THERE is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a
vigorous Executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican
government. The enlightened well-wishers to this species of
government must at least hope that the supposition is destitute of
foundation; since they can never admit its truth, without at the
same time admitting the condemnation of their own principles. Energy
in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good
government. It is essential to the protection of the community
against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady
administration of the laws; to the protection of property against
those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes
interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty
against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of
anarchy. Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how
often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power
of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator, as well
against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the
tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose
conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the
invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and
destruction of Rome.
There can be no need, however, to multiply arguments for examples on
this head. A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the
government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad
execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in
theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.
Taking it for granted, therefore, that all men of sense will agree
in the necessity of an energetic Executive, it will only remain to
inquire, what are the ingredients which constitute this energy? How
far can they be combined with those other ingredients which
constitute safety in the republican sense? And how far does this
combination characterize the plan which has been reported by the
convention?
The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first,
unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its
support; fourthly, competent powers.
The ingredients, which constitute safety in the republican sense
are, first a due dependence on the people; secondly, a due
responsibility.
Those politicians and statesmen who have been the most celebrated
for the soundness of their principles and for the justice of their
views, have declared in favor of a single Executive and a numerous
legislature. They have, with great propriety, considered energy as
the most necessary qualification of the former, and have regarded
this as most applicable to power in a single hand; while they have,
with equal propriety, considered the latter as best adapted to
deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the
confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and
interests.
That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision,
activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the
proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the
proceedings of any great number; and in proportion as the number is
increased, these qualities will be diminished.
This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power
in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by
vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject, in whole or in part, to
the control and cooperation of others, in the capacity of
counsellors to him. Of the first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve
as an example; of the last, we shall find examples in the
constitutions of several of the States. New York and New Jersey, if
I recollect right, are the only States which have intrusted the
executive authority wholly to single men. (footnote 1.) Both these
methods of destroying the unity of the Executive have their
partisans; but the votaries of an executive council are the most
numerous. They are both liable, if not to equal, to similar
objections, and may in most lights be examined in conjunction.
The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on
this head. As far, however, as it teaches any thing, it teaches us
not to be enamored of plurality in the Executive. We have seen that
the Achaeans, on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to
abolish one. The Roman history records many instances of mischiefs
to the republic from the dissensions between the Consuls, and
between the military Tribunes, who were at times substituted for the
Consuls. But it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages
derived to the state from the circumstance of the plurality of those
magistrates. That the dissensions between them were not more
frequent or more fatal, is matter of astonishment, until we advert
to the singular position in which the republic was almost
continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the
circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a
division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a
perpetual struggle with the plebeians for the preservation of their
ancient authorities and dignities; the Consuls, who were generally
chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal
interest they had in the defence of the privileges of their order.
In addition to this motive of union, after the arms of the republic
had considerably expanded the boundary of its empire, it became an
established custom with the Consuls to divide the administration
between themselves by lot--one of them remaining at Rome to govern
the city and its environs, the other taking command in the more
distant provinces. This expedient must, no doubt, have had great
influence in preventing those collisions and rivalships which might
otherwise have embroiled the peace of the republic.
But quitting the dim light of historical research, attaching
ourselves purely to the dictates of reason and good sense, we shall
discover much greater cause to reject than to approve the idea of
plurality in the Executive, under any modification whatever.
Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or
pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a
public trust or office, in which they are clothed with equal dignity
and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and
even animosity. From either, and especially from all these causes,
the most bitter dissensions are apt to spring. Whenever these
happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and
distract the plans and operations of those whom they divide. If they
should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of a
country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or
frustrate the most important measures of the government, in the most
critical emergencies of the state. And what is still worse, they
might split the community into the most violent and irreconcilable
factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who
composed the magistracy.
Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in
planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they
dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to
disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an
indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound
in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to
defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their
sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many
opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths
this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great
interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit,
and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make
their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps
the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford
melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or
rather detestable vice, in the human character.
Upon the principles of a free government, inconveniences from the
source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the
formation of the legislature; but it is unnecessary, and therefore
unwise, to introduce them into the constitution of the Executive. It
is here too that they may be most pernicious. In the legislature,
promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The
differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that
department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct
salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection,
and serve to check excesses in the majority. When a resolution too
is once taken, the opposition must be at an end. That resolution is
a law, and resistance to it punishable. But no favorable
circumstances palliate or atone for the disadvantages of dissension
in the executive department. Here, they are pure and unmixed. There
is no point at which they cease to operate. They serve to embarrass
and weaken the execution of the plan or measure to which they
relate, from the first step to the final conclusion of it. They
constantly counteract those qualities in the Executive which are the
most necessary ingredients in its composition,--vigor and
expedition, and this without any counterbalancing good. In the
conduct of war, in which the energy of the Executive is the bulwark
of the national security, every thing would be to be apprehended
from its plurality.
It must be confessed that these observations apply with principal
weight to the first case supposed--that is, to a plurality of
magistrates of equal dignity and authority, a scheme, the advocates
for which are not likely to form a numerous sect; but they apply,
though not with equal, yet with considerable weight to the project
of a council, whose concurrence is made constitutionally necessary
to the operations of the ostensible Executive. An artful cabal in
that council would be able to distract and to enervate the whole
system of administration. If no such cabal should exist, the mere
diversity of views and opinions would alone be sufficient to
tincture the exercise of the executive authority with a spirit of
habitual feebleness and dilatoriness.
But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the
Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first
plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy
responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds--to censure and to
punishment. The first is the more important of the two, especially
in an elective office. Man, in public trust, will much oftener act
in such a manner as to render him unworthy of being any longer
trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal
punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the
difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible,
amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the
punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious
measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another
with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that
the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author. The
circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage of
misfortune are sometimes so complicated that, where there are a
number of actors who may have had different degrees and kinds of
agency, though we may clearly see upon the whole that there has been
mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose
account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable.
"I was overruled by my council. The council were so divided in their
opinions that it was impossible to obtain any better resolution on
the point." These and similar pretexts are constantly at hand,
whether true or false. And who is there that will either take the
trouble or incur the odium of a strict scrutiny into the secret
springs of the transaction? Should there be found a citizen zealous
enough to undertake the unpromising task, if there happen to be
collusion between the parties concerned, how easy it is to clothe
the circumstances with so much ambiguity, as to render it uncertain
what was the precise conduct of any of those parties?
In the single instance in which the governor of this State is
coupled with a council--that is, in the appointment to offices, we
have seen the mischiefs of it in the view now under consideration.
Scandalous appointments to important offices have been made. Some
cases, indeed, have been so flagrant that ALL PARTIES have agreed in
the impropriety of the thing. When inquiry has been made, the blame
has been laid by the governor on the members of the council, who, on
their part, have charged it upon his nomination; while the people
remain altogether at a loss to determine, by whose influence their
interests have been committed to hands so unqualified and so
manifestly improper. In tenderness to individuals, I forbear to
descend to particulars.
It is evident from these considerations, that the plurality of the
Executive tends to deprive the people of the two greatest securities
they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power,
first, the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy,
as well on account of the division of the censure attendant on bad
measures among a number, as on account of the uncertainty on whom it
ought to fall; and, secondly, 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"; (footnote 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, (footnote 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.
Signed "PUBLIUS"
Footnotes Explained:
Footnote Number 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.
Footnote Number 2. De Lolme.
Footnote Number 3. Ten.
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