Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/360

 352 found, that the president's negative has been rarely exerted; and whenever it has been, no instance (it is believed) has occurred, in which the act has been concurred in by two thirds of both houses. If the public opinion has not, in all cases, sustained this exercise of the veto, it may be affirmed, that it has rarely been found that the disapprobation has been violent, or unqualified.

§ 886. The proposition to unite the Supreme Court with the executive in the revision and qualified rejection of laws, failed, as has been seen, in the convention. Two reasons seem to have led to this result, and probably were felt by the people also, as of decisive weight. The one was, that the judges, who are the interpreters of the law, might receive an improper bias from having given a previous opinion in their revisory capacity. The other was, that the judges, by being often associated with the executive, might be induced to embark too far in the political views of that magistrate; and thus a dangerous combination might, by degrees, be cemented between the executive and judiciary departments. It is impossible to keep the judges too distinct from any other avocation, than that of expounding the laws; and it is peculiarly dangerous to place them in a situation to be either corrupted, or influenced by the executive. To these may be added another, which may almost be deemed a corollary from them, that it would have a tendency to take from the judges that public confidence in their impartiality, independence, and integrity, which seem indispensable to the due administration of public justice. Whatever has a tendency to create suspicion, or provoke jealousy, is mischievous to the judicial department.