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CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
§ 1411. Taking it, then, for granted, that there ought to be an executive department, the next consideration is, how it ought to be organized. It may be stated in general terms, that that organization is best, which will at once secure energy in the executive, and safety to the people. The notion, however, is not uncommon, and occasionally finds ingenious advocates, that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of a republican government.
[1] It is difficult to find any sufficient grounds, on which to rest this notion; and those, which are usually stated, belong principally to that class of minds, which readily indulge in the belief of the general perfection, as well as perfectibility, of human nature, and deem the least possible quantity of power, with which government can subsist, to be the best. To those, who look abroad into the world, and attentively read the history of other nations, ancient and modern, far different lessons are taught with a severe truth and force. Those lessons instruct them, that energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of a good government.
[2] It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks.
- ↑ See 2 American Museum, 427.—Milton was of this opinion; and triumphantly states, that "all ingenious and knowing men will easily agree with me, that a free commonwealth, without a single person or house of lords, is by far the best government, if it can be had." (Milton on the Heady and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth.) His notion was, that the whole power of the government should centre in a house of commons.—Locke was in favour of a concentration of the whole executive and legislative powers in a small assembly; and Hume thought the executive powers safely lodged with a hundred senators. (Hume's Essays, Vol. 1, Essay 16, p. 526.)—Mr. Chancellor Kent has made some just reflections upon these extraordinary opinions in 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 13, p. 264.
- ↑ 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 13, p. 253, 254; Rawle on Const. ch. 12, p. 147, 148.
