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CHAPTER VI.
JUDICIAL POWER IN THE UNITED STATES, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON POLITICAL SOCIETY.
The Anglo-Americans have retained the characteristics of judicial power which are common to all nations.—They have, however, made it a powerful political organ.—How.—In what the judicial system of the Anglo-Americans differs from that of all other nations.—Why the American judges have the right of declaring the laws to be unconstitutional.—How they use this right.—Precautions taken by the legislator to prevent its abuse.
I HAVE thought it essential to devote a separate chapter to the judicial authorities of the United States, lest their great political importance should be lessened in the reader's eyes by a merely incidental mention of them. Confederations have existed in other countries beside America; and republics have not been established upon the shores of the New World alone: the representative system of government has been adopted in several States of Europe; but I am not aware that any nation of the globe has hitherto organized a judicial power on the principle now adopted by the Americans. The judicial organization of the United States is the institution which a stranger has the greatest difficulty in understanding. He hears the
