HKB
favorable to the despotism of the majority. The legislators of the states frequently yielded to these democratic propensities, which were invariably and courageously resisted by the founders of the Union.
In the states the executive power is vested in the hands of a magistrate, who is apparently placed upon a level with the legislature, but who is in reality nothing more than the blind agent and the passive instrument of its decisions. He can derive no influence from the duration of his functions, which terminate with the revolving year, or from the exercise of prerogatives which can scarcely be said to exist. The legislature can condemn him to inaction by intrusting the execution of the laws to special committees of its own members, and can annul his temporary dignity by depriving him of his salary. The federal constitution vests all the privileges and all the responsibility of the executive power in a single individual. The duration of the presidency is fixed at four years; the salary of the individual who fills that office cannot be altered during the term of his functions; he is protected by a body of official dependents, and armed with a suspensive veto. In short, every effort was made to confer a strong and independent position upon the executive authority, within the limits which had been prescribed to it.
In the constitution of all the states the judicial power is that which remains the most independent of the legislative authority: nevertheless, in all the states the legislature has reserved to itself the right of regulating the emoluments of the judges, a practice which necessarily subjects these magistrates to its immediate influence. In some states the judges are only temporarily appointed, which deprives them of a great portion of their power and their freedom. In others the legislative and judicial powers are entirely confounded: thus the senate of New York, for instance, constitutes in certain cases the superior court of the state. The federal constitution, on the other hand, carefully separates the judicial authority from all external influences: and it provides for the independence of the judges, by declaring that their salary shall not be altered, and that their functions shall be inalienable.
[It is not universally correct, as supposed by the author, that the state legislatures can deprive their governor of his salary at pleasure. In the constitution of New York it is provided, that the governor "shall receive for his services a compensation which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the term for which he shall have been elected;" and similar provisions are believed to exist in other states. Nor is the remark strictly correct, that the federal constitution "provides for the independence of the judges, by declaring that their salary shall not be altered." The provision of the constitution is, that they shall, "at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office."--American Editor.]
The practical consequences of these different systems may easily be perceived. An attentive observer will soon remark that the business of the Union is incomparably better conducted than that of any individual state. The conduct of the federal government is more fair and more temperate than that of the states; its designs are more fraught with wisdom, its projects are more durable and more skilfully combined, its measures are put into execution with more vigor and consistency.
I recapitulate the substance of this chapter in a few words:--
The existence of democracies is threatened by two dangers, viz.: the complete subjection of the legislative body to the caprices of the electoral body; and the concentration of all the powers of the government in the legislative authority.
The growth of these evils has been encouraged by the policy of the legislators of the states; but it has been resisted by the legislators of the Union by every means which lay within their control.
CHARACTERISTICS WHICH DISTINGUISH THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM ALL OTHER FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONS.