1787 Federalist 71 · Founding Made Plain

11787 Federalist No. 71

2The Duration in Office of the Executive

3From the New York Packet.

4Tuesday, March 18, 1788.

5HAMILTON

6To the People of the State of New York:

7DURATION in office has been mentioned

8 as the second requisite

9 to the energy of the Executive authority.

10This has relation to two objects:

11 to the personal firmness of the executive magistrate,

12 in the employment of his constitutional powers;

13 and to the stability of the system of administration

14 which may have been adopted under his auspices.

15With regard to the first, it must be evident,

16 that the longer the duration in office,

17 the greater will be the probability

18 of obtaining so important an advantage.

19It is a general principle of human nature,

20 that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses,

21 in proportion to the firmness or precariousness

22 of the tenure by which he holds it;

23 will be less attached to what he holds

24 by a momentary or uncertain title,

25 than to what he enjoys

26 by a durable or certain title;

27 and, of course, will be willing to risk more

28 for the sake of the one,

29 than for the sake of the other.

30This remark is not less applicable

31 to a political privilege, or honor, or trust,

32 than to any article of ordinary property.

33The inference from it is,

34 that a man acting in the capacity of chief magistrate,

35 under a consciousness that in a very short time

36 he MUST lay down his office,

37 will be apt to feel himself

38 too little interested in it

39 to hazard any material censure or perplexity,

40 from the independent exertion of his powers,

41 or from encountering the ill-humors,

42 however transient, which may happen to prevail,

43 either in a considerable part

44 of the society itself,

45 or even in a predominant faction

46 in the legislative body.

47If the case should only be,

48 that he MIGHT lay it down,

49 unless continued by a new choice,

50 and if he should be desirous of being continued,

51 his wishes, conspiring with his fears,

52 would tend still more powerfully

53 to corrupt his integrity, or debase his fortitude.

54In either case, feebleness and irresolution

55 must be the characteristics of the station.

56There are some who would be inclined to regard

57 the servile pliancy of the Executive

58 to a prevailing current,

59 either in the community or in the legislature,

60 as its best recommendation.

61But such men entertain very crude notions,

62 as well of the purposes

63 for which government was instituted,

64 as of the true means

65 by which the public happiness may be promoted.

66The republican principle demands

67 that the deliberate sense of the community

68 should govern the conduct of those

69 to whom they intrust the management

70 of their affairs;

71 but it does not require an unqualified complaisance

72 to every sudden breeze of passion,

73 or to every transient impulse

74 which the people may receive from the arts of men,

75 who flatter their prejudices

76 to betray their interests.

77It is a just observation,

78 that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD.

79This often applies to their very errors.

80But their good sense would despise the adulator

81 who should pretend

82 that they always REASON RIGHT

83 about the MEANS of promoting it.

84They know from experience that they sometimes err;

85 and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do,

86 beset, as they continually are,

87 by the wiles of parasites and sycophants,

88 by the snares of the ambitious,

89 the avaricious, the desperate,

90 by the artifices of men

91 who possess their confidence

92 more than they deserve it,

93 and of those who seek to possess

94 rather than to deserve it.

95When occasions present themselves,

96 in which the interests of the people

97 are at variance with their inclinations,

98 it is the duty of the persons

99 whom they have appointed

100 to be the guardians of those interests,

101 to withstand the temporary delusion,

102 in order to give them time and opportunity

103 for more cool and sedate reflection.

104Instances might be cited

105 in which a conduct of this kind

106 has saved the people

107 from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes,

108 and has procured lasting monuments

109 of their gratitude

110 to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough

111 to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.

112But however inclined we might be

113 to insist upon an unbounded complaisance

114 in the Executive to the inclinations of the people,

115 we can with no propriety contend

116 for a like complaisance

117 to the humors of the legislature.

118The latter may sometimes stand in opposition to the former,

119 and at other times the people may be entirely neutral.

120In either supposition, it is certainly desirable

121 that the Executive should be in a situation

122 to dare to act his own opinion

123 with vigor and decision.

124The same rule which teaches the propriety

125 of a partition between the various branches of power,

126 teaches us likewise

127 that this partition ought to be so contrived

128 as to render the one independent of the other.

129To what purpose separate the executive or the judiciary

130 from the legislative,

131 if both the executive and the judiciary

132 are so constituted

133 as to be at the absolute devotion

134 of the legislative?

135Such a separation must be merely nominal,

136 and incapable of producing the ends

137 for which it was established.

138It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws,

139 and another to be dependent on the legislative body.

140The first comports with, the last violates,

141 the fundamental principles of good government;

142 and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution,

143 unites all power in the same hands.

144The tendency of the legislative authority

145 to absorb every other,

146 has been fully displayed and illustrated by examples

147 in some preceding numbers.

148In governments purely republican,

149 this tendency is almost irresistible.

150The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly,

151 seem sometimes to fancy

152 that they are the people themselves,

153 and betray strong symptoms

154 of impatience and disgust

155 at the least sign of opposition

156 from any other quarter;

157 as if the exercise of its rights,

158 by either the executive or judiciary,

159 were a breach of their privilege

160 and an outrage to their dignity.

161They often appear disposed

162 to exert an imperious control

163 over the other departments;

164 and as they commonly have the people on their side,

165 they always act with such momentum

166 as to make it very difficult

167 for the other members of the government

168 to maintain the balance of the Constitution.

169It may perhaps be asked,

170 how the shortness of the duration in office

171 can affect the independence of the Executive

172 on the legislature,

173 unless the one were possessed of the power

174 of appointing or displacing the other.

175One answer to this inquiry

176 may be drawn from the principle already remarked

177 that is, from the slender interest

178 a man is apt to take in a short-lived advantage,

179 and the little inducement it affords him

180 to expose himself, on account of it,

181 to any considerable inconvenience or hazard.

182Another answer, perhaps more obvious,

183 though not more conclusive,

184 will result from the consideration

185 of the influence of the legislative body

186 over the people;

187 which might be employed

188 to prevent the re-election of a man

189 who, by an upright resistance

190 to any sinister project of that body,

191 should have made himself obnoxious

192 to its resentment.

193It may be asked also,

194 whether a duration of four years

195 would answer the end proposed;

196 and if it would not,

197 whether a less period,

198 which would at least be recommended

199 by greater security against ambitious designs,

200 would not, for that reason,

201 be preferable to a longer period,

202 which was, at the same time,

203 too short for the purpose

204 of inspiring the desired firmness and independence

205 of the magistrate.

206It cannot be affirmed,

207 that a duration of four years,

208 or any other limited duration,

209 would completely answer the end proposed;

210 but it would contribute towards it in a degree

211 which would have a material influence

212 upon the spirit and character of the government.

213Between the commencement and termination of such a period,

214 there would always be a considerable interval,

215 in which the prospect of annihilation

216 would be sufficiently remote,

217 not to have an improper effect

218 upon the conduct of a man

219 indued with a tolerable portion of fortitude;

220 and in which he might reasonably promise himself,

221 that there would be time enough before it arrived,

222 to make the community sensible of the propriety

223 of the measures he might incline to pursue.

224Though it be probable that, as he approached the moment

225 when the public were, by a new election,

226 to signify their sense of his conduct,

227 his confidence, and with it his firmness,

228 would decline;

229 yet both the one and the other would derive support

230 from the opportunities

231 which his previous continuance in the station

232 had afforded him,

233 of establishing himself

234 in the esteem and good-will of his constituents.

235He might, then, hazard with safety,

236 in proportion to the proofs he had given

237 of his wisdom and integrity,

238 and to the title he had acquired

239 to the respect and attachment

240 of his fellow-citizens.

241As, on the one hand,

242 a duration of four years

243 will contribute to the firmness of the Executive

244 in a sufficient degree

245 to render it a very valuable ingredient

246 in the composition;

247 so, on the other,

248 it is not enough to justify any alarm

249 for the public liberty.

250If a British House of Commons,

251 from the most feeble beginnings,

252 FROM THE MERE POWER OF ASSENTING OR DISAGREEING

253 TO THE IMPOSITION OF A NEW TAX,

254 have, by rapid strides,

255 reduced the prerogatives of the crown

256 and the privileges of the nobility

257 within the limits they conceived to be compatible

258 with the principles of a free government,

259 while they raised themselves

260 to the rank and consequence

261 of a coequal branch of the legislature;

262 if they have been able, in one instance,

263 to abolish both the royalty and the aristocracy,

264 and to overturn all the ancient establishments,

265 as well in the Church as State;

266 if they have been able, on a recent occasion,

267 to make the monarch tremble

268 at the prospect of an innovation 1

269 attempted by them,

270 what would be to be feared

271 from an elective magistrate

272 of four years' duration,

273 with the confined authorities

274 of a President of the United States?

275What, but that he might be unequal to the task

276 which the Constitution assigns him?

277I shall only add,

278 that if his duration be such

279 as to leave a doubt of his firmness,

280 that doubt is inconsistent

281 with a jealousy of his encroachments.

282PUBLIUS.

2831 This was the case with respect to Mr. Fox's India bill,

284 which was carried in the House of Commons,

285 and rejected in the House of Lords,

286 to the entire satisfaction,

287 as it is said, of the people.