Federalist Paper No. 71
The Duration in Office of the Executive
From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, March 18, 1788.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York.
DURATION in office has been mentioned as the second requisite to the energy of
the Executive authority. This has relation to two objects: to the personal firmness of the
executive magistrate, in the employment of his constitutional powers; and to the stability
of the system of administration which may have been adopted under his auspices. With
regard to the first, it must be evident, that the longer the duration in office, the
greater will be the probability of obtaining so important an advantage. It is a general
principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in
proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it; will be
less attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he enjoys
by a durable or certain title; and, of course, will be willing to risk more for the sake
of the one, than for the sake of the other. This remark is not less applicable to a
political privilege, or honor, or trust, than to any article of ordinary property. The
inference from it is, that a man acting in the capacity of chief magistrate, under a
consciousness that in a very short time he MUST lay down his office, will be apt to feel
himself too little interested in it to hazard any material censure or perplexity, from the
independent exertion of his powers, or from encountering the ill-humors, however
transient, which may happen to prevail, either in a considerable part of the society
itself, or even in a predominant faction in the legislative body. If the case should only
be, that he MIGHT lay it down, unless continued by a new choice, and if he should be
desirous of being continued, his wishes, conspiring with his fears, would tend still more
powerfully to corrupt his integrity, or debase his fortitude. In either case, feebleness
and irresolution must be the characteristics of the station.
There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the
Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or in the legislature, as its
best recommendation. But such men entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes
for which government was instituted, as of the true means by which the public happiness
may be promoted. The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the
community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their
affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of
passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men,
who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation, that the
people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to their very errors. But their
good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend that they always REASON RIGHT
about the MEANS of promoting it. They know from experience that they sometimes err; and
the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are, by the
wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the
desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it,
and of those who seek to possess rather than to deserve it. When occasions present
themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations,
it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those
interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity
for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this
kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has
procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity
enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.
But however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded complaisance in
the Executive to the inclinations of the people, we can with no propriety contend for a
like complaisance to the humors of the legislature. The latter may sometimes stand in
opposition to the former, and at other times the people may be entirely neutral. In either
supposition, it is certainly desirable that the Executive should be in a situation to dare
to act his own opinion with vigor and decision.
The same rule which teaches the propriety of a partition between the various
branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought to be so contrived as to
render the one independent of the other. To what purpose separate the executive or the
judiciary from the legislative, if both the executive and the judiciary are so constituted
as to be at the absolute devotion of the legislative? Such a separation must be merely
nominal, and incapable of producing the ends for which it was established. It is one thing
to be subordinate to the laws, and another to be dependent on the legislative body. The
first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government;
and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands.
The tendency of the legislative authority to absorb every other, has been fully displayed
and illustrated by examples in some preceding numbers. In governments purely republican,
this tendency is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people, in a popular
assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong
symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter;
as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of
their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. They often appear disposed to exert an
imperious control over the other departments; and as they commonly have the people on
their side, they always act with such momentum as to make it very difficult for the other
members of the government to maintain the balance of the Constitution.
It may perhaps be asked, how the shortness of the duration in office can affect
the independence of the Executive on the legislature, unless the one were possessed of the
power of appointing or displacing the other. One answer to this inquiry may be drawn from
the principle already remarked that is, from the slender interest a man is apt to take in
a short-lived advantage, and the little inducement it affords him to expose himself, on
account of it, to any considerable inconvenience or hazard. Another answer, perhaps more
obvious, though not more conclusive, will result from the consideration of the influence
of the legislative body over the people; which might be employed to prevent the
re-election of a man who, by an upright resistance to any sinister project of that body,
should have made himself obnoxious to its resentment.
It may be asked also, whether a duration of four years would answer the end
proposed; and if it would not, whether a less period, which would at least be recommended
by greater security against ambitious designs, would not, for that reason, be preferable
to a longer period, which was, at the same time, too short for the purpose of inspiring
the desired firmness and independence of the magistrate.
It cannot be affirmed, that a duration of four years, or any other limited
duration, would completely answer the end proposed; but it would contribute towards it in
a degree which would have a material influence upon the spirit and character of the
government. Between the commencement and termination of such a period, there would always
be a considerable interval, in which the prospect of annihilation would be sufficiently
remote, not to have an improper effect upon the conduct of a man indued with a tolerable
portion of fortitude; and in which he might reasonably promise himself, that there would
be time enough before it arrived, to make the community sensible of the propriety of the
measures he might incline to pursue. Though it be probable that, as he approached the
moment when the public were, by a new election, to signify their sense of his conduct, his
confidence, and with it his firmness, would decline; yet both the one and the other would
derive support from the opportunities which his previous continuance in the station had
afforded him, of establishing himself in the esteem and good-will of his constituents. He
might, then, hazard with safety, in proportion to the proofs he had given of his wisdom
and integrity, and to the title he had acquired to the respect and attachment of his
fellow-citizens. As, on the one hand, a duration of four years will contribute to the
firmness of the Executive in a sufficient degree to render it a very valuable ingredient
in the composition; so, on the other, it is not enough to justify any alarm for the public
liberty. If a British House of Commons, from the most feeble beginnings, FROM THE MERE
POWER OF ASSENTING OR DISAGREEING TO THE IMPOSITION OF A NEW TAX, have, by rapid strides,
reduced the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobility within the limits
they conceived to be compatible with the principles of a free government, while they
raised themselves to the rank and consequence of a coequal branch of the legislature; if
they have been able, in one instance, to abolish both the royalty and the aristocracy, and
to overturn all the ancient establishments, as well in the Church as State; if they have
been able, on a recent occasion, to make the monarch tremble at the prospect of an
innovation1 attempted by them, what would be to be feared from an elective
magistrate of four years' duration, with the confined authorities of a President of the
United States? What, but that he might be unequal to the task which the Constitution
assigns him? I shall only add, that if his duration be such as to leave a doubt of his
firmness, that doubt is inconsistent with a jealousy of his encroachments.
PUBLIUS.
(Continue to Page 72)
1 This was the case with respect to Mr. Fox's India bill, which was carried in
the House of Commons, and rejected in the House of Lords, to the entire satisfaction, as
it is said, of the people.
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