Federalist Papers
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NO. 1    General Inroduction
NO. 2    Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 3    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 4    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 5    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence.
NO. 6    Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States
NO. 7    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States.
NO. 8    The Consequences of Hostilities Between the States
NO. 9    The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.
NO. 10    The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.
NO. 11    The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy
NO. 12    The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue.
NO. 13    Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in Government.
NO. 14    Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answered.
NO. 15    The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union.
NO. 16    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 17    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 18    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 19    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 20    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union.
NO. 21    Other Defects of the Present Confederation
NO. 22    The Same Subject Continued: Other Defects of the Present Confederation
NO. 23    The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union
NO. 24    The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
NO. 25    The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
NO. 26    The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 27    The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 28    The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 29    THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy
NO. 30    Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 31    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 32    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 33    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 34    The Same Subject Continued Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 35    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 36    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 37    Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government
NO. 38    The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed
NO. 39    The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles
NO. 40    The Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained
NO. 41    General View of the Powers Conferred by the Constitution
NO. 42    The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
NO. 43    The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
NO. 44    Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States
NO. 45    The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered
NO. 46    The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared
NO. 47    The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts
NO. 48    These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other
NO. 49    Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention
NO. 50    Periodic Appeals to the People Considered
NO. 51    The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments
NO. 52    The House of Representatives
NO. 53    The Same Subject Continued: The House of Representatives
NO. 54    The Apportionment of Members Among the States
NO. 55    The Total Number of the House of Representatives
NO. 56    The Total Number of the House of Representatives
NO. 57    The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation
NO. 58    Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered
NO. 59    Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
NO. 60    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
NO. 61    The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members)
NO. 62    The Senate
NO. 63    The Senate Continued
NO. 64    The Powers of the Senate
NO. 65    The Powers of the Senate Continued
NO. 66    Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered
NO. 67    The Executive Department
NO. 68    The Mode of Electing the President
NO. 69    The Real Character of the Executive
NO. 70    The Executive Department Further Considered
NO. 71    The Duration in Office of the Executive.
NO. 72    The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered
Close
End of Federalist Paper No. 72
FEDERALIST NO. 72
The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered
From the New York Packet     Friday March 21, 1788
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of New York


DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=1- XthisXParaX=1-
DeB 131 -1-THE administration of government, in its largest sense, comprehends all the operations of the body politic, whether legislative, executive, or judiciary; but in its most usual, and perhaps its most precise signification. DeB 131 -2-it is limited to executive details, and falls peculiarly within the province of the executive department. DeB 131 -3-The actual conduct of foreign negotiations, the preparatory plans of finance, the application and disbursement of the public moneys in conformity to the general appropriations of the legislature, the arrangement of the army and navy, the directions of the operations of war, these, and other matters of a like nature, constitute what seems to be most properly understood by the administration of government. DeB 131 -4-The persons, therefore, to whose immediate management these different matters are committed, ought to be considered as the assistants or deputies of the chief magistrate, and on this account, they ought to derive their offices from his appointment, at least from his nomination, and ought to be subject to his superintendence. DeB 131 -5-This view of the subject will at once suggest to us the intimate connection between the duration of the executive magistrate in office and the stability of the system of administration. DeB 131 -6-To reverse and undo what has been done by a predecessor, is very often considered by a successor as the best proof he can give of his own capacity and desert; and in addition to this propensity, where the alteration has been the result of public choice, the person substituted is warranted in supposing that the dismission of his predecessor has proceeded from a dislike to his measures; and that the less he resembles him, the more he will recommend himself to the favor of his constituents. DeB 131 -7-These considerations, and the influence of personal confidences and attachments, would be likely to induce every new President to promote a change of men to fill the subordinate stations; and these causes together could not fail to occasion a disgraceful and ruinous mutability in the administration of the government.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=2- XthisXParaX=2-
DeB 131 -1-With a positive duration of considerable extent, I connect the circumstance of re-eligibility. DeB 131 -2-The first is necessary to give to the officer himself the inclination and the resolution to act his part well, and to the community time and leisure to observe the tendency of his measures, and thence to form an experimental estimate of their merits. DeB 131 -3-The last is necessary to enable the people, when they see reason to approve of his conduct, to continue him in his station, in order to prolong the utility of his talents and virtues, and to secure to the government the advantage of permanency in a wise system of administration.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=3- XthisXParaX=3-
DeB 131 -1-This exclusion, whether temporary or perpetual, would have nearly the same effects, and these effects would be for the most part rather pernicious than salutary.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=4- XthisXParaX=4-
DeB 131 -1-One ill effect of the exclusion would be a diminution of the inducements to good behavior. DeB 131 -2-There are few men who would not feel much less zeal in the discharge of a duty when they were conscious that the advantages of the station with which it was connected must be relinquished at a determinate period, than when they were permitted to entertain a hope of OBTAINING, by MERITING, a continuance of them. DeB 131 -3-This position will not be disputed so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interests coincide with their duty. DeB 131 -4-Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds, which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to mature and perfect them, if he could flatter himself with the prospect of being allowed to finish what he had begun, would, on the contrary, deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work, and must commit that, together with his own reputation, to hands which might be unequal or unfriendly to the task. DeB 131 -5-The most to be expected from the generality of men, in such a situation, is the negative merit of not doing harm, instead of the positive merit of doing good.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=5- XthisXParaX=5-
DeB 131 -1-Another ill effect of the exclusion would be the temptation to sordid views, to peculation, and, in some instances, to usurpation. DeB 131 -2-An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to a time when he must at all events yield up the emoluments he enjoyed, would feel a propensity, not easy to be resisted by such a man, to make the best use of the opportunity he enjoyed while it lasted, and might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients to make the harvest as abundant as it was transitory; though the same man, probably, with a different prospect before him, might content himself with the regular perquisites of his situation, and might even be unwilling to risk the consequences of an abuse of his opportunities. DeB 131 -3-His avarice might be a guard upon his avarice. DeB 131 -4-Add to this that the same man might be vain or ambitious, as well as avaricious. DeB 131 -5-And if he could expect to prolong his honors by his good conduct, he might hesitate to sacrifice his appetite for them to his appetite for gain. DeB 131 -6-But with the prospect before him of approaching an inevitable annihilation, his avarice would be likely to get the victory over his caution, his vanity, or his ambition.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=6- XthisXParaX=6-
DeB 131 -1-An ambitious man, too, when he found himself seated on the summit of his country's honors, when he looked forward to the time at which he must descend from the exalted eminence for ever, and reflected that no exertion of merit on his part could save him from the unwelcome reverse; such a man, in such a situation, would be much more violently tempted to embrace a favorable conjuncture for attempting the prolongation of his power, at every personal hazard, than if he had the probability of answering the same end by doing his duty.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=7- XthisXParaX=7-
DeB 131 -1-Would it promote the peace of the community, or the stability of the government to have half a dozen men who had had credit enough to be raised to the seat of the supreme magistracy, wandering among the people like discontented ghosts, and sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess?

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=8- XthisXParaX=8-
DeB 131 -1-A third ill effect of the exclusion would be, the depriving the community of the advantage of the experience gained by the chief magistrate in the exercise of his office. DeB 131 -2-That experience is the parent of wisdom, is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind. DeB 131 -3-What more desirable or more essential than this quality in the governors of nations? DeB 131 -4-Where more desirable or more essential than in the first magistrate of a nation? DeB 131 -5-Can it be wise to put this desirable and essential quality under the ban of the Constitution, and to declare that the moment it is acquired, its possessor shall be compelled to abandon the station in which it was acquired, and to which it is adapted? DeB 131 -6-This, nevertheless, is the precise import of all those regulations which exclude men from serving their country, by the choice of their fellow citizens, after they have by a course of service fitted themselves for doing it with a greater degree of utility.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=9- XthisXParaX=9-
DeB 131 -1-A fourth ill effect of the exclusion would be the banishing men from stations in which, in certain emergencies of the state, their presence might be of the greatest moment to the public interest or safety. DeB 131 -2-There is no nation which has not, at one period or another, experienced an absolute necessity of the services of particular men in particular situations; perhaps it would not be too strong to say, to the preservation of its political existence. DeB 131 -3-How unwise, therefore, must be every such self-denying ordinance as serves to prohibit a nation from making use of its own citizens in the manner best suited to its exigencies and circumstances! Without supposing the personal essentiality of the man, it is evident that a change of the chief magistrate, at the breaking out of a war, or at any similar crisis, for another, even of equal merit, would at all times be detrimental to the community, inasmuch as it would substitute inexperience to experience, and would tend to unhinge and set afloat the already settled train of the administration.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=10- XthisXParaX=10-
DeB 131 -1-A fifth ill effect of the exclusion would be, that it would operate as a constitutional interdiction of stability in the administration. DeB 131 -2-By NECESSITATING a change of men, in the first office of the nation, it would necessitate a mutability of measures. DeB 131 -3-It is not generally to be expected, that men will vary and measures remain uniform. DeB 131 -4-The contrary is the usual course of things. DeB 131 -5-And we need not be apprehensive that there will be too much stability, while there is even the option of changing; nor need we desire to prohibit the people from continuing their confidence where they think it may be safely placed, and where, by constancy on their part, they may obviate the fatal inconveniences of fluctuating councils and a variable policy.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=11- XthisXParaX=11-
DeB 131 -1-These are some of the disadvantages which would flow from the principle of exclusion. DeB 131 -2-They apply most forcibly to the scheme of a perpetual exclusion; but when we consider that even a partial exclusion would always render the readmission of the person a remote and precarious object, the observations which have been made will apply nearly as fully to one case as to the other.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=12- XthisXParaX=12-
DeB 131 -1-What are the advantages promised to counterbalance these disadvantages? DeB 131 -2-They are represented to be: 1st, greater independence in the magistrate; 2d, greater security to the people. DeB 131 -3-Unless the exclusion be perpetual, there will be no pretense to infer the first advantage. DeB 131 -4-But even in that case, may he have no object beyond his present station, to which he may sacrifice his independence? DeB 131 -5-May he have no connections, no friends, for whom he may sacrifice it? DeB 131 -6-May he not be less willing by a firm conduct, to make personal enemies, when he acts under the impression that a time is fast approaching, on the arrival of which he not only MAY, but MUST, be exposed to their resentments, upon an equal, perhaps upon an inferior, footing? DeB 131 -7-It is not an easy point to determine whether his independence would be most promoted or impaired by such an arrangement.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=13- XthisXParaX=13-
DeB 131 -1-As to the second supposed advantage, there is still greater reason to entertain doubts concerning it. DeB 131 -2-If the exclusion were to be perpetual, a man of irregular ambition, of whom alone there could be reason in any case to entertain apprehension, would, with infinite reluctance, yield to the necessity of taking his leave forever of a post in which his passion for power and pre-eminence had acquired the force of habit. DeB 131 -3-And if he had been fortunate or adroit enough to conciliate the good-will of the people, he might induce them to consider as a very odious and unjustifiable restraint upon themselves, a provision which was calculated to debar them of the right of giving a fresh proof of their attachment to a favorite. DeB 131 -4-There may be conceived circumstances in which this disgust of the people, seconding the thwarted ambition of such a favorite, might occasion greater danger to liberty, than could ever reasonably be dreaded from the possibility of a perpetuation in office, by the voluntary suffrages of the community, exercising a constitutional privilege.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=72- ParaX=14- XthisXParaX=14-
DeB 131 -1-There is an excess of refinement in the idea of disabling the people to continue in office men who had entitled themselves, in their opinion, to approbation and confidence; the advantages of which are at best speculative and equivocal, and are overbalanced by disadvantages far more certain and decisive.

Beginning of Federalist Paper No. 72

Close

NO. 73    The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power
NO. 74    The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive
NO. 75    The Treaty Making Power of the Executive
NO. 76    The Appointing Power of the Executive
NO. 77    The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered
NO. 78    The Judiciary Department
NO. 79    The Judiciary Department Continued
NO. 80    The Powers of the Judiciary
NO. 81    The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority
NO. 82    The Judiciary Continued
NO. 83    The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury
NO. 84    Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered.
NO. 85    Concluding Remarks
NO. 449   
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