions of the several States, we find, that, notwithstanding the emphatical, and in some instances, the unqualified terms in which this axiom has been laid down, there is not a single instance in which the several departments of power have been kept absolutely separate and distinct. New Hampshire, whose Constitution was the last formed, seems to have been fully aware of the impossibility and inexpediency of avoiding any mixture whatever of these departments; and has qualified the doctrine by declaring "that the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary powers ought to be kept as separate from, and independent of each other, as the nature of a free Government will admit; or as is consistent with that chain of connection, that binds the whole fabric of the Constitution in one indissoluble bond of unity and amity." Her Constitution accordingly mixes these departments in several respects. The Senate, which is a branch of the Legislative department, is also a Judicial tribunal for the trial of impeachments. The President, who is the head of the Executive department, is the presiding member also of the Senate; and, besides an equal vote in all cases, has a casting