Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
subject, the members of the judiciary department are to retain their
offices by the firm tenure of good behavior.
On comparing the Constitution planned by the convention with the
standard here fixed, we perceive at once that it is, in the most rigid
sense, conformable to it. The House of Representatives, like that of
one branch at least of all the State legislatures, is elected
immediately by the great body of the people. The Senate, like the
present Congress, and the Senate of Maryland, derives its appointment
indirectly from the people. The President is indirectly derived from
the choice of the people, according to the example in most of the
States. Even the judges, with all other officers of the Union, will, as
in the several States, be the choice, though a remote choice, of the
people themselves, the duration of the appointments is equally
conformable to the republican standard, and to the model of State
constitutions The House of Representatives is periodically elective, as
in all the States; and for the period of two years, as in the State of
South Carolina. The Senate is elective, for the period of six years;
which is but one year more than the period of the Senate of Maryland,
and but two more than that of the Senates of New York and Virginia. The
President is to continue in office for the period of four years; as in
New York and Delaware, the chief magistrate is elected for three years,
and in South Carolina for two years. In the other States the election
is annual. In several of the States, however, no constitutional
provision is made for the impeachment of the chief magistrate. And in
Delaware and Virginia he is not impeachable till out of office. The
President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his
continuance in office. The tenure by which the judges are to hold their
places, is, as it unquestionably ought to be, that of good behavior.
The tenure of the ministerial offices generally, will be a subject of
legal regulation, conformably to the reason of the case and the example
of the State constitutions.
Could any further proof be required of the republican complexion of
this system, the most decisive one might be found in its absolute
prohibition of titles of nobility, both under the federal and the State
governments; and in its express guaranty of the republican form to each
of the latter.
“But it was not sufficient,” say the adversaries of the proposed
Constitution, “for the convention to adhere to the republican form.
They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which
regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of
which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union
as a CONSOLIDATION of the States.” And it is asked by what authority
this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has
been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with
some precision.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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