generally a full match, if not an overmatch, for every other member of the Government.
But independent of this most active and operative principle, to secure the equilibrium of the National House of Representatives, the plan of the Convention has provided in its favor several important counterpoises to the additional authorities to be conferred upon the Senate. The exclusive privilege of originating money bills will belong to the House of Representatives. The same House will possess the sole right of instituting impeachments: is not this a complete counterbalance to that of determining them? The same House will be the umpire in all elections of the President, which do not unite the suffrages of a majority of the whole number of Electors; a case which it cannot be doubted will sometimes, if not frequently, happen. The constant possibility of the thing must be a fruitful source of influence to that body. The more it is contemplated, the more important will appear this ultimate, though contingent power, of deciding the competitions of the most illustrious citizens of the Union, for the first office in it. It would not perhaps be rash to predict, that as a mean of influence it will be found to outweigh all the peculiar attributes of the Senate.
A third objection to the Senate as a Court of Impeachments, is drawn from the agency they are to have in the appointments to office. It is imagined that they would be too indulgent Judges of the conduct of men, in whose official creation they had participated. The principle of this objection would condemn a practice, which is to be seen in all the State Governments, if not in all the Governments with which we are acquainted: I mean that of rendering those who hold offices during pleasure, dependent on the pleasure of those who appoint them. With equal plausibility might it be alleged in this case, that the favoritism of the latter would al-
