the Senate only when that body yields to the
demands of the people. In all such cases the House would naturally
support the Senate as against the Supreme Court. It is not surprising,
then, that the Federal courts have not attempted to limit the
treaty-making power.

Before leaving the subject of the Federal courts one feature of the
judicial negative deserves further notice. The fact that it is not
exercised until a case involving the law in question is brought before
the court in the ordinary course of litigation is often referred to by
constitutional writers as one of its chief merits. And yet until a
competent court has actually declared a legislative act null and void,
it is for all practical purposes the law of the land and must be
recognized as such. It may vitally affect industry and commerce and
require an elaborate readjustment of business relations. It may even be
years after such an act is passed before a decision is obtained from the
court of last resort. And if the decision annuls the law, it does so not
from the time that the judgment of the court is rendered, but from the
time the act in question was originally passed. This retroactive
character of the judicial veto is strongly suggestive of the _ex post
facto_ legislation which the Constitution expressly forbids. By thus
invalidating the law from the beginning it may leave a vast body of
business contracts without legal protection or support. As a
consequence, it is impossible for any one, be he ever so well informed,
to know just what legislative acts are valid and what are not. The
amount of uncertainty which this introduces into business relations is
more easily imagined than described.

America can claim the rather questionable distinction of being the only
important country in which we find this uncertainty as to the law, since
it is the only one in which the courts have a negative on the acts of
the legislature. That we have ourselves realized the disadvantages of
the system is shown by the changes made in the constitutions of several
states with a view of diminishing the frequency of the judicial veto.
These provisions make it the duty of the judges of the supreme court of
the state to give their opinion upon questions of law when required by
the governor or other branch of the law-making authority.[102]

In so far as constitutional provisions of this sort have been intended
to prevent the evils resulting from a deferred exercise of the judicia