s to resist encroachments of
one or either of the others. Thus ambition would be made to counteract
ambition, the desire of power to check power, and the pressure of
interest to balance an opposing interest.

* * * * *

* * * The judiciary is naturally and almost necessarily, as has been
already said, the weakest department. It can have no means of influence
by patronage. Its powers can never be wielded for itself. It has no
command over the purse or the sword of the nation. It can neither lay
taxes, nor appropriate money, nor command armies, nor appoint to office.
It is never brought into contact with the people by constant appeals and
solicitations and private intercourse, which belong to all the other
departments of Government. It is seen only in controversies or in trials
and punishments. Its rigid justice and impartiality give it no claims to
favor, however they may to respect. It stands solitary and unsupported,
except by that portion of public opinion which is interested only in the
strict administration of justice. It can rarely secure the sympathy or
zealous support either of the Executive or the Legislature. If they
are not, as is not unfrequently the case, jealous of its prerogatives,
the constant necessity of scrutinizing the acts of each, upon the
application of any private person, and the painful duty of pronouncing
judgment that these acts are a departure from the law or Constitution
can have no tendency to conciliate kindness or nourish influence. It
would seem, therefore, that some additional guards would, under the
circumstances, be necessary to protect this department from the absolute
dominion of the others. Yet rarely have any such guards been applied,
and every attempt to introduce them has been resisted with a pertinacity
which demonstrates how slow popular leaders are to introduce checks upon
their own power and how slow the people are to believe that the
judiciary is the real bulwark of their liberties. * * *

* * * * *

* * * If any department of the Government has undue influence or
absorbing power, it certainly has not been the executive or judiciary.

In addition to what has been said by these distinguished writers,
it may also be urged that the dominant party in each House may, by the
expulsion of a sufficient number of members or by the exclusion from
represen