The Federalist Papers
second, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the
misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal
from office or to their actual punishment in cases which admit of it.
In England, the king is a perpetual magistrate; and it is a maxim which
has obtained for the sake of the public peace, that he is unaccountable
for his administration, and his person sacred. Nothing, therefore, can
be wiser in that kingdom, than to annex to the king a constitutional
council, who may be responsible to the nation for the advice they give.
Without this, there would be no responsibility whatever in the executive
department an idea inadmissible in a free government. But even there
the king is not bound by the resolutions of his council, though they are
answerable for the advice they give. He is the absolute master of his
own conduct in the exercise of his office, and may observe or disregard
the counsel given to him at his sole discretion.
But in a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally
responsible for his behavior in office the reason which in the British
Constitution dictates the propriety of a council, not only ceases to
apply, but turns against the institution. In the monarchy of Great
Britain, it furnishes a substitute for the prohibited responsibility of
the chief magistrate, which serves in some degree as a hostage to the
national justice for his good behavior. In the American republic, it
would serve to destroy, or would greatly diminish, the intended and
necessary responsibility of the Chief Magistrate himself.
The idea of a council to the Executive, which has so generally obtained
in the State constitutions, has been derived from that maxim of
republican jealousy which considers power as safer in the hands of a
number of men than of a single man. If the maxim should be admitted to
be applicable to the case, I should contend that the advantage on that
side would not counterbalance the numerous disadvantages on the opposite
side. But I do not think the rule at all applicable to the executive
power. I clearly concur in opinion, in this particular, with a
writer whom the celebrated Junius pronounces to be "deep, solid, and
ingenious," that "the executive power is more easily confined when it
is ONE";(2) that it is far more safe there should be a single object for
the jealousy and watchfulness of the people; and, in a word, that all
multiplication of the Executive is rather dangerous than friendly to
liberty.
A little consideration will satisfy us, that the species of security
sought for in the multiplication of the Executive, is unattainable.
Numbers must be so great as to render combination difficult, or they
are rather a source of danger than of security. The united credit and
influence of several individuals must be more formidable to liberty,
than the credit and influence of either of them separately. When power,
therefore, is placed in the hands of so small a number of men, as to
admit of their interests and views being easily combined in a common
enterprise, by an artful leader, it becomes more liable to abuse, and
more dangerous when abused, than if it be lodged in the hands of one
man; who, from the very circumstance of his being alone, will be more
narrowly watched and more readily suspected, and who cannot unite so
great a mass of influence as when he is associated with others. The
Decemvirs of Rome, whose name denotes their number,(3) were more to be
dreaded in their usurpation than any ONE of them would have been. No
person would think of proposing an Executive much more numerous than
that body; from six to a dozen have been suggested for the number of
the council. The extreme of these numbers, is not too great for an easy
combination; and from such a combination America would have more to
fear, than from the ambition of any single individual. A council to a
magistrate, who is himself responsible for what he does, are generally
nothing better than a clog upon his good intentions, are often the
instruments and accomplices of his bad and are almost always a cloak to
his faults.
I forbear to dwell upon the subject of expense; though it be evident
that if the council should be numerous enough to answer the principal
end aimed at by the institution, the salaries of the members, who must
be drawn from their homes to reside at the seat of government, would
form an item in the catalogue of public expenditures too serious to be
incurred for an object of equivocal utility. I will only add that, prior
to the appearance of the Constitution, I rarely met with an intelligent
man from any of the States, who did not admit, as the result of
experience, that the UNITY of the executive of this State was one of the
best of the distinguishing features of our constitution.
PUBLIUS
1. New York has no council except for the single purpose of appointing
to offices; New Jersey has a council whom the governor may consult. But
I think, from the terms of the constitution, their resolutions do not
bind him.
2. De Lolme.
3. Ten.
E1. Two versions of these paragraphs appear in different editions.
FEDERALIST No. 71
The Duration in Office of the Executive
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, March 18, 1788.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
DURATION in office has been mentioned as the second requisite to the
energy of the Executive authority. This has relation to two objects: to
the personal firmness of the executive magistrate, in the employment
of his constitutional powers; and to the stability of the system of
administration which may have been adopted under his auspices. With
regard to the first, it must be evident, that the longer the duration in
office, the greater will be the probability of obtaining so important an
advantage. It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will
be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or
precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it; will be less attached
to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he
enjoys by a durable or certain title; and, of course, will be willing to
risk more for the sake of the one, than for the sake of the other. This
remark is not less applicable to a political privilege, or honor, or
trust, than to any article of ordinary property. The inference from
it is, that a man acting in the capacity of chief magistrate, under a
consciousness that in a very short time he MUST lay down his office,
will be apt to feel himself too little interested in it to hazard any
material censure or perplexity, from the independent exertion of his
powers, or from encountering the ill-humors, however transient, which
may happen to prevail, either in a considerable part of the society
itself, or even in a predominant faction in the legislative body. If the
case should only be, that he MIGHT lay it down, unless continued by a
new choice, and if he should be desirous of being continued, his wishes,
conspiring with his fears, would tend still more powerfully to corrupt
his integrity, or debase his fortitude. In either case, feebleness and
irresolution must be the characteristics of the station.
There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of
the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or in
the legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain
very crude notions, as well of the purposes for which government was
instituted, as of the true means by which the public happiness may be
promoted. The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of
the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust
the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified
complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient
impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter
their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation,
that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to
their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator
who should pretend that they always REASON RIGHT about the MEANS of
promoting it. They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the
wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually
are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the
ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who
possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who
seek to possess rather than to deserve it. When occasions present
themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance
with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have
appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the
temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more
cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct
of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their
own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude
to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the
peril of their displeasure.
But however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded
complaisance in the Executive to the inclinations of the people, we can
with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors of the
legislature. The latter may sometimes stand in opposition to the
former, and at other times the people may be entirely neutral. In either
supposition, it is certainly desirable that the Executive should be in a
situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor and decision.
The same rule which teaches the propriety of a partition between the
various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought
to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other.
To what purpose separate the executive or the judiciary from the
legislative, if both the executive and the judiciary are so constituted
as to be at the absolute devotion of the legislative? Such a separation
must be merely nominal, and incapable of producing the ends for which
it was established. It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and
another to be dependent on the legislative body. The first comports
with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government;
and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power
in the same hands. The tendency of the legislative authority to absorb
every other, has been fully displayed and illustrated by examples in
some preceding numbers. In governments purely republican, this tendency
is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people, in a popular
assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves,
and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign
of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights,
by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege
and an outrage to their dignity. They often appear disposed to exert an
imperious control over the other departments; and as they commonly have
the people on their side, they always act with such momentum as to make
it very difficult for the other members of the government to maintain
the balance of the Constitution.
It may perhaps be asked, how the shortness of the duration in office can
affect the independence of the Executive on the legislature, unless the
one were possessed of the power of appointing or displacing the other.
One answer to this inquiry may be drawn from the principle already
remarked that is, from the slender interest a man is apt to take in
a short-lived advantage, and the little inducement it affords him to
expose himself, on account of it, to any considerable inconvenience