Page:The Federalist (1818).djvu/479

 THE FEDERALIST. 475

much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body; and that body an intireentire [sic] branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection, would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favouritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same state to which he particularly belonged, or of being, in some way or other, personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

To this reasoning it has been objected, that the president, by the influence of the power of nomination, may secure the complaisance of the senate to his views. The supposition of universal venality in human nature, is little less an error in political reasoning, than that of universal rectitude. The institution of delegated power implies, that there is a portion of virtue and honour among mankind, which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence: and experience justifies the theory. It has been found to exist in the most corrupt periods of the most corrupt governments. The venality of the British house of commons has been long a topic of accusation against that body, in the country to which they belong, as well as in this; and it cannot be doubted, that the charge is, to a considerable extent, well founded. But it is as little to be doubted, that there is always a large proportion of the body, which consists of independent and public spirited men, who have an influential weight in the councils of the nation. Hence it is, (the present reign not excepted) that the sense of that