The Federalist No. 47
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or ‘‘if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers,’’ he did not mean that these departments ought to have
no partial agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other. His meaning,
as his own words import, and still more conclusively as illustrated by the
example in his eye, can amount to no more than this, that where the whole
power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess
the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a
free constitution are subverted. This would have been the case in the constitution examined by him, if the King, who is the sole executive magistrate, had possessed also the complete legislative power, or the supreme
administration of justice; or if the entire legislative body had possessed
the supreme judiciary, or the supreme executive authority. This, however, is not among the vice ́