The Executive Department Further Considered
From the New York Packet
Tuesday, March 18, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THERE is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous Executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government. The enlightened well-wishers to this species of government must at least hope that the supposition is destitute of foundation; since they can never admit its truth, without at the same time admitting the condemnation of their own principles. Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome.

There can be no need, however, to multiply arguments or examples on this head. A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

Taking it for granted, therefore, that all men of sense will agree in the necessity of an energetic Executive, it will only remain to inquire, what are the ingredients which constitute this energy? How far can they be combined with those other ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense? And how far does this combination characterize the plan which has been reported by the convention?

The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers.

The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility.

Those politicians and statesmen who have been the most celebrated for the soundness of their principles and for the justice of their views, have declared in favor of a single Executive and a numerous legislature. They have with great propriety, considered energy as the most necessary qualification of the former, and have regarded this as most applicable to power in a single hand, while they have, with equal propriety, considered the latter as best adapted to deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and interests.

That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.

This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject, in whole or in part, to the control and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him. Of the first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve as an example; of the last, we shall find examples in the constitutions of several of the States. New York and New Jersey, if I recollect right, are the only States which have intrusted the executive authority wholly to single men. [1] Both these methods of destroying the unity of the Executive have their partisans; but the votaries of an executive council are the most numerous. They are both liable, if not to equal, to similar objections, and may in most lights be examined in conjunction.

The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on this head. As far, however, as it teaches any thing, it teaches us not to be enamoured of plurality in the Executive. We have seen that the Achaeans, on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to abolish one. The Roman history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the dissensions between the Consuls, and between the military Tribunes, who were at times substituted for the Consuls. But it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance of the plurality of those magistrates. That the dissensions between them were not more frequent or more fatal, is a matter of astonishment, until we advert to the singular position in which the republic was almost continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the plebeians for the preservation of their ancient authorities and dignities; the Consuls, who were generally chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order. In addition to this motive of union, after the arms of the republic had considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established custom with the Consuls to divide the administration between themselves by lot one of them remaining at Rome to govern the city and its environs, the other taking the command in the more distant provinces. This expedient must, no doubt, have had great influence in preventing those collisions and rivalships which might otherwise have embroiled the peace of the republic.

But quitting the dim light of historical research, attaching ourselves purely to the dictates of reason and good sense, we shall discover much greater cause to reject than to approve the idea of plurality in the Executive, under any modification whatever.

Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office, in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity. From either, and especially from all these causes, the most bitter dissensions are apt to spring. Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and distract the plans and operation of those whom they divide. If they should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the most important measures of the government, in the most critical emergencies of the state. And what is still worse, they might split the community into the most violent and irreconcilable factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who composed the magistracy.

Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.

Upon the principles of a free government, inconveniences from the source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the formation of the legislature; but it is unnecessary, and therefore unwise, to introduce them into the constitution of the Executive. It is here too that they may be most pernicious. In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority. When a resolution too is once taken, the opposition must be at an end. That resolution is a law, and resistance to it punishable. But no favorable circumstances palliate or atone for the disadvantages of dissension in the executive department. Here, they are pure and unmixed. There is no point at which they cease to operate. They serve to embarrass and weaken the execution of the plan or measure to which they relate, from the first step to the final conclusion of it. They constantly counteract those qualities in the Executive which are the most necessary ingredients in its composition, vigor and expedition, and this without any counterbalancing good. In the conduct of war, in which the energy of the Executive is the bulwark of the national security, every thing would be to be apprehended from its plurality.

It must be confessed that these observations apply with principal weight to the first case supposed that is, to a plurality of magistrates of equal dignity and authority a scheme, the advocates for which are not likely to form a numerous sect; but they apply, though not with equal, yet with considerable weight to the project of a council, whose concurrence is made constitutionally necessary to the operations of the ostensible Executive. An artful cabal in that council would be able to distract and to enervate the whole system of administration. If no such cabal should exist, the mere diversity of views and opinions would alone be sufficient to tincture the exercise of the executive authority with a spirit of habitual feebleness and dilatoriness.

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility.

Responsibility is of two kinds to censure and to punishment. The first is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office. Man, in public trust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to render him unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author. The circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that, where there are a number of actors who may have had different degrees and kinds of agency, though we may clearly see upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable.

“I was overruled by my council. The council were so divided in their opinions that it was impossible to obtain any better resolution on the point.” These and similar pretexts are constantly at hand, whether true or false. And who is there that will either take the trouble or incur the odium, of a strict scrutiny into the secret springs of the transaction? Should there be found a citizen zealous enough to undertake the unpromising task, if there happen to be collusion between the parties concerned, how easy it is to clothe the circumstances with so much ambiguity, as to render it uncertain what was the precise conduct of any of those parties?

In the single instance in which the governor of this State is coupled with a council that is, in the appointment to offices, we have seen the mischiefs of it in the view now under consideration. Scandalous appointments to important offices have been made. Some cases, indeed, have been so flagrant that ALL PARTIES have agreed in the impropriety of the thing. When inquiry has been made, the blame has been laid by the governor on the members of the council, who, on their part, have charged it upon his nomination; while the people remain altogether at a loss to determine, by whose influence their interests have been committed to hands so unqualified and so manifestly improper. In tenderness to individuals, I forbear to descend to particulars.

It is evident from these considerations, that the plurality of the Executive tends to deprive the people of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power, first, the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy, as well on account of the division of the censure attendant on bad measures among a number, as on account of the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall; and, secondly, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal from office or to their actual punishment in cases which admit of it.

In England, the king is a perpetual magistrate; and it is a maxim which has obtained for the sake of the public peace, that he is unaccountable for his administration, and his person sacred. Nothing, therefore, can be wiser in that kingdom, than to annex to the king a constitutional council, who may be responsible to the nation for the advice they give. Without this, there would be no responsibility whatever in the executive department an idea inadmissible in a free government. But even there the king is not bound by the resolutions of his council, though they are answerable for the advice they give. He is the absolute master of his own conduct in the exercise of his office, and may observe or disregard the counsel given to him at his sole discretion.

But in a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office the reason which in the British Constitution dictates the propriety of a council, not only ceases to apply, but turns against the institution. In the monarchy of Great Britain, it furnishes a substitute for the prohibited responsibility of the chief magistrate, which serves in some degree as a hostage to the national justice for his good behavior. In the American republic, it would serve to destroy, or would greatly diminish, the intended and necessary responsibility of the Chief Magistrate himself.

The idea of a council to the Executive, which has so generally obtained in the State constitutions, has been derived from that maxim of republican jealousy which considers power as safer in the hands of a number of men than of a single man. If the maxim should be admitted to be applicable to the case, I should contend that the advantage on that side would not counterbalance the numerous disadvantages on the opposite side. But I do not think the rule at all applicable to the executive power. I clearly concur in opinion, in this particular, with a writer whom the celebrated Junius pronounces to be “deep, solid, and ingenious,” that “the executive power is more easily confined when it is ONE” [2]; that it is far more safe there should be a single object for the jealousy and watchfulness of the people; and, in a word, that all multiplication of the Executive is rather dangerous than friendly to liberty.

A little consideration will satisfy us, that the species of security sought for in the multiplication of the Executive, is attainable. Numbers must be so great as to render combination difficult, or they are rather a source of danger than of security. The united credit and influence of several individuals must be more formidable to liberty, than the credit and influence of either of them separately. When power, therefore, is placed in the hands of so small a number of men, as to admit of their interests and views being easily combined in a common enterprise, by an artful leader, it becomes more liable to abuse, and more dangerous when abused, than if it be lodged in the hands of one man; who, from the very circumstance of his being alone, will be more narrowly watched and more readily suspected, and who cannot unite so great a mass of influence as when he is associated with others. The Decemvirs of Rome, whose name denotes their number [3], were more to be dreaded in their usurpation than any ONE of them would have been. No person would think of proposing an Executive much more numerous than that body; from six to a dozen have been suggested for the number of the council. The extreme of these numbers, is not too great for an easy combination; and from such a combination America would have more to fear, than from the ambition of any single individual. A council to a magistrate, who is himself responsible for what he does, are generally nothing better than a clog upon his good intentions, are often the instruments and accomplices of his bad and are almost always a cloak to his faults.

I forbear to dwell upon the subject of expense; though it be evident that if the council should be numerous enough to answer the principal end aimed at by the institution, the salaries of the members, who must be drawn from their homes to reside at the seat of government, would form an item in the catalogue of public expenditures too serious to be incurred for an object of equivocal utility. I will only add that, prior to the appearance of the Constitution, I rarely met with an intelligent man from any of the States, who did not admit, as the result of experience, that the UNITY of the executive of this State was one of the best of the distinguishing features of our constitution.

PUBLIUS.

1. New York has no council except for the single purpose of appointing to offices; New Jersey has a council whom the governor may consult. But I think, from the terms of the constitution, their resolutions do not bind him.

2. De Lolme.

3. Ten.

Greetings from Long Beach Island New Jersey!  What fun I’ve been having reading the Federalist Papers on the beach! And what interesting looks I get from passersby who take the time to glance at the cover of my book.

Federalist Papers 68-77 are especially interesting to me personally, as I have been fascinated by the Presidency for as long as I can remember. My first “political” experience was writing to President Nixon when I was in grade school, telling him I was praying for him during his struggles.  In Junior high, I begged my father to take me to SMU, in Dallas near where I grew up, to stand in a rope line in order to catch a glimpse of President Gerald Ford.  I voted for the first time in 1980, proudly casting my ballot for Ronald Reagan.  My first college course in political science at Texas A&M was taught by an expert in the Presidency, and although regretfully I can’t remember his name, I loved the course so much, I switched my major from business to political science that semester!

During the last decade, I got an even closer look at the Presidency through my husband’s work with President George W. Bush, and opportunities our family had to interact with him.  I had always admired President Bush’s steady leadership, and his unwavering commitment to certain values and principles, most notably keeping America safe. But getting to know him personally, I admired the way he carried the office of the Presidency.  When you are President, you are always President, whether relaxing in a small group or at public events.  President Bush respected the office, and lived every day in a way that could make our country proud.

Thank you to Professor Joerg Knipprath for your enlightening and thorough essays on Federalist Papers No. 69 (The Real Character of the Executive ) and 70 (The Executive Department Further Considered ).  The historical background you provide gives a useful prism from which to view these two papers that explore the President’s powers versus those of the British Monarch and the New York Governor, and the decision of the founders to have a unified executive, versus two or more heading that branch.

In Federalist No. 69 Publius makes a convincing argument that the United States Presidency, while powerful enough to head the country, is not as powerful as the King, or even the New York Governor (with the exception of the power to make treaties).  This is a fascinating comparison, and reveals the founders’ thought process on why the Presidency of our country is vested with certain powers and limited in others.

Some of the President’s powers originally outlined by the founders have waned, while others have increased. The President’s term in office still remains at four years, but is now limited to two terms by the twenty-second Amendment.

The President’s power to

“nominate, and, WITH THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, to appoint ambassadors and other public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and in general all officers of the United States established by law, and whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by the Constitution,”

has been expanded over the years by the President’s ability to create “Czar” positions.  These “Czar” positions sound eerily similar to the power Publius ascribes to the King, and denies the President having:

The king of Great Britain is emphatically and truly styled the fountain of honor. He not only appoints to all offices, but can create offices.”

Time Magazine provides an interesting history of “Czars” in the United States at this link: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1925564,00.html

Time states the first Czar existed in President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet during World War I, when Wilson appointed Bernard Baruch to head the War Industries board, and was known as the Industry Czar.  This must have been the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent, as the use of “Czars” has mushroomed from that point forward.

In Federalist No. 70, Publius defends the decision of the founders to have a single executive in the office of the Presidency head the executive branch, versus two or more individuals.  The benefits of a unified executive make an extraordinary amount of sense, especially in protecting the people’s liberty through transparency, and accountability.  As difficult as it was to pinpoint blame in Watergate, for example, imagine how much more difficult it might have been had there been two Chief Executives.  Professor Knipprath quotes Harry Truman’s famous line, “the buck stops here,” and that indeed is one of the most important attributes of the United States Presidency.

The founders’ grasp of history, as they detail the failures of past plural executives, such as the Achaens, or the dissensions between the Consuls and the military Tribunes in Roman history once again illuminates their arguments.  And their grasp of human nature is equally as profound –

“Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office, in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity.”

“Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.”

Our United States Presidency is a unique institution, crafted thoughtfully and skillfully by our founding fathers!

On to Federalist #71!

Good night and God Bless,

Cathy Gillespie

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

 

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Howdy from really hot Texas! Federalist Paper No. 70 is a rich read. Within its pages lay a thought provoking instructive that once again finds its measures readily applicable to today.

Big government. This is a phrase that I had always heard, and new instinctively was a negative, but I never really understood its premise until I delved into the Federalist Papers. What a mint of invaluable information and directives are the essays of the Federalist. I do hope that our forum here, and time together as Americans, reading and blogging about the Federalist Papers have perhaps diffused the awareness of them amongst our great land.

Our founding fathers believed in a small federal government encumbered by checks and balances. Alexander Hamilton makes the case by quoting examples of how deceitful enterprises rise from an executive branch that is not singular. When accountability rests on the few instead of the singular, evasion becomes the norm.

“But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility…”

Alexander Hamilton further denotes:

“It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame, or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author.”

This is one of the reasons why Americans throw up their hands in disgust and walk away from the duties beholden to a citizen of a Republic. Where does one begin to know the truth of an issue? Where does one begin to know who really is the culprit?

Yes, our Executive Branch is represented by a singular person, but the bureaucracy surrounding it, the lawyers, the administration instructing it, have become a huge machine. Transparency has become close to nil. The Executive Branch has become a branch governed by the“councils,” a process of which Alexander Hamilton both denounces and warns. This plurality of our modern day Executive Branch befuddles the citizens. How does one take action?

“The people remain altogether at a loss to determine by whose influence their interests have been committed to hands so manifestly improper.”

Alexander Hamilton states that it is plurality that most threatens a Republic and robs her citizens of, “the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power.” These two securities of a Republic are: public opinion and discovery.

“The plurality of the Executive tends to deprive the people of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power. First. The restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy, as well on account of the division of the censure attendant on bad measures among a number, as on account of the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall; and secondly, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal from office, or to their actual punishment, in cases which admit of it.”

The office of President of the United States is a thankless job and certainly the President is still help accountable today for the state of the union. Yet, because the Executive Branch is so big and because laws are being made by bureaucrats behind the scenes, and not by the Legislative branch, enterprising schemes take place such in ways that render American citizens without the adequate resources to respond and take action.

As Alexander Hamilton astutely observes:

“An artful cabal in that council, would be able to distract and to enervate the whole system of administration.”

All of this intrigue begs the question: what are we, the genius of the people” to do? Where do we begin and how will we make a difference? Alexander Hamilton even asks the question:

“Who is there that will take the trouble, or incur the odium, of a strict scrutiny into the secret springs of the transaction? Should there be found a citizen zealous enough to undertake the unpromising task..”

Our forefathers were most certainly examples of men who were zealous enough to undertake the unpromising task. They were willing to lose “their lives, their fortune and their sacred honor” to combat the intrigues and unscrupulous behavior of the British Empire. They fought to secure liberty and justice for all American citizens.

America today has within its bosom men and women who are willing to, “incur the odium,” in order to preserve our Republic and all for which she stands: honor, dignity, freedom. Obviously, our men and women of uniform have risked and lost their lives throughout our history to maintain our rights and continue to do so today.

However, these men and women also start with you, you who are reading the Federalist Papers, you who are writing on our blog, you the Professors and scholars who are dedicating your time to Constitute America, you who are willing to stand up, seek the truths and speak your opinions. You are, “the majesty of the people.” On you, our Republic rests.

America stands because of the diligence of your actions, because you are, “a citizen zealous enough to undertake the unpromising task.”

God Bless,

Janine Turner

August 3, 2010

 

Greetings from Long Beach Island New Jersey!  What fun I’ve been having reading the Federalist Papers on the beach! And what interesting looks I get from passersby who take the time to glance at the cover of my book.

Federalist Papers 68-77 are especially interesting to me personally, as I have been fascinated by the Presidency for as long as I can remember. My first “political” experience was writing to President Nixon when I was in grade school, telling him I was praying for him during his struggles.  In Junior high, I begged my father to take me to SMU, in Dallas near where I grew up, to stand in a rope line in order to catch a glimpse of President Gerald Ford.  I voted for the first time in 1980, proudly casting my ballot for Ronald Reagan.  My first college course in political science at Texas A&M was taught by an expert in the Presidency, and although regretfully I can’t remember his name, I loved the course so much, I switched my major from business to political science that semester!

During the last decade, I got an even closer look at the Presidency through my husband’s work with President George W. Bush, and opportunities our family had to interact with him.  I had always admired President Bush’s steady leadership, and his unwavering commitment to certain values and principles, most notably keeping America safe. But getting to know him personally, I admired the way he carried the office of the Presidency.  When you are President, you are always President, whether relaxing in a small group or at public events.  President Bush respected the office, and lived every day in a way that could make our country proud.

Thank you to Professor Joerg Knipprath for your enlightening and thorough essays on Federalist Papers No. 69 (The Real Character of the Executive ) and 70 (The Executive Department Further Considered ).  The historical background you provide gives a useful prism from which to view these two papers that explore the President’s powers versus those of the British Monarch and the New York Governor, and the decision of the founders to have a unified executive, versus two or more heading that branch.

In Federalist No. 69 Publius makes a convincing argument that the United States Presidency, while powerful enough to head the country, is not as powerful as the King, or even the New York Governor (with the exception of the power to make treaties).  This is a fascinating comparison, and reveals the founders’ thought process on why the Presidency of our country is vested with certain powers and limited in others.

Some of the President’s powers originally outlined by the founders have waned, while others have increased. The President’s term in office still remains at four years, but is now limited to two terms by the twenty-second Amendment.

The President’s power to

“nominate, and, WITH THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, to appoint ambassadors and other public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and in general all officers of the United States established by law, and whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by the Constitution,”

has been expanded over the years by the President’s ability to create “Czar” positions.  These “Czar” positions sound eerily similar to the power Publius ascribes to the King, and denies the President having:

The king of Great Britain is emphatically and truly styled the fountain of honor. He not only appoints to all offices, but can create offices.”

Time Magazine provides an interesting history of “Czars” in the United States at this link: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1925564,00.html

Time states the first Czar existed in President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet during World War I, when Wilson appointed Bernard Baruch to head the War Industries board, and was known as the Industry Czar.  This must have been the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent, as the use of “Czars” has mushroomed from that point forward.

In Federalist No. 70, Publius defends the decision of the founders to have a single executive in the office of the Presidency head the executive branch, versus two or more individuals.  The benefits of a unified executive make an extraordinary amount of sense, especially in protecting the people’s liberty through transparency, and accountability.  As difficult as it was to pinpoint blame in Watergate, for example, imagine how much more difficult it might have been had there been two Chief Executives.  Professor Knipprath quotes Harry Truman’s famous line, “the buck stops here,” and that indeed is one of the most important attributes of the United States Presidency.

The founders’ grasp of history, as they detail the failures of past plural executives, such as the Achaens, or the dissensions between the Consuls and the military Tribunes in Roman history once again illuminates their arguments.  And their grasp of human nature is equally as profound –

“Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office, in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity.”

“Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.”

Our United States Presidency is a unique institution, crafted thoughtfully and skillfully by our founding fathers!

On to Federalist #71!

Good night and God Bless,

Cathy Gillespie

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

 

Guest Essayist: Joerg Knipprath, Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School

Federalist 70 is the heart of Hamilton’s investigation of the nature of executive power. Publius returns to “energy,” a theme that he has addressed frequently in his essays as a necessary attribute of government generally, and the Union in particular. As executive power is the essence of government, energy is the essence of executive power. Energy in the executive produces vigor in the administration of law and expeditiousness in response to necessity. Too much energy, however, can threaten republican government and personal liberty. The secret is to find the constitutional version of Aristotle’s golden mean.

The Antifederalists had a lavish panorama of historical examples to illustrate the dangers of energetic executives. They proposed a multiple executive, instead, examples of which were spread throughout history, while others were close at hand in the states. Multiple executives are of several types. One, such as the consuls and tribunes of Rome or the kings of Sparta, are of equal dignity and can veto each other’s acts. Another, more favored by the states and based on the republican variant of the old British model, involves a governor-and-council structure.

There are others, not mentioned in Federalist 70. One is the modern British cabinet model, where ministers hold their portfolio independent of the “prime” minister through election by the party. Formally, they are the monarch’s ministers, but today this is a quaint fiction, as the monarch reigns as head of state, but does not rule. An American version of this can be found in the governments of many states, where various executive officials are elected independent of the governor. Those officials, like the California Attorney General, Secretary of State, and others, derive their powers directly from the state constitution and election by the people, not from appointment by the chief executive.

As anyone who has worked on a committee or sat in a meeting knows, the more people there are, the less of substance gets done, and the exponentially longer it takes to do so. Veterans of faculty meetings can bear particularly melancholy witness to those truths. Hamilton urges that multiplicity is welcome in the legislative department, where deliberation and the “wisdom of the multitude” are valuable to reach a “right” decision and to protect the rights of the minority. Indeed, haste in the passage of laws will result in badly-written legislation with unintended or—if the law is so long and complex that it has not even been read—unknown consequences, as well as in laws that may be against the people’s wishes.

In the executive, however, delays and indecision are damaging. As a member of General Washington’s staff, Hamilton personally must have been keenly aware of the incapacity of the Continental Congress and even the Board of War, its agency, to direct the war effort reliably and effectively. A multiple executive also courts the evils of faction, undermining stability. At the same time, a successful cabal among multiple executives can magnify their danger to liberty.

It is crucial, then, that the executive be unitary, to provide the requisite energy and vigor to accomplish the objectives of government expeditiously and without endangering the respect for law that haphazard and desultory administration brings. There are other benefits from a unitary executive, ones that, at the same time, provide the most effective protections of liberty. Those are transparency and accountability. It has been said that success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. Having a single decision-maker shines the light of responsibility on him: “The buck stops here.” The best protection against abuse by an overly-energetic executive is, predictably, the vigilance of the people expressed at the next election. But they cannot exercise that vigilance when multiple parties are pointing fingers at each other the way that members of Congress do when policies they have been championing become political liabilities. Nor can responsibility readily be gauged when politically tough issues are shunted onto appointed commissions, such as “deficit commissions,” whose “recommendations” are treated as binding.

Another limit on the executive comes through formal restraints. Some are institutional, such as fixed terms and removal through impeachment. Others are more in line with the “auxiliary precautions” Publius defends in Federalist 51 in connection with separation and balancing of powers. Examples are the qualified nature of the veto and the Senate’s role in approving treaties, in both of which the President is engaged in making law. With the exception of the appointment power, however, there are no formal limits on his explicit executive functions.

The objectives of executive government that Hamilton cites are instructive: Protecting against foreign attacks, securing liberty against domestic subversion, protecting property against riots and insurrection, and administering the law in an impartial and constant manner. In this classic political minimalism, one notes the absence of the trappings of the modern administrative Leviathan that has taken over functions best left to other institutions.

Despite the assertions in Federalist 70, the nature of the executive branch was ambiguous when the government convened. Hamilton, a fan of the British political system, contributed to that uncertainty. As Treasury Secretary, he envisioned the cabinet as an approximation of the British system, with the President as chief of state and as someone who presided over the administration of policies determined by rather willful cabinet officials exercising independent authority. Due to his close connection as Treasury Secretary to Congressional policy-making (and his long personal relationship with George Washington), Hamilton envisioned himself as the prime minister in this arrangement. There was some constitutional plausibility to this conception of a moderate multiple executive, as the Constitution provides that Congress can create a limited appointment power in “heads of departments” and sets up the Senate in some ways like the governor-and-council system. The Senate not only votes to approve appointments and treaties, it technically has an “advice and consent” role that could be read as requiring formal Senate participation before the president nominates an officer or makes a treaty.

Several developments arrested any significant movement in that direction. Textually, the Constitution vests the executive power entirely in the President, subject only to specified limitations, a point Hamilton himself urged further in his 1793 Pacificus essays during the debates over the Neutrality Proclamation. Politically, Hamilton left the Cabinet in 1795, reducing his influence, a trend that was accelerated when his patron, President Washington, left two years later. Even while Hamilton was in the Cabinet, Washington was not the type of person content to play a passive role. He favored a vigorous presidency, and it was clear that, while he listened carefully to his officials, he made the decisions. The Senate-as-council role was buried when Washington, after one soured attempt at consultation before treaty negotiations in 1789, refused to set foot in the building again. Washington’s presidency was intended to help define the ambiguous contours of the president’s powers, and he set the office firmly on the course of the unitary executive.

As a functional constitutional matter, the issue was settled over the course of the debate over the president’s power to fire executive officials at will. A presidential removal power is not specified in the Constitution, so it has to be implied from other powers. Though Hamilton wanted a strong executive, he appears to have favored the view that the president’s power to remove officials can only come from his power to appoint. As the latter requires Senatorial consent, so must the former, a position Hamilton endorses in Federalist 77. The reason for his support of what at first blush appears to be a dilution of executive unity is that he liked the British style of government. Presidents could come and go, but, if a new president could not unilaterally remove members of the Cabinet, those members gained political independence. Effectively, that made them the policy-makers and administrators as long as they maintained the confidence of the Senate. With that qualification, Hamilton favored a strong, independent executive branch.

The removal power occupied the first Congress’s attention. The matter was resolved by artful language in a statute that implied that the President had the inherent executive power to remove the secretary of state. While this was a victory for the unitary executive argument, there remained ambiguities. President Andrew Jackson won a clear political victory in favor of the unitary executive doctrine by removing the secretary of the treasury when the latter disobeyed a presidential order, even though Congress had given the secretary the discretion to act as he did. Analogous to Hamilton’s implied executive powers theory of the Pacificus letters, Jackson argued that the appointment and removal powers were both executive powers that, unless expressly limited by the Constitution, belonged to the President as head of the unitary executive branch.

As the removal controversy demonstrates, the unitary executive broadly implicates separation of powers that finds concrete expression in provisions of the Constitution. If those provisions are elastic, such as the executive power clause, the “take care” clause, or the commander-in-chief clause, the line between execution of policy and legislation of policy can become blurred. The need to find limits is matched by the difficulty of doing so. Much depends in specific cases on formal precedent (legislative, executive, and judicial) and customary constitutional practice shaped by broad popular acceptance. For example, the unitary executive theory underlies doctrines of executive immunity and executive privilege. Those concepts are not expressly addressed in the Constitution but are obviously connected to an energetic executive branch and the unitary executive that animates it. Though the Supreme Court did not address executive privilege until 1974, it arose early in the Washington administration, when the President set a precedent followed by almost all his successors. In implied powers cases, the need for action often determines the outcome, and foreign relations, military affairs, national security, and emergencies define their own scope of action.

Despite Jackson’s victory and a long history in support of the unitary executive, controversy still flares occasionally. A recent challenge to the unitary executive theory has involved presidential “signing statements.” These have long been used as expressions of reservation about the constitutionality of a proposed law. Critics argue that the president can veto the bill, if he believes it to be unconstitutional. If the Congress overrides the veto, is the president then bound to enforce the bill? He is obligated to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, but there is also the long tradition of executive discretion in the enforcement of laws. Moreover, if the law invades a presidential power or is otherwise unconstitutional, the president can refuse to enforce this statute.

Laws, however, are often many-layered creations. Why should the president have to veto the whole effort just to avoid enforcing one objectionable part? A signing statement can help. In fact, the signing statement puts everyone on notice about the president’s intentions. They are constitutional because the president as head of the executive branch is independently responsible under the Constitution for the actions of the whole branch in the enforcement of laws.

The unitary nature of the executive also has been challenged by some who cite to the existence of a vast array of “independent” administrative agencies as contrary evidence. Since the 1930s, the Supreme Court has upheld Congress’s power to limit the President’s removal power in regards to officers of independent agencies. Using the unitary executive theory, presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have formally rejected the assertion these agencies are beyond the President’s removal power. Such agencies are performing executive functions and are not otherwise recognized under the Constitution as a fourth branch of government. One may wonder, though, whether any dilution of the unitary executive paradigm is really the problem. The sheer growth of government (of which administrative agencies are the most significant part) is probably more responsible for the dearth of transparency and accountability citizens endure.

Critics of the administrative state see this exception from the application of the general rules for  separation and balance of powers as more evidence that these agencies are unconstitutional. The still-growing reach of the regulatory state assures that the issue will not go away. As the matter involves fundamental and shifting boundaries between the legislative and executive domains, it is thoroughly political and admits of no definitive settlement. But the broad theory of the Constitution has been settled in favor of the unitary executive that Hamilton defends in Federalist 70 and his later writings.

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

An expert on constitutional law, Prof. Joerg W. Knipprath has been interviewed by print and broadcast media on a number of related topics ranging from recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to presidential succession. He has written opinion pieces and articles on business and securities law as well as constitutional issues, and has focused his more recent research on the effect of judicial review on the evolution of constitutional law.  Prof. Knipprath has also spoken on business law and contemporary constitutional issues before professional and community forums.  His website is http://www.tokenconservative.com