from the people, it is made to
participate most fully in the preponderating authority of the multitude,
and it is naturally led to monopolize every species of influence. This
concentration is at once prejudicial to a well-conducted administration,
and 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 Constitutions 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