Wynehamer v People.pdf - The University of Texas at Austin

482 CASES IN THE COURT OP APPEALS.Wynehamer against The People.This being so, it follows inevitably that the occasion andnecessity for the exercise of the power embodied in astatute is wholly a matter of legislative judgment and discretion,where no constitutional restriction intervenes, withwhich no other power in the government has any right tointerfere, at least after the executive sanction has beengiven. If the legislature shall determine that the occasionhas arisen or that the necessity exists for the exercise of amore extended and stringent power than it has hithertoexercised, who shall decide to the contrary ? What othertribunal is clothed with power to entertain an appeal andreverse such determination ? The veto power given to theexecutive is the only authority the constitution has provided,and that must be exercised before legislation hasripened into statutes, and is then not necessarily conclusive.Whoever bestows the slightest reflection upon the natureand character of the judicial office, will see that courts canantertain no such question; and any attempt on their partto take cognizance of it, and to draw it within their jurisdiction,would be a clear invasion of the legislative provinceand a usurpation of legislative power.The spectacle of a conflict between toe representativesof the legislative and the judicial sovereignty of the peoplerespecting a question of this character, upon any otherthan cleaf, undoubted, constitutional grounds, would, atthis day, be at once novel and alarming. Every legislativeact, when questioned, is to be brought to the test of theconstitution, and if the power exercised is not there forbiddenin express terms, or by clear and necessary implication,courts have no discretion, but are bound to pronounceit valid. The right of courts to declare legislative enactments,in derogation of the constitution, void, is one whichhas been too long and steadily exercised in this country tobe now doubted or questioned. It is, however, one of thehighest and most delicate of all conservative powers, and isnever to be exercised against the acts of the superior branch