Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/292

 284 history of the three consuls of France, during its short-lived republic. Of the latter, several states in the Union furnish examples, as some of the colonies did before the revolution. Both these methods of destroying the unity of the executive have had their advocates. They are both liable to similar, if not to equal objections.

§ 1416. The experience of other nations, so far as it goes, coincides with what theory would point out. The Roman history records may instances of mischiefs to the republic from dissensions between the consuls, and between the military tribunes, who were at times substituted instead of the consuls. Those dissensions would have been even more striking, as well as more frequent, if it had not been for the peculiar circumstances of that republic, which often induced the consuls to divide the administration of the government between them. And as the consuls were generally chosen from the Patrician order, which was engaged in perpetual struggles with the Plebeians for the preservation of the privileges and dignities of their own order; there was an external pressure, which compelled them to act together for mutual support and defence.

§ 1417. But independent of any of the lights derived from history, it is obvious, that a division of the executive power between two or more persons must always tend to produce dissensions, and fluctuating councils. Whenever two or more persons are engaged