and that the plan would be unexceptionable but for
the fatal power of regulating the times and places
of election. An objector in a large state exclaims
loudly against the unreasonable equality of representation
in the Senate. An objector in a small state is
equally loud against the dangerous inequality in the
House of Representatives. From one quarter we
are alarmed with the amazing expense, from the number
of persons who are to administer the new government.
From another quarter, and sometimes from the same
quarter, on another occasion the cry is that the Congress
will be but the shadow of a representation, and that
the government would be far less objectionable if
the number and the expense were doubled. A patriot
in a state that does not import or export discerns
insuperable objections against the power of direct
taxation. The patriotic adversary in a state
of great exports and imports is not less dissatisfied
that the whole burden of taxes may be thrown on consumption.
This politician discovers in the constitution a direct
and irresistible tendency to monarchy. That is
equally sure it will end in aristocracy. Another
is puzzled to say which of these shapes it will ultimately
assume, but sees clearly it must be one or other of
them. Whilst a fourth is not wanting, who with
no less confidence affirms that the Constitution is
so far from having a bias towards either of these
dangers, that the weight on that side will not be
sufficient to keep it upright and firm against the
opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries
to the Constitution, the language is, that the legislative,
executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed
in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of
regular government and all the requisite precautions
in favour of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates
in vague and general expressions, there are not a
few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one
come forward with his particular explanation, and scarcely
any two are exactly agreed on 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 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 a third the
admission of the President into any share of a power
which must ever 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.”