CAMPBELL'S CASE.—2 BLAND. 217

for all such purposes, that that legislative body has the power to
assert the truth of any facts to the destruction of an individual
without leaving to him the means of controverting what had been
thus asserted in any judicial manner or form whatever. 4 Tnst.
37; Com. Dig. tit. Parliament, H. 6.

Even in England there are many cases in which the Courts of
justice found their judgments upon considerations of public utility,
looking to politics, or that which is deduced from the frame of the
government of the country. Earl of Chesterfield v. Jansen, 2 Ves.
156. Here it has become very common of late to speak of the
.sovereign power, and of the sovereignty exercised by our Govern-
ment. These words do not, however, occur either in the Consti-
tution of this State, or in that of the Union. The words sovereign
and sovereignty refer to him, or that body of men who possess the
supreme power of the State; who*have no superior, and

who hold the supremacy, the highest authority at discre- 231
tion and without responsibility. In England the monarch alone
wears "the golden yoke of sovereignty." All discretionary and
irresponsible power belongs to him only; except in so far as it has
been expressly chartered out by him to the Parliament or the
judiciary. Bac. Abr. tit. Prerogative, 487; Hallam's Mid. Ages, eh.
8, pt. 3, p. 183. When the King and the Parliament, however,
unite, they are indeed clothed with a sovereignty which is, to the
extent of all human power within the range of their jurisdiction,
altogether omnipotent. Yet it has been held in England, as well
as in this country, that if a legislative enactment, owing to some
oversight or mistake of its makers, directs that to be done which
is palpably absurd, unnatural, uujust or impracticable; as that a
party should sit as Judge in his own cause; or that a penalty should
be imposed upon those who should not propagate slander, instead of
upon those who should do so; The Lord Cromwell's Case, 4 Co. 12;
or that those should be punished who should pass as true a forged
note issued by a bank, instead of those who should pass a forged
note purporting to be a note issued by a bank; The United States
v. Cawtril, 4 Gran. 167; apart from any constitutional restriction,
must be regarded as absolutely void; on the ground of its being
impracticable innocently to execute it; because of its obscurity,
absurdity, repugnance or injustice. The Lord Cromwell's Case,
4 Co. 13; Dr. Bonham's Case, 8 Co. 236; Dr. Poster's Case, 11 Co.
63; Day v. Savage, Hob. 87; The City of London v. Wood, 12 Mad.
687; Weale v. West Middlesex Water Comp. 1 Joe. and Wel. 371;
Dwarris' Statutes, 643; Montesq. Spirit Laics, b. 26, ch. 3.

But the Government of this Republic has been clothed with no
such sovereign power, or sovereignty as that of England, either
altogether, or in any of its departments. Taken collectively, or
in any of its several parts, it is most truly and strictly made up of
responsible and delegated power; it is not, in any sense, sovereign,