Elsewhere in this treatise the well-known and well-established principle is considered that it is not within the province of the courts to pass judgment upon the policy of legislative or executive action. Where, therefore, discretionary powers are granted by the Constitution or by statute, the manner in which those powers are exercised is not subject to judicial review. The courts, therefore, concern themselves only with the question as to the existence and extent of these discretionary powers.

As distinguished from the judicial, the legislative and executive departments are spoken of as the political departments of government because in very many cases their action is necessarily dictated by considerations of public or political policy. These considerations of public or political policy of course will not permit the legislature to violate constitutional provisions, or the executive to exercise authority not granted him by the Constitution or by statute, but within these limits they do permit the departments, separately or together, to recognize that a certain set of facts, that a given status, exists, and these determinations, together with the consequences that flow therefrom, may not be traversed in the courts.

In the exercise of his political powers, not only the President, but those acting under his order are exempt from judicial control. In Marbury v. Madison,1 Marshall says: "By the Constitution of the United States, the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion, and is accountable only to his country in his political character and to his own conscience. To aid him in the performance of these duties, he is authorized to appoint certain officers, who act by his authority, and in conformity with his orders. In such cases their acts are his acts; and whatever opinion may be entertained of the manner in which executive discretion may be used, still there exists, and can exist no power to control that discretion. The subjects are political. They respect the Nation, not individual rights, and, being intrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive. The application of this remark will be perceived by adverting to the act of Congress for establishing the department of foreign affairs. This officer as his duties were prescribed by that act, is to conform precisely to the will of the President. He is the mere organ by whom that will is to be communicated. The acts of such an officer, as an officer, can never be examined by the courts."

1 1 Cr. 137; 2 L. ed. 60.

No comprehensive enumeration of these political determinations has been attempted by the courts, nor, indeed, is such an enumeration possible. Specifically, however, the following have been decided, as the cases have arisen, to be political and, therefore, not justiciable: