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The Duration in Office of the Executive
To the People of the State of New York:
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 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.
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.[back]
Hamilton From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, March 18, 1788.
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.