It
should be remembered, however, that this power is wholly negative and
conservative in its character, and was intended to operate as a check
upon unconstitutional, hasty, and improvident legislation and as a means
of protection against invasions of the just powers of the executive and
judicial departments. It is remarked by Chancellor Kent that--
To enact laws is a transcendent power, and if the body that possesses
it be a full and equal representation of the people there is danger of
its pressing with destructive weight upon all the other parts of the
machinery of Government. It has therefore been thought necessary by the
most skillful and most experienced artists in the science of civil
polity that strong barriers should be erected for the protection and
security of the other necessary powers of the Government. Nothing has
been deemed more fit and expedient for the purpose than the provision
that the head of the executive department should be so constituted as
to secure a requisite share of independence and that he should have a
negative upon the passing of laws; and that the judiciary power, resting
on a still more permanent basis, should have the right of determining
upon the validity of laws by the standard of the Constitution.
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