THERE IS AN IDEA – not without advocates – that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican (representative) government. These enlightened advocates of a weak executive must at least hope their supposition is destitute of foundation, for if true it would condemn their own principles.
Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.
Energy is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks.
It is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice, and to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, faction and anarchy.
Everyone at least conversant in Roman story knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man – under the formidable title of Dictator – against not only the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to tyranny, but the seditions of whole classes of the community – whose conduct threatened the existence of all government – and against as well the invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome.
There can be no need to multiply arguments or examples on this head.
A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government.
A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution.
A government executed poorly – whatever it may be in theory – in practice must be a bad government.
I shall take for granted that all persons of good sense will agree in the necessity of an energetic executive, with but several remaining inquiries: what are the ingredients constituting this energy?
How far can they be combined with those other ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense?
And how far does this combination characterize the Constitution?
Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. Energy is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks. It is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice, and to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, faction and anarchy.
Energy Requires Unity, Time, Provisions, and Powers
The ingredients constituting energy in the executive are:
(1) unity,
(2) duration,
(3) adequate provisions for its support, and
(4) competent powers.
The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are a due dependence on the People and a due responsibility to them.
Those politicians and statesmen most celebrated for the soundness of their principles and the justice of their views have declared in favor of a single executive and a numerous legislature.
With great propriety, they have considered energy as the most necessary qualification of the executive, and regarded energy as most applicable to power in a single hand.
With equal propriety, they considered a single executive as best adapted to deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and interests.
Unity in the Executive Is Indispensable
That unity is conducive to energy is indisputable.
Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one person in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number, and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.
That unity is conducive to energy is indisputable. Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one person in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number, and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.
How to Destroy Unity in the Executive
Unity of the executive may be destroyed in two ways.
First, the executive power may be vested in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority.
Second, although the power is ostensibly vested in one person, that person is subject – in whole or in part – to the control and cooperation of others – usually in their capacity as counselors.
Both means are liable to equal or to similar objections, and may be examined in conjunction.
The Few Historical Examples Favor a Single Executive
The experience of other nations affords little instruction on this head. As far as it teaches anything, it teaches us not to be enamored of plurality in the executive.
We have seen that the Achaeans, on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to abolish one.
The two Consuls of Rome also serve as an example of the disunity that results from more than one coequal executive.
Although Roman history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the dissensions between the Consuls – or between the military Tribunes, who were at times substituted for the Consuls – it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the republic from the circumstance of the plurality of those magistrates.
It is a matter of astonishment that dissensions between them were not more frequent or more fatal, until we recall the singular position in which the republic was almost continually placed, and as well as the Consuls’ prudent policy of making a division of the government between them.
The patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the plebeians for the preservation of their ancient authorities and dignities.
The Consuls – who were generally chosen from the patricians – were commonly united by the personal interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order.
In addition to this unifying motive of personal interest, after the arms of the republic had considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established custom with the Consuls to divide the administration between themselves by lot, with one of them remaining at Rome to govern the city and its environs, the other taking the command in the more distant provinces.
This expedient undoubtedly had great influence in preventing those collisions and rivalries which might otherwise have embroiled the peace of that republic.
But quitting the dim light of historical research – and attaching ourselves purely to the dictates of reason and good sense – we shall discover much greater cause to reject than to approve the idea of plurality in the executive, under any modification whatever.
Individuals often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. Moreover, if they have been consulted, and happened to have disapproved, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor – and by all the motives of personal infallibility – to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments.
More than One Executive Will Promote Dissension
Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion.
If it be a public trust or office – in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority – there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity.
The most bitter dissensions are apt to spring from either.
Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and distract the plans and operation of those whom they divide.
If they should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the most important measures of the government in the most critical emergencies of the state.
And what is still worse, they might split the community into the most violent and irreconcilable factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who composed the magistracy.
Opposition Based upon Personal Animosity Is an Unfortunate Human Trait
Individuals often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
Moreover, if they have been consulted, and happened to have disapproved, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love.
They seem to think themselves bound in honor – and by all the motives of personal infallibility – to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments.
Persons of upright and benevolent tempers have often remarked with horror at the desperate lengths to which this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, conceit, and obstinacy of individuals whose passions and caprices have interested the People.
Opposition to the Constitution afforded melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty – or rather detestable vice – in the human character.
The Dissension Wrought by Unreasonable Opposition Ought to Be Resolved in the Legislative Branch, Not the Executive
Upon the principles of a free government, the inconveniences of opposition resulting from personal animosity and the like must necessarily be submitted to the legislative branch.
But it is unnecessary, and therefore unwise, to introduce them into the constitution of the executive, where dissension may be most pernicious.
In a legislature – of which the Congress is one – a prompt decision is more often evil than a benefit.
In the legislative branch of government, the differences of opinion and jarrings of parties – although they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans – yet often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority.
Once a resolution is taken by enacting a law, however, the opposition must be put to an end, with resistance to it being punishable.
No such favorable circumstances can lessen the disadvantageous effects of dissension in the executive department.
Motives there fueled by personal animosity are pure and unmixed.
There is no point at which they cease to operate.
They can serve to embarrass and weaken the execution of the plan or measure to which they relate, from its first step to final conclusion. The effects of dissension constantly counteract those qualities needed in an executive – vigor and expedition – without offering any counterbalancing good.
In the conduct of war – in which the energy of the executive is the bulwark of the national security – more than one executive would cause fear and apprehension in everything.
These observations apply with principal weight to the situation where a plurality of magistrates have equal dignity and authority.
They also apply with considerable weight to the project of a council whose concurrence is made constitutionally necessary to the operations of the ostensible executive.
An artful cabal in that council would be able to distract and to enervate the whole system of administration.
If no such cabal should exist, the mere diversity of views and opinions would alone be sufficient to tincture the exercise of the executive authority with a spirit of habitual feebleness and dilatoriness.
More Than One Executive Conceals Faults and Destroys Responsibility
One of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the executive is that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility.
Responsibility is of two kinds: censure and punishment.
Censure is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office. A person holding a public trust will much more frequently act in a manner contrary to that trust – which may cause public censure and disapproval – than in a manner contrary to law – which may result in legal punishment.
In either situation, the existence of more than one executive would add to the difficulty of detecting either censurable or punishable conduct.
It often becomes impossible – amidst mutual accusations – to determine on whom the blame or the punishment ought really to fall for a pernicious measure or series of pernicious measures.
Blame may shifted from one to another with so much dexterity – and under such plausible appearances – that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author.
The circumstances which may lead to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that a number of actors may have had different degrees and kinds of agency.
Although the People may clearly see upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose account any evil is truly chargeable.
Excuses would abound: “I was overruled by my council. The council were so divided in their opinions that it was impossible to obtain any better resolution on the point.”
Whether true or false, these and similar pretexts are constantly at hand.
We Cannot Expect Individual Citizens to Track Down the Sources of Governmental Malfeasance
Who will either take the trouble or incur the odium of a strict scrutiny into the secret springs of a transaction against the national interest?
If there could be found a citizen zealous enough to undertake the unpromising task – and should there happen to be collusion between the parties being investigated – it would be easy to clothe the circumstances with so much ambiguity as to render uncertain the precise conduct of any of those parties.
State Examples Demonstrate the Drawbacks of Executive Councils
If I recollect correctly, New York and New Jersey are the only States which have entrusted the executive authority wholly to a single individual. New Jersey has a council whom the governor may consult, but from the terms of its constitution, their resolutions are not binding.
In New York, the single instance in which the governor is coupled with a council – that is, in the appointment to officers – I detailed its mischiefs in Federalist 69. Scandalous appointments to important offices have been made. Indeed, some cases have been so flagrant that all parties have agreed in the impropriety of the thing.
When inquiry actually has been made, the members of the council have laid blame on the governor’s nomination, while the governor has blamed the members of the council.
The People, meanwhile, remain altogether at a loss to determine by whose influence their interests have been committed to hands so unqualified and so manifestly improper. In tenderness to individuals, I will forbear to descend into particulars.
Responsibility is of two kinds: censure and punishment. Censure is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office. A person holding a public trust will much more frequently act in a manner contrary to that trust – which may cause public censure and disapproval – than in a manner contrary to law – which may result in legal punishment.
Multiple Executives Tend to Deprive the People of Their Security for Performance
It is evident from the preceding considerations that a plurality of the executive tends to deprive the People of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power.
First, multiple executives weaken the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy with respect to bad measures due to the division of the censure among a number, as well as the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall.
Second, the multiplicity of actors diminishes the People’s ability to discover with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to remove them from office or to their actual punishment in proper cases.
An Executive Council Is Better Suited to a Monarchy than a Chief Executive or Magistrate Like the President
In Britain, the monarch is a perpetual magistrate.
For the sake of the public peace, his or her person is sacred and unaccountable for poor administration.
In that kingdom, therefore, nothing is wiser than to annex to the king or queen a constitutional council, who may be responsible to the nation for the advice they give.
Without this, there would be no responsibility whatever in the executive department, which is an inadmissible idea in a free government.
In practice, the monarch of Britain is not bound by the resolutions of his or her council, although they are answerable for the advice they give.
The British monarch is the absolute master of his or her own conduct in the exercise of office, and has the sole discretion to observe or disregard the advice and counsel given.
The reasons why the British Constitution dictates the propriety of an executive council do not apply in a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his or her behavior in office.
In the monarchy of Great Britain, an executive council accepts the responsibility that would be assigned to the chief magistrate in a republic.
In some degree the British executive council serves as a hostage to the national justice for the good behavior of the monarch.
In the American republic, an executive council would serve to destroy – or greatly diminish – the intended and necessary responsibility of the chief magistrate personally.
An Executive Branch Run by a Council – Though Based on a Republican Jealousy Favoring Security – Raises More Risks than Rewards
The idea of a council to the executive – which has so generally obtained in the State constitutions – has been derived from that maxim of republican jealousy which considers power as safer in the hands of a number of persons than of a single one.
If the maxim is applied to the case, the advantage on that side would not counterbalance the numerous disadvantages on the opposite side.
However, I do not think the rule applies at all to the executive power.
In this particular, I clearly concur in opinion of Jean-Louis de Lome – whom the celebrated Junius pronounces to be “deep, solid, and ingenious” – that “the executive power is more easily confined when it is one” – and that it is far safer for a single object to attract the jealousy and watchfulness of the People – in a word, that all multiplication of the executive is more dangerous than friendly to liberty.
The reasons why the British Constitution dictates the propriety of an executive council do not apply in a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his or her behavior in office.
The Threat of Intrigue and Cabal Is Higher in an Executive Council
It takes only a little consideration to satisfy ourselves that the species of security sought for in the multiplication of the executive is unattainable.
The number of members must be great enough as to render an evil combination difficult, or the council would become more a source of danger than of security.
Combining that credit and influence of several individuals is more formidable to liberty than the credit and influence of any of them separately.
When power is placed in the hands of a sufficiently small number of persons as to admit of their interests and views being easily combined in a common enterprise by an artful leader, it becomes more liable to abuse – and more dangerous when abused – than if it be lodged in the hands of one person – who from the very circumstance of being alone will be more narrowly watched and more readily suspected – and who cannot unite so great a mass of influence as when associated with others.
The Decemvirs of Rome, whose name denotes their number – 10 – were more to be dreaded in their usurpation than any single one of them would have been.
No person would think of proposing an executive much more numerous than that body, and from six to a dozen have been suggested for the number of such a council.
These numbers are not too many to prevent an easy combination from embarking on a wicked project, and America would have more to fear from such a combination than from the ambition of any single individual.
A council to the President – who is individually responsible for what he or she does – generally would be a clog upon a President’s good intentions, often would be the instruments and accomplices of a President’s bad intentions, and are almost always a cloak to a President’s faults.
The Expense of an Executive Council Would Outweigh the Benefits
I forbear to dwell upon the subject of expense; though it be evident that if the council should be numerous enough to answer the principal end aimed at by the institution, the salaries of the members – who must be drawn from their homes to reside at the seat of government – would form an item in the catalogue of public expenditures too serious to be incurred for an object of equivocal utility.
I will only add that, prior to the appearance of the Constitution, I rarely met with an intelligent person from any of the States, who did not admit, as the result of experience, that the unity of the executive in New York was one of the best of the distinguishing features of its constitution.
Hamilton