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378 378 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. ment, and by a uniform course of decisions in the judicial department/ A distinction must, however, be made between those articles of the Constitution by which the several departments of the govern- ment were respectively created and organized, and those depart- ments themselves; for the reasoning which is apphcable to the former is not necessarily applicable to the latter, nor is the same reasoning necessarily applicable to all of the latter. It does not follow, because a department of the government is created and organized by the Constitution with reference solely to a given ter- ritory, that, therefore, the power of that department and its sphere of action are limited to that territory. It may or may not be true, and it may be true of one department, and not true of another department. In fact, it is true of the judicial department, but it is not true of either the legislative or the executive department. How is it, then, that one of these three departments can differ so materially from the other two, when no such difference is indicated by the Cons^^itution, which created and organized them all? It is because the difference depends, not upon the Constitution, but upon the nature of the departments themselves. The legislative an4 executive departments are sovereign in their nature, and, there- fore, their power and sphere of action are co-extensive with the sovereignty of the United States, of which sovereignty they con- stitute the vital part, — of which, in fact, they constitute all that has been delegated. It is by them alone that the sovereignty of the United States can, without changing or overthrowing the pres- ent Constitution, either speak or act, i. e., either declare its will, or execute that will when declared. The judicial department, on the other hand, is not the depositary of any portion of the sov- ereign power; its function is simply to judge; it cannot even enforce its own judgments; without the support of both the legis- lative and executive departments it could have no existence, other than theoretical, since the latter alone can appoint judges, and the former alone can provide them with salaries. It is true that the judicial department sometimes disregards what the legislative de- partment has declared to be- the sovereign will; but that is not because of the nature of the judicial office, — it is rather in spite ' Ser^ V. Pitot, 6 Cr. 332; Am. Ins. Co. v. Canter, i Pet. 511; Benner 7'. Porter, 9 How. 235; Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434; Reynolds v. U. S., 98 U. S. 145; The City of Panama, loi U. S. 453; McAllister v. U. S., 141 U. S. J74.