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By Richard Henry Lee.
Antifederalist No. 69The
great object is, in a republican government, to guard effectually against perpetuating any
portion of power, great or small, in the same man or family. This perpetuation of power is
totally uncongenial to the true spirit of republican governments. On the one hand the
first executive magistrate ought to remain in office so long as to avoid instability in
the execution of the laws; on the other, not so long as to enable ]him to take any
measures to establish himself. The convention, it seems, first agreed that the president
should be chosen for seven years, and never after to be eligible. Whether seven years is a
period too long or not, is rather a matter of opinion; but clear it is, that this mode is
infinitely preferable to the one finally adopted. When a man shall get the chair, who may
be reelected from time to time, for life, his greatest object will be to keep it; to gain
friends and votes, at any rate; to associate some favorite son with himself, to take
office after him. Whenever he shall have any prospect of continuing the office in himself
and family, he will spare no artifice, no address, and no exertions, to increase the
powers and importance of it. The servile supporters of his wishes will be placed in all
offices, and tools constantly employed to aid his views and sound his praise. A man so
situated will have no permanent interest in the government to lose, by contests and
convulsions in the state; but always much to gain, and frequently the seducing and
flattering hope of succeeding. If we reason at all on the subject, we must irresistibly
conclude that this will be the case with nine tenths of the presidents. We may have, for
the first president, and perhaps, one in a century or two afterwards (if the government
should withstand the attacks of others) a great and good man, governed by superior
motives; but these are not events to be calculated upon in the present state of human
nature. A man chosen to this important office for a limited period and always afterwards
rendered, by the constitution, ineligible, will be governed by very different
considerations. He can have no rational hopes or expectations of retaining his office
after the expiration of a known limited time, or of continuing the office in his family,
as by the constitution there must be a constant transfer of it from one man to another,
and consequently from one family to another. No man will wish to be a mere cipher at the
bead of the government. The great object of each president then will be to render his
government a glorious period in the annals of his country. When a man constitutionally
retires from office, he retires without pain; he is sensible he retires because the laws
direct it, and not from the success of is rivals, nor with that public disapprobation
which being left out, when eligible, implies. It is said that a man knowing that at a
given period he must quit his office, will unjustly attempt to take from the public, and
lay in store the means of support and splendor in his retirement. There can, I think, be
but very little in this observation. The same constitution that makes a man eligible for a
given period only, ought to make no man eligible till he arrive to the age of forty or
forty-five years. If he be a man of fortune, be will retire with dignity to his estate; if
not, he may, like the Roman consuls, and other eminent characters in republics, find an
honorable support and employment in some respectable office. A man who must, at all
events, thus leave his office, will have but few or no temptations to fill its dependent
offices with his tools, or any particular set of men; whereas the man constantly looking
forward to his future elections, and perhaps, to the aggrandizement of his family, will
have every inducement before him to fill all places with his own props and dependents. As
to public monies, the president need handle none of them, and he may always rigidly be
made to account for every shilling he shall receive.
On the whole, it would be, in my opinion, almost as well to create a limited monarchy at
once, and give some family permanent power and interest in the community, and let it have
something valuable to itself to lose in convulsions in the state, and in attempts of
usurpation, as to make a first magistrate eligible for life, and to create hopes and
expectations in him and his family of obtaining what they have not. In the latter case, we
actually tempt them to disturb the state, to foment struggles and contests, by laying
before them the flattering prospect of gaining much without risking anything.
The constitution provides only that the president shall hold his office during the term of
four years; that, at most, only implies, that one shall be chosen every fourth year. I
also provides that in case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the
president and vice-president, congress may declare what officer shall act as president;
and that such officers shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a
president shall be elected. It also provides that congress may determine the time of
choosing electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes. Considering these
clauses together, I submit this question -- whether in case of a vacancy in the office of
president, by the removal, death, resignation, or inability of the president and vice
president, and congress should declare that a certain officer, as secretary of foreign
affairs, for instance, shall act as president, and suffer such officer to continue several
years, or even for his life, to act as president, by omitting to appoint the time for
choosing electors of another president, it would be any breach of the constitution? There
appears to me to be an intended provision for supplying the office of president -- not
only for any remaining portion of the four years, but in cases of emergency-- until
another president shall be elected. . . . [But] we do not know that it is impossible; we
do not know that it is improbable, in case a popular officer should thus be declared the
acting president, that he might continue for life, and without any violent act, but merely
by neglects and delays on the part of congress. . .
THE FEDERAL FARMER
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