The Federalist Papers
or hazard. Another answer, perhaps more obvious, though not more
conclusive, will result from the consideration of the influence of the
legislative body over the people; which might be employed to prevent
the re-election of a man who, by an upright resistance to any sinister
project of that body, should have made himself obnoxious to its
resentment.
It may be asked also, whether a duration of four years would answer the
end proposed; and if it would not, whether a less period, which would
at least be recommended by greater security against ambitious designs,
would not, for that reason, be preferable to a longer period, which was,
at the same time, too short for the purpose of inspiring the desired
firmness and independence of the magistrate.
It cannot be affirmed, that a duration of four years, or any other
limited duration, would completely answer the end proposed; but it would
contribute towards it in a degree which would have a material
influence upon the spirit and character of the government. Between the
commencement and termination of such a period, there would always be a
considerable interval, in which the prospect of annihilation would be
sufficiently remote, not to have an improper effect upon the conduct
of a man indued with a tolerable portion of fortitude; and in which he
might reasonably promise himself, that there would be time enough before
it arrived, to make the community sensible of the propriety of the
measures he might incline to pursue. Though it be probable that, as
he approached the moment when the public were, by a new election, to
signify their sense of his conduct, his confidence, and with it his
firmness, would decline; yet both the one and the other would derive
support from the opportunities which his previous continuance in the
station had afforded him, of establishing himself in the esteem and
good-will of his constituents. He might, then, hazard with safety, in
proportion to the proofs he had given of his wisdom and integrity,
and to the title he had acquired to the respect and attachment of his
fellow-citizens. As, on the one hand, a duration of four years will
contribute to the firmness of the Executive in a sufficient degree to
render it a very valuable ingredient in the composition; so, on the
other, it is not enough to justify any alarm for the public liberty. If
a British House of Commons, from the most feeble beginnings, FROM THE
MERE POWER OF ASSENTING OR DISAGREEING TO THE IMPOSITION OF A NEW TAX,
have, by rapid strides, reduced the prerogatives of the crown and
the privileges of the nobility within the limits they conceived to be
compatible with the principles of a free government, while they raised
themselves to the rank and consequence of a coequal branch of the
legislature; if they have been able, in one instance, to abolish
both the royalty and the aristocracy, and to overturn all the ancient
establishments, as well in the Church as State; if they have been able,
on a recent occasion, to make the monarch tremble at the prospect of
an innovation(1) attempted by them, what would be to be feared from
an elective magistrate of four years' duration, with the confined
authorities of a President of the United States? What, but that he might
be unequal to the task which the Constitution assigns him? I shall only
add, that if his duration be such as to leave a doubt of his firmness,
that doubt is inconsistent with a jealousy of his encroachments.
PUBLIUS
1. This was the case with respect to Mr. Fox's India bill, which was
carried in the House of Commons, and rejected in the House of Lords, to
the entire satisfaction, as it is said, of the people.
FEDERALIST No. 72
The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive
Considered.
From The Independent Journal. Wednesday, March 19, 1788.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE administration of government, in its largest sense, comprehends all
the operations of the body politic, whether legislative, executive,
or judiciary; but in its most usual, and perhaps its most precise
signification. it is limited to executive details, and falls peculiarly
within the province of the executive department. The actual conduct of
foreign negotiations, the preparatory plans of finance, the application
and disbursement of the public moneys in conformity to the general
appropriations of the legislature, the arrangement of the army and navy,
the directions of the operations of war--these, and other matters of a
like nature, constitute what seems to be most properly understood by the
administration of government. The persons, therefore, to whose immediate
management these different matters are committed, ought to be considered
as the assistants or deputies of the chief magistrate, and on this
account, they ought to derive their offices from his appointment,
at least from his nomination, and ought to be subject to his
superintendence. This view of the subject will at once suggest to us the
intimate connection between the duration of the executive magistrate in
office and the stability of the system of administration. To reverse and
undo what has been done by a predecessor, is very often considered by a
successor as the best proof he can give of his own capacity and desert;
and in addition to this propensity, where the alteration has been
the result of public choice, the person substituted is warranted in
supposing that the dismission of his predecessor has proceeded from a
dislike to his measures; and that the less he resembles him, the more
he will recommend himself to the favor of his constituents. These
considerations, and the influence of personal confidences and
attachments, would be likely to induce every new President to promote
a change of men to fill the subordinate stations; and these causes
together could not fail to occasion a disgraceful and ruinous mutability
in the administration of the government.
With a positive duration of considerable extent, I connect the
circumstance of re-eligibility. The first is necessary to give to the
officer himself the inclination and the resolution to act his part well,
and to the community time and leisure to observe the tendency of his
measures, and thence to form an experimental estimate of their merits.
The last is necessary to enable the people, when they see reason to
approve of his conduct, to continue him in his station, in order to
prolong the utility of his talents and virtues, and to secure to
the government the advantage of permanency in a wise system of
administration.
Nothing appears more plausible at first sight, nor more ill-founded upon
close inspection, than a scheme which in relation to the present point
has had some respectable advocates--I mean that of continuing the chief
magistrate in office for a certain time, and then excluding him from it,
either for a limited period or forever after. This exclusion, whether
temporary or perpetual, would have nearly the same effects, and these
effects would be for the most part rather pernicious than salutary.
One ill effect of the exclusion would be a diminution of the inducements
to good behavior. There are few men who would not feel much less zeal in
the discharge of a duty when they were conscious that the advantages
of the station with which it was connected must be relinquished at a
determinate period, than when they were permitted to entertain a hope of
obtaining, by meriting, a continuance of them. This position will not be
disputed so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of
the strongest incentives of human conduct; or that the best security for
the fidelity of mankind is to make their interests coincide with their
duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds,
which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous
enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to
mature and perfect them, if he could flatter himself with the prospect
of being allowed to finish what he had begun, would, on the contrary,
deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit
the scene before he could accomplish the work, and must commit that,
together with his own reputation, to hands which might be unequal or
unfriendly to the task. The most to be expected from the generality
of men, in such a situation, is the negative merit of not doing harm,
instead of the positive merit of doing good.
Another ill effect of the exclusion would be the temptation to sordid
views, to peculation, and, in some instances, to usurpation. An
avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to
a time when he must at all events yield up the emoluments he enjoyed,
would feel a propensity, not easy to be resisted by such a man, to make
the best use of the opportunity he enjoyed while it lasted, and might
not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients to make the
harvest as abundant as it was transitory; though the same man, probably,
with a different prospect before him, might content himself with the
regular perquisites of his situation, and might even be unwilling to
risk the consequences of an abuse of his opportunities. His avarice
might be a guard upon his avarice. Add to this that the same man might
be vain or ambitious, as well as avaricious. And if he could expect to
prolong his honors by his good conduct, he might hesitate to sacrifice
his appetite for them to his appetite for gain. But with the prospect
before him of approaching an inevitable annihilation, his avarice
would be likely to get the victory over his caution, his vanity, or his
ambition.
An ambitious man, too, when he found himself seated on the summit of his
country's honors, when he looked forward to the time at which he must
descend from the exalted eminence for ever, and reflected that no
exertion of merit on his part could save him from the unwelcome reverse;
such a man, in such a situation, would be much more violently tempted to
embrace a favorable conjuncture for attempting the prolongation of
his power, at every personal hazard, than if he had the probability of
answering the same end by doing his duty.
Would it promote the peace of the community, or the stability of the
government to have half a dozen men who had had credit enough to be
raised to the seat of the supreme magistracy, wandering among the
people like discontented ghosts, and sighing for a place which they were
destined never more to possess?
A third ill effect of the exclusion would be, the depriving the
community of the advantage of the experience gained by the chief
magistrate in the exercise of his office. That experience is the parent
of wisdom, is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as
well as the simplest of mankind. What more desirable or more essential
than this quality in the governors of nations? Where more desirable or
more essential than in the first magistrate of a nation? Can it be
wise to put this desirable and essential quality under the ban of
the Constitution, and to declare that the moment it is acquired, its
possessor shall be compelled to abandon the station in which it was
acquired, and to which it is adapted? This, nevertheless, is the precise
import of all those regulations which exclude men from serving their
country, by the choice of their fellowcitizens, after they have by a
course of service fitted themselves for doing it with a greater degree
of utility.
A fourth ill effect of the exclusion would be the banishing men from
stations in which, in certain emergencies of the state, their presence
might be of the greatest moment to the public interest or safety. There
is no nation which has not, at one period or another, experienced an