Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/370

 362 treaties, it would be utterly unsafe and improper to entrust that power to an executive magistrate chosen for four years. It has been remarked, and is unquestionably true, that an hereditary monarch, though often the oppressor of his people, has personally too much at stake in the government to be in any material danger of corruption by foreign powers, so as to surrender any important rights or interests. But a man, raised from a private station to the rank of chief magistrate for a short period, having but a slender or moderate fortune, and no very deep stake in the society, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice duty to interest, which it would require great virtue to withstand. If ambitious, he might be tempted to seek his own aggrandizement by the aid of a foreign power, and use the field of negotiations for this purpose. If avaricious, he might make his treachery to his constituents a vendible article at an enormous price. Although such occurrences are not ordinarily to be expected; yet the history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human nature, which would make it wise in a nation to commit its most delicate interests and momentous concerns to the unrestrained disposal of a single magistrate. It is far more wise to interpose checks upon the actual exercise of the power, than remedies to redress, or punish an abuse of it.

§ 1510. The impropriety of delegating the power exclusively to the senate has been already sufficiently considered. And, in addition to what has been already urged against the participation of the house of representatives in it, it may be remarked, that the house of representatives is for other reasons far less fit, than the