Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and
all the requisite precautions in favor of liberty. Whilst this
objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are but a
few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one come forward with his
particular explanation, and scarce any two are exactly agreed upon the
subject. In the eyes of one the junction of the Senate with the
President in the responsible function of appointing to offices, instead
of vesting this executive power in the Executive alone, is the vicious
part of the organization. To another, the exclusion of the House of
Representatives, whose numbers alone could be a due security against
corruption and partiality in the exercise of such a power, is equally
obnoxious. With another, the admission of the President into any share
of a power which ever must be a dangerous engine in the hands of the
executive magistrate, is an unpardonable violation of the maxims of
republican jealousy. No part of the arrangement, according to some, is
more inadmissible than the trial of impeachments by the Senate, which
is alternately a member both of the legislative and executive
departments, when this power so evidently belonged to the judiciary
department. “We concur fully,” reply others, “in the objection to this
part of the plan, but we can never agree that a reference of
impeachments to the judiciary authority would be an amendment of the
error. Our principal dislike to the organization arises from the
extensive powers already lodged in that department.” Even among the
zealous patrons of a council of state the most irreconcilable variance
is discovered concerning the mode in which it ought to be constituted.
The demand of one gentleman is, that the council should consist of a
small number to be appointed by the most numerous branch of the
legislature. Another would prefer a larger number, and considers it as
a fundamental condition that the appointment should be made by the
President himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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