Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/315

 CH. XXXVI.] talents, and to secure to the government the advantage of permanence in a wise system of administration.

§ 1443. Still it must be confessed, that where the duration is for a considerable length of time, the right of re-election becomes less important, and perhaps less safe to the public. A president chosen for ten years might be made ineligible with far less impropriety, than one chosen for four years. And a president chosen for twenty years ought not to be again eligible, upon the plain ground, that by such a term of office his responsibility would be greatly diminished, and his means of influence and patronage immensely increased, so as to check in a great measure the just expression of public opinion, and the free exercise of the elective franchise. Whether an intermediate period, say of eight years, or of seven years, as proposed in the convention, might not be beneficially combined with subsequent ineligibility, is a point, upon which great statesmen have not been agreed; and must be left to the wisdom of future legislators to weigh and decide. The