DURATION IN OFFICE is the second requisite to the energy of the executive authority.
Duration relates to two objects: (1) the personal firmness of the executive magistrate in the employment of constitutional powers, and (2) the stability of the system of administration adopted under the magistrate’s auspices.
Uncertainty as to Duration of an Executive Term Undermines Its Energy
With regard to fidelity to constitutional powers, the longer the President stays in office, the greater 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.
He will be less attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he enjoys by a durable and more certain title, and naturally he will be willing to risk more for the sake of the more certain possession.
This remark applies to any article of ordinary property, of course, and even more so to a political privilege, honor, or trust.
The inference from it is: that a person 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 censure or difficulties resulting from the independent exertion of his or her powers or 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 Congress.
If the case should only be that the President might lay down powers – unless continued by a new choice – and if the President 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 regard the servile pliancy of the executive to the prevailing currents – either in the community or in the legislature – as its best recommendation. But such persons entertain very crude notions of the purposes for which government is instituted, and of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted.
The President, Like Representatives, Ought to Ameliorate the Vicissitudes of Public Opinion
There are some who regard the servile pliancy of the executive to the prevailing currents – either in the community or in the legislature – as its best recommendation.
But such persons entertain very crude notions of the purposes for which government is instituted, and of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted.
It is a true republican principle that demands the deliberate sense of community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs.
The principle does not, however, 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 even when they err.
But the good sense of the People would despise the adulator who should pretend that they always reason right about the means of promoting it.
The People know from experience they sometimes err – at a surprisingly infrequent rate – since they are continually beset by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, and the desperate, by the artifices of those who obtain their confidence more than they deserve, and by those who would rather possess the People’s confidence than 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 the People 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 the fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and earned lasting monuments of gratitude to the individuals who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.
It is a true republican principle that demands the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs. The principle does not, however, 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.
However inclined I 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 a legislature like the Congress.
A legislature may sometimes stand in opposition to the executive, and at other times the People’s representatives may be entirely neutral.
In either situation, the executive should be able to dare to act on his own opinion with vigor and decision.
The tendency of the legislative authority to absorb every other has been fully displayed and illustrated in preceding numbers, particularly Federalist 48.
This tendency is almost irresistible in purely representative governments.
The representatives of the People sometimes seem to fancy 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 rights by either the executive or the judiciary were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity.
Such representatives 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.
Separation of Powers Is Distinct from Subordination of Powers
The doctrine of separation of powers teaches the propriety of a partition between the various branches of power. (See Federalist 47 and Federalist 48.)
It likewise dictates this partition should be so contrived as to render each one independent of the other.
Why separate the executive department or the judiciary from the legislature, if both the executive and the judiciary are constituted so they are at the absolute devotion of the legislature?
Such a separation would be in name only, 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.
Subordination of men to law comports with fundamental principles of good government; subordination of one branch to another violates these same principles, for it unites all power in the same hands, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution.
Some have asked how the shortness of the duration in office can affect the independence of an executive where the legislature does not possess the power of appointing or displacing the executive.
One answer, identified above, is 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 – results from the influence the legislative body has over the People.
Such influence might be employed to prevent the re-election of a person who – by an upright resistance to any sinister project of that body – has become obnoxious to its resentment.
The representatives of the People sometimes seem to fancy 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 rights by either the executive or the judiciary were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. Such representatives 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.
Four Years Is the Proper Length of a Presidential Term
It may be asked whether a duration of four years would answer the end proposed; and if not, whether a shorter period d 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 of any other limited duration – would completely answer the end proposed, but it would contribute towards it in a degree to have a material influence upon the spirit and character of the government.
Between the commencement and termination of such a period, there will always be a considerable interval in which the prospect of annihilation is sufficiently remote not to have an improper effect upon the conduct of an executive imbued with a tolerable portion of fortitude, during which he might reasonably promise himself there would be time enough before it arrived to make the community sensible of the propriety of the measures he might incline to pursue.
Although it be probable that – as he approached the moment when the public was, 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 to establish himself in the esteem and goodwill of the People.
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.
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, yet it is not enough to justify any alarm for the public liberty.
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, yet it is not enough to justify any alarm for the public liberty.
The British Experience with Its House of Commons Demonstrates Jealousy of an Executive Power Is Overstated
From its feeble beginnings, the British House of Commons – by using the mere power of assenting or disagreeing to the imposition of any new tax – have by rapid strides reduced the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobility within the limits they conceived as compatible with the principles of a free government, while they raised themselves to the rank and consequence of a coequal branch of the British legislature.
If the House of Commons has been able, in one instance, to abolish both the royalty and the aristocracy, and to overturn all the ancient establishments in the Church as well as State; what is 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 the President might be unequal to the task which the Constitution assigns?
If the duration of four years leaves a doubt of his firmness, that doubt is inconsistent with a jealousy of his encroachments.
Hamilton