Belonging to different political parties, the Councillors frequently antagonize one another on the floor of the Assembly, but this is not found to interfere with their harmonious working as an administrative body. The right of the members of the Federal Council to participate in the debates and make motions in the Federal Assembly, gives that body, what the Congress of the United States has not, the advantage of a direct ministerial explanation. Yet that ministerial explanation cannot be, as it may be in England, mixed up with fears of votes of censure on one side or of a penal dissolution on the other. Irremovable by the existing Assembly,[38] with the question of their re-election dependent on an Assembly which is not yet in existence, they have less need than either American or English statesmen to adapt their policy to meet any momentary cry. Is it not a most excellent political system? Is not this relation between the legislature and the executive, both in theory and practice, happily devised? It brings a quick and close communication between these two great branches, and tends to promote a good understanding between them. Elected by the Assembly, coming into office along with it, there is every chance of the Council acting in harmony with it; and their power of taking a share in the debates at once enables the Assembly to be better informed on public affairs. There is much in the Swiss experiment to refute the belief that there can be no executive power proper, unless it derives its authority from an independent source, and is made directly by the people, so it may claim to be equally representative of the people, and to have received still greater proof of the public confidence. The choice of the executive by the legislative body may be susceptible to the objection that it fails to furnish the limit and restraint that each of these powers should exercise on the other; and that it is entitled to be regarded as only a _Cabinet d’Affaires_,--a purely administrative committee. The history of the Swiss system has developed no unusual dissensions between these powers, and none are likely to occur. With the legislature governed as a rule by motives of public utility, there is little room for want of harmony with the executive, the simple function of which is to carry into effect the measures which the legislature has decreed.