unless these departments, be so far connected and blended, as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.

It is agreed on all sides, that the powers properly belonging to one of the departments, ought not to be, directly and completely administered by either of the other departments. It is equally evident, that, in reference to each other, neither of them ought to possess, directly, or indirectly, an over-ruling influence in the administration of their respective powers. It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary; the next and most difficult task, is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others. What this security ought to be, is the great problem to be solved.

Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power? This is the security which appears to have been principally relied on by the compilers of most of the American constitutions. But experience assures us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly over-rated; and that some more adequate defence is indispensably necessary for the more feeble against the more powerful members of the government. The legislative department is every where extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into it impetuous vortex.

The founders of our republics have so much merit for the wisdom which they have displayed, that no task can be less pleasing, than that of pointing out the errors into which they have fallen. A respect for truth, however obliges us to remark, that they seem never for a moment to have turned their eyes from the danger to liberty, from the overgrown and all-grasping prerogative of an hereditary magistrate, supported and fortified by an hereditary branch of the legislative authority. They seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpation, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.

In a government, where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of a hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the source of danger, and

watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire. In a democracy, where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended on some favourable emergency, to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited, both in the extent and the duration of its power; and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude; yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department, that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy, and exhaust all their precautions.

The legislative department, derives a superiority in our governments, from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, it can with the greater facility, mask under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes, on the co-ordinate departments. It is not unfrequently a question of real nicety in legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure will or will not, extend beyond the legislative sphere. On the other side, the executive power being restrained within a narrower compass, and being more simple in its nature; and the judiciary, being described by land-marks, still less uncertain, projects of usurpation by either of these departments, would immediately betray and defeat themselves. Nor is this all: As the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has in some constitutions full discretion, and in all, a prevailing influence over the pecuniary rewards of those who fill the other departments; a dependence is thus created, in the latter which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former.

I have appealed to our own experience for the truth of what I advance on this subject. Were it necessary to verify this experience by particular proofs, they might be multiplied without end. I might collect vouchers in abundance from the records and archives of every state in the union. But as a more concise, and at the same time, equally satisfactory evidence, I will

refer to the example of two states attested by two unexceptionable authorities.

The first example is that of Virginia, a state which, as we have seen, has expressly declared in its constitution, that the three great departments ought not to be intermixed. The authority in support of it is Mr. Jefferson, who besides his other advantages for remarking the operation of the goverment, was himself the chief magistrate of the state. In order to convey fully the ideas with which his experience had impressed him on this subject, it will be necessary to quote a passage of some length from his very interresting " Notes on the state of Virginia." (p. 195.) "All the powers of government, legislative, 66 executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The "concentrating these in the same hands, is precisely the defini"tion of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that "these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and "not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots, "would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it, "turn their eyes on the republic of Venice. As little will it "avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despo"tism was not the government we fought for; but one which "should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the "powers of government should be so divided and balanced among "several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend "their legal limits, without being effectually checked and re"strained by the others. For this reason, that convention which "passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on "this basis, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary depart"ments, should be separate and distinct, so that no person "should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the "same time. But no barrier was provided between these seve"ral powers. The judiciary and executive members were left "dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in office, and "some of them for their continuance in it. If, therefore, the “legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no oppo"sition is likely to be made, nor if made, can be effectual; be"cause in that case, they may put their proceedings into the "form of an act of assembly, which will render them obligatory "on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many in"stances decided rights which should have been left to judiciary “controversy; and the direction of the executive, during the "whole time of their session, is becoming habitual and fami"liar."

The other state which I shall take for an example, is Pennsylvania; and the other authority the council of censors which assembled in the years 1783 and 1784. A part of the duty of this body, as marked out by the constitution, was "to inquire "whether the constitution had been preserved inviolate in every 66 part; and whether the legislative and executive branches of government, had performed their duty as guardians of the "people, or assumed to themselves, or exercised other or great"er powers than they are entitled to by the constitution." In the execution of this trust, the council were necessarily led to a comparison, of both the legislative and executive proceedings, with the constitutional powers of these departments: and from the facts enumerated, and to the truth of most of which both sides in the council subscribed, it appears that the constitution had been flagrantly violated by the legislature in a variety of important instances.

A great number of laws had been passed, violating, without any apparent necessity, the rule requiring that all bills of a public nature shall be previously printed for the consideration of the people; although this is one of the precautions chiefly relied on by the constitution, against improper acts of the legislature.

The constitutional trial by jury had been violated; and powers assumed, which had not been delegated by the constitution. Executive powers had been usurped.

The salaries of the judges which the constitution expressly requires to be fixed, had been occasionally varied; and cases belonging to the judiciary department, frequently drawn within legislative cognizance and determination.

Those who wish to see the several particulars falling under each of these heads, may consult the journals of the council which are in print. Some of them, it will be found, may be imputable to peculiar circumstances connected with the war: but the greater part of them, may be considered as the spontaneous shoots of an ill-constituted government.

It appears also, that the executive department had not been innocent of frequent breaches of the constitution. There are three observations, however, which ought to be made on this head. First. A great proportion of the instances, were either immediately produced by the necessities of the war, or recommended by congress or the commander in chief. Second. In most of the other instances, they conformed either to the declared or the known sentiments of the legislative department.

Third. The executive department of Pennsylvania is distinguished from that of the other states, by the number of members composing it. In this respect it has as much affinity to a legislative assembly, as to an executive council. And being at once exempt from the restraint of an individual responsibility for the acts of the body, and deriving confidence from mutual example and joint influence; unauthorized measures would of course be more freely hazarded, than where the executive department is administered by a single hand, or by a few hands.

The conciusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarkation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.

PUBLIUS.

NUMBER XLIX.

BY. MR. HAMILTON.

The same subject continued, with the same view.

THE auther of the "Notes on the state of Virginia," quoted in the last paper, has subjoined to that valuable work, the draught of a constitution, which had been prepared in order to be laid before a convention expected to be called in 1783, by the legislature, for the establishment of a constitution for that commonweaith. The plan, like every thing from the same pen, marks a turn of thinking original, comprehensive, and accurate; and is the more worthy of attention, as it equally displays a fervent attachment to republican government, and an enlightened view of the dangerous propensities against which it ought to be guarded. One of the precautions which he proposes, and on which he appears ultimately to rely as a palladium to the weaker depart