essary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says,

"For forms of government let fools contest-
That which is best administered is best,"

yet we may safely pronounce that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.

The vice-president is to be chosen in the same manner with the President, with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives in respect to the latter.

The appointment of an extraordinary person as vice-president has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the Convention in this respect. One is that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator to place him in that of president of the Senate would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is that as the vice-president may occasionally become a substitute for the President in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one apply with great, if not with equal force, to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the Constitution of this State. We have a lieutenant-governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the governor in casualties

similar to those which would authorize the vice-president to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President. PUBLIUS.

No. LXVIII

ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENTIAL POWERS

PROCEED now to trace the real characters of the proposed executive, as they are marked out in the plan of the Convention. This will serve to place in a strong light the unfairness of the representations which have been made in regard to it.

The first thing which strikes our attention is that the executive authority, with few exceptions, is to be vested in a single magistrate. This will scarcely, however, be considered as a point upon which any comparison can be grounded; for if, in this particular, there be a resemblance to the King of Great Britain, there is not less a resemblance to the Grand Seignior, to the Khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains, or to the Governor of New York.

That magistrate is to be elected for four years, and is to be re-eligible as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence. In these circumstances there is a total dissimilitude between him and a king of Great Britain, who is a hereditary monarch, possessing the crown as a patrimony descendible to his heirs forever; but there is a close analogy between him and a Governor of New York, who is elected for three years and is re-eligible without limitation or intermission. If we consider how much less time would be requisite for establishing a dangerous influence in a single State than for establishing a like influence throughout the United States, we must conclude that a duration of four years for the chief magistrate of the Union is a degree of permanency far less to be dreaded in that office than a duration of three years for a correspondent office in a single State.

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office, and

would afterward be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility the President of confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a Governor of New York, and upon whose ground than the Governors of Maryland and Delaware.

The President of the United States is to have power to return a bill which shall have passed the two branches of the legislature, for reconsideration; and the bill so returned is to become a law if, upon that reconsideration, it be approved by two-thirds of both Houses. The King of Great Britain, on his part, has an absolute negative upon the acts of the two Houses of Parliament. The disuse of that power for a considerable time past does not affect the reality of its existence, and is to be ascribed wholly to the Crown's having found the means of substituting influence to authority, or the art of gaining a majority in one *or the other of the two Houses to the necessity of exerting a prerogative which could seldom be exerted without hazarding some degree of national agitation. The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign, and tallies exactly with the revisionary authority of the Council of Revision of this State, of which the governor is a constituent part. In this respect the power of the President would exceed that of the Governor of New York, because the former would possess, singly, what the latter shares with the chancellor and judges; but it would be precisely the same with that of the governor of Massachusetts, whose Constitution, as to this article, seems to have been the original from which the Convention have copied.

The President is to be the "commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States. He is to have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment; to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; to convene, on ex

traordinary occasions, both Houses of the legislature, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment, to adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; to take care that the laws be faithfully executed; and to commission all officers of the United States." In most of these particulars the power of the President will resemble equally that of the King of Great Britain and of the Governor of New York. The most material points of difference are these: First. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. The King of Great Britain and the Governor of New York have at all times the entire command of all the militia within their several jurisdictions. In this article, therefore, the power of the President would be inferior to that of either the monarch or the governor. Secondly. The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British King extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the Constitution under consideration would appertain to the legislature. The Governor of New York, on the other hand, is by the Constitution of the State vested only with the command of its militia and navy. But the constitutions of several of the States expressly declare their governors to be commanders-inchief, as well of the army as navy; and it may well be a question whether those of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in particular, do not in this instance confer larger powers upon their respective governors than could be claimed by a President of the United States. Thirdly. The power of the President in

A writer in a Pennsylvania paper, under the signature of Tamony, has asserted that the King of Great Britain owes his prerogative as commander-in-chief to an annual mutiny bill. The truth is, on the contrary, that his prerogative, in this respect, is immemorial, and was only disputed, "contrary to all reason and precedent," as Blackstone, vol. 1, page 262, expresses it, by the Long Parliament of Charles I; but by the statute the 13th of Charles II, chap. 6, it was declared to be in the king alone, for that the sole supreme government and command of the militia within his Majesty's realms and dominions, and of all forces by sea and land, and of all forts and places of strength, ever was and is the undoubted right of his Majesty and his royal predecessors, kings and queens of England, and that both or either House of Parliament cannot nor ought to pretend to the same.

respect to pardons would extend to all cases except those of impeachment. The Governor of New York may pardon in all cases, even in those of impeachment, except for treason and murder. Is not the power of the Governor, in this article, on a calculation of political consequences, greater than that of the President? All conspiracies and plots against the government which have not been matured into actual treason may be screened from punishment of every kind by the interposition of the prerogative of pardoning. If a governor of New York, therefore, should be at the head of any such conspiracy, until the design had been ripened into actual hostility, he could insure his accomplices and adherents an entire impunity. A President of the Union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender in any degree from the effects of impeachment and conviction. Would not the prospect of a total indemnity for all the preliminary steps be a greater temptation to undertake and persevere in an enterprise against the public liberty, than the mere prospect of an exemption from death and confiscation, if the final execution of the design, upon an actual appeal to arms, should miscarry? Would this last expectation have any influence at all, when the probability was computed that the person who was to afford that exemption might himself be involved in the consequences of the measure, and might be incapacitated by his agency in it from affording the desired impunity? The better to judge of this matter, it will be necessary to recollect that, by the proposed Constitution, the offence of treason is limited "to levying war upon the United States, and adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort; " and that by the laws of New York it is confined within similar bounds. Fourthly. The President can only adjourn the national legislature in the single case of disagreement about the time of adjournment. The British monarch may prorogue or even dissolve the Parliament. The Governor of New York may also prorogue the Legislature of this State for a limited time, a power which, in certain situations, may be employed to very important purposes.

The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur. The King of Great Britain is the sole