Ephori at Sparta became in the end absolute. The report of the council of censors in Pennsylvania points out the many invasions of the legislative department on the executive, numerous as the latter[1] is, within the short term of seven years, and in a state where a strong party is opposed to the constitution, and watching every occasion of turning the public resentments against it. If the executive be overturned by the popular branch, as happened in England, the tyranny of one man will ensue. In Rome, where the aristocracy overturned the throne, the consequence was different. He enlarged on the tendency of the legislative authority to usurp on the executive, and wished the section to be postponed, in order to consider of some more effectual check than requiring two thirds only to overrule the negative of the executive.
Mr. SHERMAN. Can one man be trusted better than all the others, if they all agree? This was neither wise nor safe. He disapproved of judges meddling in politics and parties. We have gone far enough, in forming the negative as it now stands.
Mr. CARROLL. When the negative to be overruled by two thirds only was agreed to, the quorum was not fixed. He remarked that, as a majority was now to be the quorum, seventeen in the larger, and eight in the smaller house might carry points. The advantage that might be taken of this seemed to call for greater impediments to improper laws. He thought the controlling power, however, of the executive, could not be well decided, till it was seen how the formation of that department would be finally regulated. He wished the consideration of the matter to be postponed.
Mr. GORHAM saw no end to these difficulties and postponements. Some could not agree to the form of government, before the powers were defined. Others could not agree to the powers till it was seen how the government was to be formed. He thought a majority as large a quorum as was necessary. It was the quorum almost every where fixed in the United States.
Mr. WILSON, after viewing the subject with all the coolness and attention possible, was most apprehensive of a dissolution of the government from the legislature swallowing up all the other powers. He remarked, that the prejudices against the executive resulted from a misapplication of the adage, that the Parliament was the palladium of liberty. Where the executive was really formidable, king and tyrant were naturally associated in the minds of people; not legislature and tyranny. But where the executive was not formidable, the two last were most properly associated. After the destruction of the king in Great Britain, a more pure and unmixed tyranny sprang up in the Parliament, than had been exercised by the monarch. He insisted that we had not guarded against the danger on this side, by a sufficient self-defensive power, either to the executive or judiciary department.
- ↑ The executive consisted at that time of about twenty members.
