inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State.
But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defence. In republican Government, the Legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is, to divide the Legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election, and different principles of action, as little connected with each other, as the nature of their common functions, and their common dependence on the society, will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the Legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the Executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. An absolute negative on the Legislature appears, at first view, to be the natural defence with which the Executive magistrate should be armed. But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe, nor alone sufficient. On ordinary occasions, it might not be exerted with the requisite firmness; and on extraordinary occasions, it might be perfidiously abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied by some qualified connection between this weaker department and the weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be led to support the constitutional rights of the former, without being too much detached from the rights of its own department?
If the principles on which these observations are founded be just, as I persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion to the several State Constitutions, and to the Fœderal Constitution, it will be found, that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them, the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test.
