the peace and sheriffs; and the appointment of officers
in the executive department, down to captains in the army and navy of
the State.

In the constitution of Georgia, where it is declared "that the
legislative, executive, and judiciary departments shall be separate and
distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to
the other," we find that the executive department is to be filled by
appointments of the legislature; and the executive prerogative of pardon
to be finally exercised by the same authority. Even justices of the
peace are to be appointed by the legislature.

In citing these cases, in which the legislative, executive, and
judiciary departments have not been kept totally separate and
distinct, I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular
organizations of the several State governments. I am fully aware that
among the many excellent principles which they exemplify, they carry
strong marks of the haste, and still stronger of the inexperience, under
which they were framed. It is but too obvious that in some instances the
fundamental principle under consideration has been violated by too great
a mixture, and even an actual consolidation, of the different powers;
and that in no instance has a competent provision been made for
maintaining in practice the separation delineated on paper. What I
have wished to evince is, that the charge brought against the proposed
Constitution, of violating the sacred maxim of free government, is
warranted neither by the real meaning annexed to that maxim by its
author, nor by the sense in which it has hitherto been understood in
America. This interesting subject will be resumed in the ensuing paper.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 48

These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No
Constitutional Control Over Each Other.

From the New York Packet. Friday, February 1, 1788.

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

IT WAS shown in the last paper that the political apothegm there
examined does not require that the legislative, executive, and judiciary
departments should be wholly unconnected with each other. I shall
undertake, in the next place, to show that unless these departments be
so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control
over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires,
as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly
maintained.

It is agreed