CH. XXXVI.]
EXECUTIVE—DURATION OF OFFICE.
293
their reverence.[1] But how can resistance be expected, where the tenure of office is so short, as to make it ineffectual and insecure?
§ 1426. The same considerations apply with increased force to the legislature. If the executive department were to be subservient to the wishes of the legislature, at all times and under all circumstances, the whole objects of a partition of the powers of government would be defeated. To what purpose would it be to separate the executive and judiciary from the legislature, if both are to be so constituted, as to be at the absolute devotion of the latter? It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws; and quite a different thing to be dependent upon the legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and, in fact, whatever may be the form of the constitution, the last unites all power in the same hands. The tendency of the legislative authority to absorb every other has been already insisted on at large in the preceding part of these Commentaries, and need not here be further illustrated. In governments purely republican it has been seen, that this tendency is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people are but too apt to imagine, that they are the people themselves; and they betray strong symptoms of impatience and even disgust at the least resistance from any other quarter. They seem to think the exercise of its proper rights by the executive, or the judiciary, to be a breach of their privileges, and an impeachment of their wisdom.[2] If, therefore, the executive is- ↑ The Federalist, No. 71.
- ↑ The Federalist, No. 71; id. No. 73; id. No. 51.—Mr. Jefferson says, "The executive in our governments is not the sole, it is scarcely the principal object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislatures is the most formidable dread at present, and will be for many years. That
