Page:The Federalist (1818).djvu/417

 criterion, for the fallible criterion of his more conceited neighbour? To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the constitution, they ought to prove not merely, that particular provisions in it are not the best which might have been imagined, but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.

PUBLIUS.

No. LXVL

BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

The same subject continued.

A REVIEW of the principal objections that have appeared against the proposed court for the trial of impeachments, will not improbably eradicate the remains of any unfavourable impressions which may still exist in regard to this matter.

The first of these objections is, that the provision in question confounds legislative and judiciary authorities in the same body, in violation of that important and well established maxim, which requires a separation between the different departments of power. The true meaning of this maxim has been discussed and ascertained in another place, and has been shown to be entirely compatible with a partial intermixture of those departments for special purposes, preserving them, in the main, distinct and unconnected. This partial intermixture is even, in some cases, not only proper, but necessary to the mutual defence of the several members of the government, against each other. An absolute or qualified negative in the executive, upon the acts of the legislative body, is admitted by the ablest adepts in political science, to be an indispensable barrier against the encroachments of the latter upon the former. And it may, perhaps, with not less reason, be contended, that the powers relating to impeachments are, as before intimated, an essential check in the hands of that body, upon the encroachments of the executive. The division of them between the two branches of the legislature, assigning