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

innovation1 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.