The federal Constitution does not contain a specific distributing clause, but its equivalent is found in the clauses which provide that "all legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a, congress of the United States," that "the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," and that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."

These provisions interpreted in the light of the accepted doctrines that each and all of the federal organs of government possess only those powers granted them by the Constitution, and that the powers not granted may not by them be delegated to other and different organs, have, from the beginning, been held to secure what the specific distributing clauses in the state constitutions are designed to provide. In the case of Kilbourn v. Thompson7 the court says "It is believed to be one of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law that all powers intrusted to the government, whether state or national, are divided into the three grand departments, the executive, the legislative and the judicial; that the functions appropriate to each of these branches of government shall be vested in a separate body of public servants, and that the perfection of that system requires that the lines which separate and divide these departments shall be broadly and clearly defined. It is also essential to the successful working of the system that the persons intrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the powers confided to the others, but that each shall by the law of its creation be limited to the exercise of the powers appropriate to its own department and no others." 8

6 Cf. Goodnow. American Administrative Law, p. 35. 7 103 U. S. 168; 26 L. ed. 377.

To preserve the separation of powers and to render government efficient for the protection of civil liberty, the framers of our federal and state constitutions saw that it wa3 necessary not simply to create separate depositaries for the three powers, but that means should be provided for preventing, if possible, the control by one department of the other departments. With this end in view the executive, legislative, and judicial establishments are made as independent as possible of one another. Thus the legislatures are made the sole judges as to the constitutional qualifications of those claiming membership, they have the power of disciplining and expelling members, their members are in general not liable to arrest except for felony, treason, or breach of the peace, and they may not be held responsible in actions of slander or libel for words spoken or printed by them as members. The independence of the courts is in general secured by tenures of office, and official compensation free from legislative control, and, furthermore, they have the great power of declining to recognize all laws or executive acts which they hold to be unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. The executive has, of course, within its own hands, the material force of the State, and within the limits of the discretion placed by law within his hands, may not be held legally responsible in the courts for his acts.