Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/196

186 assembly? That he should be enabled to influenee them, and that they should be cautiously prohibited from influencing him?

In that part of our policy called the state constitutions, principles, the reverse of these, prevail. Executive power is made dependent on legislative in some way, and vast care is taken to keep legislative and judicial power beyond the influence of executive. In fact, it was a»id still is the general opinion, that the independence of legislative and judicial power, of the influence of one man, constitutes an indispensable requisite for the preservation of national self government; and that an influence of one man over the legislature, constitutes a substantial monarchy, and is the harbinger of its form,' If then executive influence over legislative and judicial power, is a monarchical principle, the president's appointment of one, and his patronage over both, ought to be removed, or we violate the principles by the details of our constitution. It is a principle, that tbe legislature should utter the will of the nation; the detail, exposing it to executive influence, may cause it to utter the will of a president. The principle and the detail admit of no reconciliation, and therefore the only question is, which ought to he abolished, the influence of the people, or the influence of the president over the legislature?

The elective quality of the presidency, aggravates the errour. It procures a confidence which has no foundation, because election is no security against great pow er conferred by it on one man; and this confidence, by lulling publick suspicion, will mask the progress of executive influence. A suspicion, both of its progress and the cause of its progress, is suggested by the facts, that in those states where governours have no patronage, no state factions have appeared: and that upon the erection of a general executive, having a patronage previously unknown, national factions, previously unknown also, sudlenly started up.

As civil and military patronage, the command of fleets and armies, the direction of a treasury, treaty-making, and a negative upon laws, condensed in one man, constitute a