mself, and consequently be
deprived of the advantages arising from equal discussion.

Those whom he admits in consultation will be ministers of his own
appointment, who, if they displease by their advice, must expect to
be dismissed. The authority also is too great, and the business too
complicated, to be intrusted to the ambition or the judgment of an
individual; and besides these cases, the sudden change of measures
that might follow by the going out of an individual Executive, and the
election of a new one, would hold the affairs of a nation in a state of
perpetual uncertainty. We come then to the case of a plural Executive.

It must be sufficiently plural, to give opportunity to discuss all the
various subjects that in the course of national business may come before
it; and yet not so numerous as to endanger the necessary secrecy that
certain cases, such as those of war, require.

Establishing, then, plurality as a principle, the only question is, What
shall be the number of that plurality?

Three are too few either for the variety or the quantity of business.
The Constitution has adopted five; and experience has shewn, from the
commencement of the Constitution to the time of the election of the new
legislative third, that this number of Directors, when well chosen, is
sufficient for all national executive purposes; and therefore a greater
number would be only an unnecessary expence. That the measures of the
Directory during that period were well concerted is proved by their
success; and their being well concerted shews they were well discussed;
and, therefore, that five is a sufficient number with respect to
discussion; and, on the other hand, the secret, whenever there was
one, (as in the case of the expedition to Ireland,) was well kept, and
therefore the number is not too great to endanger the necessary secrecy.

The reason why the two Councils are numerous is not from the necessity
of their being so, on account of business, but because that every
part of the republic shall find and feel itself in the national
representation.

Next to the general principle of government by representation, the
excellence of the French Constitution consists in providing means to
prevent that abuse of power that might arise by letting it remain too
long in the same hands. This wise precaution pervades every part of the
Constitution. Not only the legislature is renewable by a third every
year, but the president of each of the