bill before it is put upon its passage. An analogous practice
has always obtained in England, and was followed in several of
the colonies.

Some of our State Constitutions expressly authorize such
proceedings. In the absence of such authority, the judges can
properly decline to comply with the request. It always asks them
to prejudge a question which may later come before them in court,
and to prejudge it without hearing any of the parties whom it may
affect injuriously.[Footnote: See the Reply of the Judges of the
Supreme Court of the General Assembly, 33 Conn. Reports, 586.]

President Washington, in 1793, brought a matter of this kind
before the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
It was during the controversy with M. Genet, the French minister,
as to his right to refit a captured English merchantman as a
privateer at an American port, and then send her out for a
cruise. By the advice of his Cabinet, the President asked the
justices a series of questions comprehending all the subjects of
difference as to the proper exposition of the provisions of our
treaties with France under which her minister made claim. They
replied that they deemed it improper to enter the field of
politics by declaring their opinions on questions not growing out
of some case actually before them.[Footnote: Marshall, "Life of
Washington," V, 433, 441.] No further request of this kind has
since been made by any of the political departments to a court of
the United States, except such as have been addressed to the
Court of Claims.

Idaho, in her Constitution (Art. V, Sec. 25), has sought to give