CH. XXXVI.]
EXECUTIVE—UNITY.
287
§ 1419. Objections of a like nature apply, though in some respects with diminished force, to the scheme of an executive council, whose constitutional concurrence is rendered indispensable. An artful cabal in that council would be able to distract and enervate the whole public councils. And even without such a cabal, the mere diversity of views and opinions would almost always mark the exercise of the executive authority with a spirit of habitual feebleness and dilatoriness, or a degrading inconsistency.
[1] But an objection, in a republican government quite as weighty, is, that such a participation in the executive power has a direct tendency 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 government. Men in public trust will more often act in such a manner, as to render them unworthy of public favour, than to render themselves liable to legal punishment. But the multiplication of voices in the business of the executive renders it difficult to fix responsibility of either kind; for it is perpetually shifted from one to another. It often becomes impossible amidst mutual accusations to determine, upon whom the blame ought to rest.
[2] A sense of mutual impropriety sometimes induces the parties to resort to plausible pretexts to disguise their misconduct; or a dread of public responsibility to cover up,
abandoning the helm of government; and it continued without a head, until congress met, in the ensuing winter. This was then imputed to the temper of two or three individuals. But the wise ascribed it to the nature of man." 4 Jefferson's Corresp. 161.
- ↑ The Federalist, No. 70.
- ↑ The Federalist, No. 70; 3 Elliot's Deb. 99, 100, 103; id. 272; 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 13, p. 253, 254.
