Our Living Constitution
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guards to Federal judges. The Supreme Court ruled nevertheless in favor
of Neagle, arguing that no statute was necessary. ‘‘In the view we take of
the Constitution,’’ said the Court, ‘‘any obligation fairly and properly inferrible from that instrument, or any duty of the marshal to be derived
from the general scope of his duties under the laws of the United States,
is a ‘law’ within the meaning of this phrase.’’ There is ‘‘a peace of the
United States,’’ the Court went on, and the President is necessarily the
principal protector of the peace. His duty to see that the laws are faithfully
executed is not limited to enforcing Congressional statutes and includes as
well ‘‘the rights, duties and obligations growing out of the Constitution itself.’’ The President’s power to execute the laws, in other words, was a
self-executing power to enforce the laws generally, and did not depend
for its existence upon a specific act of Congress. The Neagle case, it may
thus be seen, gave added meaning to the separation of powers and the
President’s law enforcement powers, without substantially altering
them. Had the Court ruled against Neagle, the President’s power
would have been severely restricted and entirely at the mercy of Congress.
There are many Supreme Court decisions comparable to the Neagle
case in which the Justices have found it necessary to add meaning to general provisions of the Constitution when applying them to specific facts.
Ordinarily, such decisions arouse little controversy. The Constitution, after all, is based upon general principles as well as concrete rules, and it
would be impossible for the judges to interpret and apply these principles without specifying their metes and bounds. Unlike the draftsmen of
many tedious State constitutions that go on for pages and attempt to anticipate every possible contingency, the Framers wisely understood that
a constitution is not an elaborate code of law and that it would soon be
unwieldy and might go out of date if the principles of government embodied within it were burdened with countless details. A constitution
must be adaptable to the changing needs and conditions of society. As
Chief Justice John Marshall explained in the famous case of McCulloch v.
Maryland (1819), in which the Court rendered a definitive interpretation
of the Necessary and Proper Clause, ‘‘a constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit,
and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would