adict all the ideas of
regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of
liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general
expressions, there are but a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each
one come forward with his particular explanation, and scarce any two are
exactly agreed upon the subject. In the eyes of one the junction of the
Senate with the President in the responsible function of appointing to
offices, instead of vesting this executive power in the Executive alone,
is the vicious part of the organization. To another, the exclusion
of the House of Representatives, whose numbers alone could be a due
security against corruption and partiality in the exercise of such
a power, is equally obnoxious. With another, the admission of the
President into any share of a power which ever must be a dangerous
engine in the hands of the executive magistrate, is an unpardonable
violation of the maxims of republican jealousy. No part of the
arrangement, according to some, is more inadmissible than the trial of
impeachments by the Senate, which is alternately a member both of the
legislative and executive departments, when this power so evidently
belonged to the judiciary department. "We concur fully," reply others,
"in the objection to this part of the plan, but we can never agree
that a reference of impeachments to the judiciary authority would be an
amendment of the error. Our principal dislike to the organization arises
from the extensive powers already lodged in that department." Even
among the zealous patrons of a council of state the most irreconcilable
variance is discovered concerning the mode in which it ought to be
constituted. The demand of one gentleman is, that the council should
consist of a small number to be appointed by the most numerous branch of
the legislature. Another would prefer a larger number, and considers it
as a fundamental condition that the appointment should be made by the
President himself.

As it can give no umbrage to the writers against the plan of the federal
Constitution, let us suppose, that as they are the most zealous, so they
are also the most sagacious, of those who think the late convention
were unequal to the task assigned them, and that a wiser and better plan
might and ought to be substituted. Let us further suppose that their
country should concur, both in this favorable opinion of their
merits, and in their unfavorable opinion of the convention; and