Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/500

484 more important article in the Constitution than this. The great fundamental principle of responsibility in republicanism is here sapped. The President is elected without rotation. It may be said that a new election may remove him, and place another in his stead. If we judge from the experience of all other countries, and even our own, we may conclude that, as the President of the United States may be reëlected, so he will. How is it in every government where rotation is not required? Is there a single instance of a great man not being reëlected? Our governor is obliged to return, after a given period, to a private station. It is so in most of the states. This President will be elected time after time: he will be continued in office for life. If we wish to change him, the great powers in Europe will not allow us.

The honorable gentleman, my colleague in the late federal Convention, mentions, with applause, those parts of which he had expressed his disapprobation, he says not a word. If I am mistaken, let me be put right. I shall not make use of his name; but, in the course of this investigation, I shall use the arguments of that gentleman against it.

Will not the great powers of Europe, as France and Great Britain, be interested in having a friend in the President of the United States? and will they not be more interested in his election than in that of We king of Poland? The people of Poland have a right to displace their king. But do they ever do it? No. Prussia and Russia, and other European powers, would not suffer it. This clause will open a door to the dangers and misfortunes which the people of Poland undergo. The powers of Europe will interpose, and we shall have a civil war in the bowels of our country, and be subject to all the horrors and calamities of an elective monarchy. The very executive officer may, by consent of Congress, receive a stated pension from European potentates. This is not an idea altogether new in America. It is not many years ago—since the revolution—that a foreign power offered emoluments to persons holding offices under our government. It will, moreover, be difficult to know whether he receives emoluments from foreign powers or not. The electors, who are to meet in each state to vote for him, may be easily influenced. To prevent the certain evils of attempting to elect a new President, it will be necessary to continue the