Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/25

 CH. VII.] upon rights and cases, as they are brought by others before it. It can do nothing for itself. It must do every thing for others. It must obey the laws; and if it corruptly administers them, it is subjected to the power of impeachment. On the other hand, the legislative power, except in the few cases of constitutional prohibition, is unlimited. It is for ever varying its means and its ends. It governs the institutions, and laws, and public policy of the country. It regulates all its vast interests. It disposes of all its property. Look but at the exercise of two or three branches of its ordinary powers. It levies all taxes; it directs and appropriates all supplies; it gives the rules for the descent, distribution, and devises of all property held by individuals. It controls the sources and the resources of wealth. It changes at its will the whole fabric of the laws. It moulds at its pleasure almost all the institutions, which give strength, and comfort, and dignity to society.

§ 534. In the next place, it is the direct, visible representative of the will of the people in all the changes of times and circumstances. It has the pride, as well as the power of numbers. It is easily moved and steadily moved by the strong impulses of popular feeling, and popular odium. It obeys, without reluctance, the wishes and the will of the majority for the time being. The path to public favour lies open by such obedience; and it finds not only support, but impunity, in whatever measures the majority advises, even though they transcend the constitutional limits. It has no motive, therefore, to be jealous, or scrupulous in its own use of power; and it finds its ambition stimulated, 3