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.
No. LXXI.
BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
The same view continued, in regard to the duration of the office.
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 chief 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
