FEDERALIST No. 71



The Duration in Office of the Executive

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, March 18, 1788.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:



DURATION in office has been mentioned as the second requisite to the

energy of the Executive authority. This has relation to two objects: to

the personal firmness of the executive magistrate, in the employment of

his constitutional powers; and to the stability of the system of

administration which may have been adopted under his auspices. With

regard to the first, it must be evident, that the longer the duration in

office, the greater will be 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; will be less attached

to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he

enjoys by a durable or certain title; and, of course, will be willing to

risk more for the sake of the one, than for the sake of the other. This

remark is not less applicable to a political privilege, or honor, or

trust, than to any article of ordinary property. The inference from it

is, that a man 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 any

material censure or perplexity, from the independent exertion of his

powers, or from 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 legislative body. If the

case should only be, that he MIGHT lay it down, unless continued by a

new choice, and if he 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 would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of

the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or in the

legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain very

crude notions, as well of the purposes for which government was

instituted, as of the true means by which the public happiness may be

promoted. The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of

the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust

the management of their affairs; but it does not 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. This often applies to

their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who

should pretend that they always REASON RIGHT about the MEANS of

promoting it. They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the

wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually

are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the

ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who

possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who

seek to possess rather than to 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 them 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 very fatal consequences of their

own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to

the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the

peril of their displeasure.



But however inclined we 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 the

legislature. The latter may sometimes stand in opposition to the former,

and at other times the people may be entirely neutral. In either

supposition, it is certainly desirable that the Executive should be in a

situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor and decision.



The same rule which teaches the propriety of a partition between the

various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought

to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other. To

what purpose separate the executive or the judiciary from the

legislative, if both the executive and the judiciary are so constituted

as to be at the absolute devotion of the legislative? Such a separation

must be merely nominal, 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. The first comports

with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government;

and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in

the same hands. The tendency of the legislative authority to absorb

every other, has been fully displayed and illustrated by examples in

some preceding numbers. In governments purely republican, this tendency

is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people, in a popular

assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that 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 its rights,

by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege

and an outrage to their dignity. They 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.



It may perhaps be asked, how the shortness of the duration in office can

affect the independence of the Executive on the legislature, unless the

one were possessed of the power of appointing or displacing the other.

One answer to this inquiry may be drawn from the principle already

remarked that is, from 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, will result from the consideration of the influence of the

legislative body over the people; which might be employed to prevent the

re-election of a man who, by an upright resistance to any sinister

project of that body, should have made himself obnoxious to its

resentment.



It may be asked also, whether a duration of four years would answer the

end proposed; and if it would not, whether a less period, which would 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 any other

limited duration, would completely answer the end proposed; but it would

contribute towards it in a degree which would have a material influence

upon the spirit and character of the government. Between the

commencement and termination of such a period, there would always be a

considerable interval, in which the prospect of annihilation would be

sufficiently remote, not to have an improper effect upon the conduct of

a man indued with a tolerable portion of fortitude; and in which he

might reasonably promise himself, that there would be time enough before

it arrived, to make the community sensible of the propriety of the

measures he might incline to pursue. Though it be probable that, as he

approached the moment when the public were, 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, of establishing himself in the esteem and

good-will of his constituents. 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. As, on the one hand, 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; so, on the

other, it is not enough to justify any alarm for the public liberty. If

a British House of Commons, from the most feeble beginnings, FROM THE

MERE POWER OF ASSENTING OR DISAGREEING TO THE IMPOSITION OF A NEW TAX,

have, by rapid strides, reduced the prerogatives of the crown and the

privileges of the nobility within the limits they conceived to be

compatible with the principles of a free government, while they raised

themselves to the rank and consequence of a coequal branch of the

legislature; if they have been able, in one instance, to abolish both

the royalty and the aristocracy, and to overturn all the ancient

establishments, as well in the Church as State; if they have been able,

on a recent occasion, to make the monarch tremble at the prospect of an

innovation[1] attempted by them, what would be 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 he might

be unequal to the task which the Constitution assigns him? I shall only

add, that if his duration be such as to leave a doubt of his firmness,

that doubt is inconsistent with a jealousy of his encroachments.



PUBLIUS



1. This was the case with respect to Mr. Fox's India bill, which

was carried in the House of Commons, and rejected in the House of

Lords, to the entire satisfaction, as it is said, of the people.