Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/246

230 other officers, except where, in other parts of this Constitution, such appointment is expressly given them.

The executive powers shall be exercised by a Governor, who shall be chosen by joint ballot of both houses of Assembly, and when chosen shall remain in office five years, and be ineligible a second time. During his term he shall hold no other office or emolument under this State, or any other State or power whatsoever. By executive powers, we mean no reference to those powers exercised under our former government by the Crown as of its prerogative, nor that these shall be the standard of what may or may not be deemed the rightful powers of the Governor. We give him those powers only, which are necessary to execute the laws, (and administer the government) and which are not in their nature either legislative or judiciary. The application of this idea must be left to reason. We do however expressly deny him the prerogative powers of erecting courts, offices, boroughs, corporations, fairs, markets, ports, beacons, light houses, and sea-marks; of laying embargoes, of establishing precedence, of retaining within the State or recalling to it any citizen thereof, and of making denizens, except so far as he may be authorized from time to time by the Legislature to exercise any of those powers. The powers of declaring war and concluding peace, of contracting alliances, of issuing letters of marque and reprisal, of raising or introducing armed forces, of building armed vessels, forts, or strongholds, of coining money or regulating its value, of regulating weights and measures, we leave to be exercised under the authority of the Confederation: but in all cases respecting them which are out of the said Confederation, they shall be exercised by the Governor, under the regulation of such laws as the Legislature may think it expedient to pass.

The whole military of the State, whether regular, or of militia, shall be subject to his directions; but he shall leave the execution of those directions to the general officers appointed by the Legislature.

His salary shall be fixed by the Legislature at the session of Assembly in which he shall be appointed, and before such appointment be made; or if it be not then fixed, it shall be the same which his next predecessor in office was entitled to. In either case he may demand it quarterly out of any money which shall be in the public treasury; and it shall not be in the power of the Legislature to give him less or