HKB
was to give the executive alone a revisionary check upon legislation, which should not be absolute if it were afterwards overruled by two thirds of each branch of the legislature.[31]
But inasmuch as this provision would leave the precise purposes of the check undetermined, and in order, as it would seem, to subject the whole of the legislative acts to revision and control by the executive, some of the members desired that the judiciary, or a convenient number of the judges, might be added to the executive as a council of revision. Among these persons were Mr. Madison and Mr. Wilson. The former expressed a very decided opinion, that, whether the object of a revisionary power was to restrain the encroachments of the legislature on the other departments, or on the rights of the people at large, or to prevent the passage of laws unwise in principle or incorrect in form, there would be great utility in annexing the wisdom and weight of the judiciary to the executive. But this proposition was rejected by a large majority of the States, and the power was left by the committee as it had been settled by their former decision. These proceedings, however, do not furnish any decisive evidence of the nature and purpose of the revisionary check.
But before this feature of the Constitution had been settled by the committee, they had determined on a mode in which the executive should be appointed. It is singular that the idea of an election of the executive by the people, either mediately or immediately, found so little favor at first, that on its first introduction it received the votes of but two States. Since the executive was to be the agent of the legislative will, it was argued by some members that it ought to be wholly dependent, and ought therefore to be chosen by the legislature. The experience of New York and of Massachusetts, on the other hand,--where the election of the first magistrate by the people had been successfully practised,--and the danger that the legislature and the candidates might play into each other's hands, and thus give rise to constant intrigues for the office, were the arguments employed by others. Upon the introduction of a proposition that the States be divided into districts, for the election by the people of electors of the executive, two States only recorded their votes in its favor, and eight States voted against it.[32] By the vote of eight States it was then determined that the executive should be elected by the national legislature for the term of seven years;[33] and subsequently it was determined that the executive should be ineligible to a second term of office, and should be removable on impeachment and conviction of malpractice or neglect of duty. A single executive was agreed to by a vote of seven States against three.[34] After the mode in which the negative was to be exercised had been settled, an attempt was made to change the appointment, and vest it in the executives of the States. But this proposal was decisively rejected.[35]