Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/314

 306 to friends, to partisans, to selfish objects, and private gain, to the fear of enemies, and the desire to stand well with majorities. As to the latter supposed advantage, the exclusion would operate no check upon a man of irregular ambition, or corrupt principles, and against such men alone could the exclusion be important. In truth, such men would easily find means to cover up their usurpations and dishonesty under fair pretensions, and mean subserviency to popular prejudices. They would easily delude the people into a belief, that their acts were constitutional, because they were in harmony with the public wishes, or held out some specious, but false projects for the public good.

§ 1442. Most of this reasoning would apply, though with diminished force, to the exclusion for a limited period, or until after the lapse of an intermediate election to the office. And it would have equally diminished advantages, with respect both to personal independence, and public security. In short, the exclusion, whether perpetual or temporary, would have nearly the same effects; and these effects would be generally pernicious, rather than salutary. Re-eligibility naturally connects itself to a certain extent with duration of office. The latter is necessary to give the officer himself the inclination and the resolution to act his part well, and the community time and leisure to observe the tendency of his measures, and thence to form an experimental estimate of his merits. The former is necessary to enable the people, when they see reason to approve of his conduct, to continue him in the station, in order to prolong the utility of his virtues and