Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/21

 CH. VII.] the others, the degree of separation, which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained."

§ 529. It is proper to premise, that it is agreed on all sides, that the powers belonging to one department ought not to be directly and completely administered by either of the other departments; and, as a corollary, that, in reference to each other, neither of them ought to possess, directly or indirectly, an overruling influence in the administration of their respective powers. Power, however, is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. Having separated the three great departments by a broad line from each other, the difficult task remains to provide some practical means for the security of each against the meditated or occasional invasions of the others. Is it sufficient to declare on parchment in the constitution, that each shall remain, and neither shall usurp the functions of the other? No one, well read in history in general, or even in our own history during the period of the existence of our state constitutions, will place much reliance on such declarations. In the first place, men may and will differ, as to the nature and extent of the prohibition. Their wishes and their interests, the prevalence of faction, an apparent necessity, or a predominant popularity, will give a strong bias to their judgments, and easily satisfy them with reasoning, which has but a plausible colouring. And it has been accordingly found, that the theory has bent under the occasional pressure, as well as under the occasional elasticity of public opinion, and as well in the states, as in the general government under the