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those chapters, in which Montesquieu made known to France the liberty which is the birthright of Englishmen, and described the structure and inner working of their celebrated constitution. Other writers have succeeded the author of "L'esprit des lois." They have discussed the same questions; they have thoroughly examined the prerogatives of the crown, the powers of each house of Parliament and the relations which exist between them; they have traced and explained the influence of the historic causes which have developed and perfected those noble institutions. Blackstone, Brougham, and others in England; Fishel, and especially Gneist, in Germany, have exhausted the subject, and yet over all their works still towers the genius of Montesquieu, "who abridged all, because he had seen all.”

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THE EXECUTIVE POWER

IN

THE UNITED STATES.

CHAPTER I.

ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT.

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HE members of the convention, in considering the questions relative to the Executive

Power, had to determine whether the chief magistrate should be directly elected by the people, or be designated by the legislative power. Each system had its partisans. Finally, a compromise was adopted. It was decided that "each State shall appoint, in such manner as the inhabitants thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled.........that the electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-president." The Constitution adds, "the votes shall be forwarded to the President of the Senate at the seat of government, and the person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a major

ity of the whole number of electors appointed, and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President."1 If then the convention refused to confide directly to the people the election of the President, neither did it invest the legislative assemblies with so important a right. Hamilton has explained, in the "Federalist," the motives which led to the adoption of this compromise.2

"Nothing," said he, "was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.............But the convention has guarded against all danger of this sort with the most provident and judicious

1 See Constitution of the United States.

2 The best commentary on the Constitution of the United States is to be found in the "Federalist." It was written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. The first two were members of the Philadelphia Convention. This admirable publication supplies, to some extent, the void in American political literature occasioned by the failure to record the full debates of that body.

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attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any pre-existing bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment; and they have excluded from eligibility to this trust all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devo. tion to the President in office. No Senator, Representative or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus, without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives which, though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duties." It was essential, and this was no less important, that the Executive Power should.

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