Another, and no less important, desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office, on all, but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of Representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice. All these advantages will be happily combined in the plan devised by the Convention, which is, that each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of Senators and Representatives of such State in the National Government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the National Government; and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes, will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided, that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates, who shall have the five highest numbers of votes, the man who, in their opinion, may be best qualified for the office. This process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors of a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it, as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.—And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the Executive in every Government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political honesty of the poet, who says: "For forms of Government, let fools contest- -yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good Government is, its aptitude and tendency to produce a good adminis tration. The Vice-president is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter. The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer, answering to that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the Convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definitive resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the Senator of any State from his seat as Senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that, as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme Executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great, if not with equal, force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable, that, in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made, would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor in casualties similar to those, which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities, and discharge the duties of the President. PUBLIUS. NUMBER LXIX. BY MR. HAMILTON. The same View continued, with a comparison between the President and the King of Great Britain, on the one hand, and the Governor of New York, on the other. I PROCEED now to trace the real characters of the proposed Executive, as they are marked out in the plan of the Convention. This will serve to place in a strong light the unfairness of the representations which have been made in regard to it. The first thing which strikes our attention is, that the Executive authority, with few exceptions, is to be vested in a single magistrate. This will scarcely, however, be considered as a point upon which any comparison can be grounded; for if, in this particular, there be a resemblance to the King of Great Britain, there is not a less resemblance to the Grand Signior, to the Khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains, or to the Governor of New York. That magistrate is to be elected for four years; and is to be reeligible as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence. In these circumstances, there is a total dissimilitude between him and the King of Great Britain; who is a hereditary monarch, possessing the crown as a patrimony descendible to his heirs forever; but there is a close analogy between him and a Governor of New York, who is elected for three years, and is re-eligible without limitation or intermission. If we consider how much less time would be requisite for establishing a dangerous influence in a single State, than for establishing a like influence throughout the United States, we must conclude that a duration of four years for the Chief Magistrate of the Union, is a degree of permanency far less to be dreaded in that office, than a duration of three years for a correspondent office in a single State. The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain, is sacred and inviolable. There is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected, without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a Governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the Governors of Virginia and Delaware. The President of the United States is to have power to return a bill, which shall have passed the two branches of the Legislature, for reconsideration; and the bill so returned, is not to become a law, unless, upon that consideration, it be approved by two-thirds of both Houses. The King of Great Britain, on his part, has an absolute negative upon the acts of the two Houses of Parliament. The disuse of that power for a considerable time past, does not affect the reality of its existence; and is to be ascribed wholly to the Crown's having found the means of substituting influence to authority, or the art of gaining a majority in one or the other of the two Houses, to the necessity of exerting a prerogative which could seldom be exerted without hazarding some degree of national agitation. The qualified negative of the present, differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign: and tallies exactly with the revisionary authority of the Council of Revision of this State, of which the Governor is a constituent part. In this respect the power of the President would exceed that of the Governor of New York; because the former would possess singly, what the latter shares with the Chancellor and Judges. But it would be precisely the same with that of the Governor of Massachusetts, whose Constitution, as to this article, seems to have been the original from which the Convention have copied. The President is to be the Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States. He is to have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment; to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; to convene on extraordinary occasions, both Houses of the Legislature, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment, to adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; to take care that the laws be faithfully executed; and to commission all officers of the United States." In most of these particulars, the power of the President will resemble equally that of the King of Great Britain, and of the Governor of New York. The most material points of difference are these:-First. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by Legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. The King of Great Britain and the Governor of New York, have at all times the entire command of all the militia within their several jurisdictions. In this article, therefore, the power of the President, would be inferior to that of either the monarch or the governor. Second. The President is to be Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the Legislature.* The Governor of New York, on the other hand, is by the Constitution of the State vested only with the command of its militia and navy. But the Constitution of several of the States, expressly declare their Governors to be commanders-in-chief, as well of the army as navy; and it may well be a question, whether those of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in particular, do not, in this instance, confer larger powers upon their respective Governors, than could be claimed by a President of the United States. Third. The power * A writer in a Pennsylvania paper under the signature of TAMONY, has asserted, that the King of Great Britain owes his prerogatives, as Commander-in-chief, to an annual mutiny bill. The truth is, on the contrary, that his prerogative, in this respect is immemorial, and was only disputed, "contrary to all reason and precedent," as Blackstone, Vol. I. page 262, expresses it, by the long parliament of Charles First; but by the statute the 13th of Charles the Second, chap. 6, it was declared to be in the king alone, for that the sole supreme government and command of the militia within his majesty's realms and dominions, and of all forces by sea and land, and of all forts and places of strength, ever was and is the undoubted right of his majesty and his royal predecessors kings and queens of England, and that both or either House of Parliament cannot nor ought to pretend to the same. |