than a lottery. So that two-thirds, three-fifths of the entire community, are thus set aside at once.

Would it do to clothe fresh-landed aliens with a suffrage of this kind? How much better than children could they understand the use of it? Or what stake have they in the country that could be supposed to give them a proper sense of concern in the con sequences?

Finally, are there not native citizens in abundance to whom such a franchise cannot be prudently confided?-men without virtue, without intelligence, without property, without patriotic attachment, without anything to bind them to the country, or fit them for a voice in its affairs?

It is difficult, you will say, to apply tests. It is, indeed. But it is harder still to preserve free institutions without them. Our antipathy to tests is apt to become morbid. In some forms they are odious things, but in some they are necessary. So, at least, the fathers thought; nor has their judgment in the matter fallen yet into quite universal disrepute.

I conclude, in the third place, with one suggestion more. The fathers had to suit their measures to the social and civil elements of the land they were providing for. What were those elements? Different classes of men, distinguished from each other, not in rank or privilege, but in education, refinement, property, habits and pursuits. Was there not something due to such peculiarities--to each and every one of them in particular? Would it do to frame the government with a view to the rich only, or the educated and refined? Would it do to frame it in utter neglect of these portions of the general mass of citizens, as if their existence where unknown? Government is moral power in the hands of a few over the many. The balance of physical force is with the governed. Supposing, then, the people to be free, the political system must in prudence be so fashioned as to please them, lest their physical force should not be quiet under it. And how, as a whole, are they to be pleased and satisfied, unless their prominent diver. sities of character, business and condition, are all taken into view, and made something of in the economy of the Constitution?

Let us illustrate in the article of wealth or property. Some men are very rich, some poor, and some in middle circumstances. Would it be wise to take no note of this in framing a government for all? Would it be safe? Suppose numbers disregarded, and wealth made a test of admissibility to every kind of office whatsoever; is it likely the poor and middle orders of society would be satisfied? Or if property were disregarded, on the other hand, and not only the right of suffrage, but office too, in all its grades and forms, thrown indiscriminately to the multitude, would this be satisfactory to the more opulent classes? There might, in one case or the other, be no sudden outbreak of impatience, but there would certainly be a leaven of discontent in the body-politic, calculated to put it in a ferment by and by. All this should be avoided; and with reasonable care it may be. What is easier than to make some offices accessible to all ranks, and confine others to men of good estates? Or, if you wish a property qualification to be general and uniform, let it be adjusted to the notion of a medium between rich and poor. As regards the franchise, there is no convenient alternative but to try for such a medium. For, since the men who have nothing are always more numerous than the rich, and often compose a majority of the whole people; if you make the suffrage universal, you annihilate the influence of property; while, on the other hand, if you give the poorer classes no vote, you annihilate the influence of numbers. Now, you should do neither of these things. Take the world as it is. Let those who pay the taxes, and bear the chief burdens of the State, have an influence directly proportioned to their use

fulness and merit as citizens. This is just, and you cannot otherwise make them feel that they are rightly dealt with. It is therefore politic too. Yet do not hurry off to the other extreme, and stifle utterly the voice of mere numbers. Men who have nothing, are yet men; and not a few of them are citizens of high desert. Their poverty may be owing to other causes than sloth, intemperance or dissipation. It is not always the lot of industry or enterprise, or both together, to make large acquisitions. In a free country, the voice of the poor man, as well as of the rich, must have its own share of political weight. There will otherwise be a feeling of injury here also. How, then, are you to manage? As to office, there may be something like an apportionment, by opening the doors of certain employments to the property classes only, while others are made accessible to all; but in the matter of the franchise, where one uniform rule may be desirable, I see no better way than to mediate between the very rich and the very poor, by giving the right of suffrage to the intervening portion of society, which approaches both extremes, and is capable of feeling for the interests of both, so as to vote impartially, and with probable satisfaction to the whole community. At any rate, the founders of our government seem to have acted upon a policy of this kind. We do not enter practically into such refinements now-a-days. We are too busy, and prefer a more dashing style of politics. Constitution-making is become a humdrum business. "Nature's journeymen" can do it, and with cigars in their mouths. It was not so at first. A republican State was then regarded as a piece of moral clock-work; or complicated mechanism, full of parts requiring the most careful and precise adjustment. And there were three great topics of interest combined in the general subject. First, government proper; secondly, the vesting and qualification of the franchise of election; thirdly, (not apart from the others, but in close connection with them) the accommodation of the political to the civil and social system, for ends of justice and of popular peace. These topics claimed and received attention, each on its own account, and with an anxious regard to its own occasions. The result was an economy of peculiar and very decided character.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE EXECUTIVE.

LET us now take a brief survey of the details of the Republican system thus established by our forefathers, under so many embarrassing and perplexing difficulties-details material to their plan and policy, and anxiously and wisely adjusted by them. They belong mainly, though by no means altogether, to the State economies, and may be classed as relating, first, to the character and circumstances by which it was supposed that candidates for office ought to be distinguished; secondly, to the mode of appointment deemed most likely to secure a fair result; thirdly, to the qualification of electors where the election was popular; fourthly, to the term and tenure of office when attained; and finally, to some additional

means of safety, calculated either to fortify the personal virtue and fidelity of the functionary in the execution of his trust, or to guard against evil from his misconduct in it.

The Constitution requires that the President shall be a natural born citizen of the United States, or to have been a citizen thereof at the time of its adoption, and that he shall have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and shall have been fourteen years a resident within the United States. Considering the greatness of the trust, says Chancellor Kent, and that this department is the ultimately efficient executive power in government, these restrictions will not appear altogether useless or unimportant. As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States, ambitious foreigners cannot intrigue for the office; and the qualification of birth cuts off all those inducements from abroad to corruption, negotiation and war, which have frequently and fatally harassed the elective monarchies of Germany and Poland, as well as the pontificate at Rome. The age of the President is sufficient to have formed his public and private character; and his previous domestic residence is intended to afford to his fellow-citizens the opportunity to attain a correct knowledge of his principles and capacity, and to have enabled him to acquire habits of attachments and obedience to the laws, and of devotion to the public welfare. Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 272.

The mode of his election presented another difficult and embarrassing question. "This is the question that is eventually to test the goodness and to try the strength of the Constitution," is the language of Chancellor Kent, and he proceeds to comment on the subject, and the state of the mode of election, as follows:

"If we shall be able, for half a century hereafter, to continue to elect the chief magistrate of the Union with discretion, moderation and integrity, we shall undoubtedly stamp the highest value on our national character, and recommend our republican institutions, if not to the imitation, yet certainly to the esteem and admiration of the more enlightened part of mankind. The experience of ancient and modern Europe has been unfavorable to the practicability of a fair and peaceable popular election of the executive head of a great nation. It has been found impossible to guard the election from the mischiefs of foreign intrigue and domestic turbulence, from violence or corruption; and mankind have generally taken refuge from the evils of popular elections in hereditary executivesas being the least evil of the two. The most recent and remarkable change of this kind occurred in France, in 1804, when the legislative body changed their elective into an hereditary monarchy, on the avowed ground that the competition of popular elections led to corruption and violence. And it is a curious fact in European history, that on the first partition of Poland in 1773, when the partitioning powers thought it expedient to foster and confirm all the defects of its wretched government, they sagaciously demanded of the Polish Diet that the crown should continue elective. This was done for the very purpose of keeping the door open for foreign intrigue and influence. Mr. Paley condemns all elective monarchies, and he thinks nothing is gained by a popular choice worth the dissensions, tumults and interruptions of regular industry, with which it is

inseparably attended. I am not called upon to question the wisdom or policy of preferring hereditary to elective monarchies among the great nations of Europe, where different orders and ranks of society are established and large masses of property accumulated in the hands of single individuals, and where ignorance and poverty are widely diffused. and standing armies are necessary to preserve the stability of the government. The state of society and of property in this country, and our moral and political habits, have enabled us to adopt the republican principle, and to maintain it hitherto with illustrious success. It remains to be seen, whether the checks which the Constitution has provided against the dangerous propensities of our system will ultimately prove effectual. The election of a supreme executive magistrate for a whole nation, affects so many interests, addresses itself so strongly to popular passions, and holds out such powerful temptations to ambition, that it necessarily becomes a strong trial to public virtue and even hazardous to the public tranquillity. The Constitution, from an enlightened view of all the difficulties that attend the subject, has not thought it safe or prudent to refer the election of a President directly and immediately to the people; but it has confided the power to a small body of electors, appointed in each State, under the direction of the Legislature; and to close the opportunity as much as possible against negotiation, intrigue and corruption, it has declared that Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall vote, and that the day of election shall be the same in every State. This security has been still further extended, by the act of Congress directing the electors to be appointed in each State within thirty-four days of the day of election." Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 273.

A great variety of opinions existed among the framers of the Constitution, and much discussion took place in the Convention, in relation to the Executive Department, how it was to be organized, and how, and in what manner, to be filled. By reference to the Madison Papers, containing the Debates of the Convention, it will be found, however, that the members unanimously agreed, without debate, to the provision requiring the President to be a natural born citizen, &c. ; to be thirty-five years of age, and a resident for fourteen years. 5 Elliott's Debates, 521. In agreeing to the mode of election great difficulty was experienced. In the programme submitted by Edmund Randolph, which was denomi nated the Virginia plan, it was proposed that the Executive should be chosen by the National Legislature. James Wilson was in favor of an election by the people, but said he was almost unwilling to declare the mode he wished to take place, being apprehensive that it might appear chimerical." Yet he was in favor "to derive not only both branches of the Legislature from the people, without the intervention of the State Legislatures, but the Executive also, in order to make them as independent as possible of each other, as well as of the States." Roger Sherman thought "an independence of the Executive on the Supreme Legislature" was "the very essence of tyranny," and therefore favored the appointment of the Executive by the Legislature, and of making "him absolutely dependent on that body." John Rutledge suggested "an election of the Executive by the second branch only of the National

Legislature." Col. Mason favored Mr. Wilson's idea, but thought it impracticable. Elbridge Gerry "opposed the election by the National Legislature," because "there would be a constant intrigue" between the Legislature and the candidates, and "votes would be given by the former under promises or expectations from the latter." He liked Mr. Wilson's proposition, but "feared it would alarm and give a handle to the State partisans, as tending to supersede altogether the State authorities." He preferred "taking the suffrages of the States, instead of electors, or letting the Legislatures nominate, and the electors appoint;" but he "was not clear that the people ought to act directly even in the choice of electors, being too little informed of personal characters in large districts, and liable to deceptions." Mr. Wilson's proposition was voted for by but two States, Pennsylvania and Maryland, and the proposition of Mr. Randolph was agreed to by the following vote: Aye-Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; Nay-Pennsylvania and Maryland. Elliott's Debates, vol. v., pp. 142–3–4.

Some time afterwards Elbridge Gerry moved a reconsideration of the subject, and proposed "that the National Executive should be elected by the executives of the States, whose proportion of votes should be the same with that allowed to the States in the election of the Senate." Edmund Randolph strongly opposed this proposition, and it was negatived, nine States voting against it, and Delaware being divided. Ibid., 174. Alexander Hamilton was in favor, and read a proposition to that effect to the Convention, of the executive authority being "vested in a Governor, to be elected to serve during good behavior-the election to be made by electors chosen by the people in the election districts." Ibid., 205. When the subject again came in form before the Convention, Gouverneur Morris took strong ground against the election by the National Legislature, and moved to strike out National Legislature, and insert citizens of the United States; but his motion received but one vote, that of Pennsylvania; whereupon Luther Martin moved that the Executive be chosen by electors appointed by the several Legislatures of the States, which was also negatived, it receiving only the vote of Maryland and Delaware. Ibid., 323.

Subsequently a reconsideration was had, when Oliver Ellsworth moved that the Executive "be chosen by electors, appointed by the Legislatures of the States" in a certain ratio named, and the question being divided, both parts were adopted, the States of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia voting against the first, and Virginia and South Carolina against the second. Ibid., 338. William C. Houston subsequently again moved a reconsideration, and proposed that the Executive be elected by the National Legislature, and it prevailed by a vote of seven to four, Connec