CHAPTER IX. THE PRESIDENT. JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER 1787. How to call forth one of the people to be their executive chief for a limited period of years, and how to clothe him with just sufficient powers, long baffled the convention. Federal governments, in Greece, in Switzerland, and in Holland, like the confederation of the United States, had been without a separate executive branch; and the elective monarchies of Poland, of the Papal states, and of Germany, offered no available precedents. The report of the committee of detail of the sixth of August introduced no improvement in the manner of selecting a president; and it transferred to the senate the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors and judges of the supreme court.* Questions relating to his duties long remained in doubt; the mode of his election was reached only just before the close of the convention. The Virginia plan confided the choice of the executive to the national legislature. "An election by the national legislature," objected Gouverneur Morris, on the seventeenth of July, "will be the work of intrigue, of cabal, of corruption, and of faction; it will be like the election of a pope by a conclave of cardinals; of a king by the diet of Poland; real merit will rarely be the title to the appointment." He moved for an election by the "citizens of the United States."+ Sherman preferred a choice by the national legislature. Wilson insisted on an election by the people; should no one have a majority, then, and then only, the legislature might decide between the Gilpin, 1234; Elliot, 379. Gilpin, 1120; Elliot, 322. * candidates.* Charles Pinckney opposed the election by the people, because it would surrender the choice to a combination of the populous states led by a few designing men.t "To refer the choice of a proper character for a chief magistrate to the people," protested Mason, "would be as unnatural as to refer a trial of colors to a blind man." "An election by the people," observed Williamson, "is an appointment by lot." On the first vote Pennsylvania stood alone against nine states. Martin proposed to intrust the appointment to the legislatures of the states; and was supported only by Delaware and Maryland. On the mode of choosing the president, the length of his period of office and his re-eligibility would be made to depend. The convention, in committee, had fixed that period at seven years with a prohibition of re-election. On the motion of William Houston of Georgia, supported by Sherman and Gouverneur Morris, this compulsory rotation was struck out by six states, against Delaware, Virginia, and the two Carolinas. The executive becoming re-eligible, Jacob Broom of Delaware revived the idea of a shorter period of service. McClurg held that the independence of the executive was no less essential than the independence of the judiciary; that a president, elected for a small number of years by the national legislature, and looking to that body for re-election, would be its dependent. To escape from corrupt cabals and yet preserve a good officer in place, he moved that the tenure of office should be good behavior. Gouverneur Morris beamed with joy. Broom found all his difficulties obviated. "Such a tenure,' interposed Sherman, "is neither safe nor admissible; re-election will depend on good behavior." # Madison, who to the last refused with unabated vigor to intrust the choice of the national executive to the national legislature, and at heart would not have been greatly disinclined to the longest period of service for the executive if "an easy and effectual removal by impeachment could have been settled," argued from the necessity of keeping the executive, legislative, and judiciary powers independent of each other, Gilpin, 1121; Elliot, 323. Gilpin, 1121; Elliot, $23. * Gilpin, 1123; Elliot, 324. #Gilpin, 1125, 1126; Elliot, 325. Madison's Writings, i, 345; Gilpin, 1127; Elliot, 326. that the tenure of good behavior for the executive was a less evil than its dependence on the national legislature for reelection. Mason replied: "An executive during good behavior is only a softer name for an executive for life; the next easy step will be to hereditary monarchy. Should the motion succeed, I may myself live to see such a revolution." "To prevent the introduction of monarchy," rejoined Madison, "is, with me, the real object. Experience proves a tendency in our governments to throw all power into the legislative vortex. The executives of the states are in general little more than ciphers; the legislatures omnipotent. If no effectual check be devised on the encroachments of the latter, a revolution will be inevitable." After explanations by McClurg, four statesNew Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, Madison voting with McClurg-expressed their preference for the tenure of good behavior to the tenure of seven years with a perpetual re-eligibility by the national legislature.* Massachusetts was among the six states in the negative, though to King, who "relied on the vigor of the executive as a great security for the public liberties," the tenure of good behavior would have been most agreeable, "provided an independent and effectual forum could be devised for the trial of the executive on an impeachment." + This discussion brought the convention unanimously to the opinion that if the executive was to be chosen by the national legislature, he ought not to be re-eligible. Those, therefore, who agreed with Sherman, that the statesman who had proved himself most fit for an office ought not to be excluded by the constitution from holding it, were bound to devise some other acceptable mode of election. The first thought was an immediate choice by the people. But here Madison pointed out that "the right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the northern states than in the southern; and that the latter would have no influence in the election on the score of the negroes." "# To meet this difficulty, King revived Wilson's proposition for the appointment of the ex 營 Gilpin, 1127, 1128, 1129; Elliot, 326, 327. Gilpin, 1157; Elliot, 342. # Gilpin, 1147; Elliot, 887. Gilpin, 1148; Elliot, 337. * ecutive by electors chosen by the people expressly for the purpose; and Madison promptly accepted it as, " on the whole, liable to fewest objections." + So, too, in part, thought the convention, which, on the motion of Ellsworth, decided, by six states to three, that the national executive should be appointed by electors; and, by eight states to two, that the electors should be chosen by the state legislatures. From confidence in the purity of the electoral body thus established, the re-eligibility of the executive was again affirmed by a vote of eight states against the two Carolinas; # and, in consequence of the re-eligibility, the term of office was, at Ellsworth's motion, reduced by the vote of all the states but Delaware from seven years to six. So the convention hoped to escape from the danger of a corrupt traffic between the national legislature and candidates for the executive by assembling in one place one grand electoral college, chosen by the legislatures of the several states for the sole purpose of electing that officer. To this system Caleb Strong of Massachusetts started this grave objection: "A new set of men, like the electors, will make the government too complex; nor will the first characters in the state feel sufficient motives to undertake the office." A On the previous day Houston of Georgia had directed the thoughts of the convention "to the expense and extreme inconvenience of drawing together men from all the states for the single purpose of electing the chief magistrate."◊ To him, likewise, it now seemed improbable that capable men would undertake the service. He was afraid to trust to it. Moved by these considerations, but still retaining its conviction of the greater purity of an electoral college, the convention, by seven votes against four, in the weariness of vacillation, returned to the plan of electing the national executive by the national legislature. But the vote was sure to reopen the question of his re-eligibility. The convention was now like a pack of hounds in full chase, suddenly losing the trail. It fell into an anarchy of opinion, William and one crude scheme trod on the heels of another. son, pleading the essential difference of interests between the northern and southern states, particularly relating to the carrying trade, "wished the executive power to be lodged in three men, taken from three districts, into which the states should be divided." * "At some time or other," said he, "we shall have a king; to postpone the event as long as possible, I would render the executive ineligible." + In the event of the ineligibility of the executive, Martin, forgetting the state of anarchy and faction that would attend a long period of service by an incompetent or unworthy incumbent, proposed that the term of executive service should be eleven years. "From ten to twelve," said Williamson.# Fifteen," said Gerry; and King mocked them all by proposing "twenty years, the medium life of princes." | Wilson, seeing no way of introducing a direct election by the people, made the motion that the executive should be chosen by electors to be taken from the national legislature by lot. A Ellsworth, on the twenty-fifth, pointed out that to secure a candidate for re-election against an improper dependence on the legislature, the choice should be made by electors.◊ Madison liked best an election of the executive by the qualified part of the people at large. "Local considerations," he said, "must give way to the general interest. As an individual from the southern states, I am willing to make the sacrifice." t And now came into consideration an element which exercised a constant bias on the discussion to the last. Ellsworth complained that the executive would invariably be taken from one of the larger states. "To cure the disadvantage under which an election by the people would place the smaller states," Williamson proposed that each man should vote for three candidates. Gouverneur Morris accepted the principle, but desired to limit the choice of the voters to two, of whom at least * # Gilpin, 1189; Elliot, 358. Gilpin, 1191; Elliot, 360. A Gilpin, 1196; Elliot, 362. ◊ Gilpin, 1198; Elliot, 363. Gilpin, 1201; Elliot, 365. Gilpin, 1204; Elliot, 366. |