would feel any other complacency towards the object of an appointment than such as the appearances of merit might inspire, and the proofs of the want of it destroy.
A fourth objection to the Senate, in the capacity of a Court of Impeachments, is derived from their union with the Executive in the power of making treaties. This, it has been said, would constitute the Senators their own Judges, in every case of a corrupt or perfidious execution of that trust. After having combined with the Executive in betraying the interests of the Nation in a ruinous treaty, what prospect, it is asked, would there be of their being made to suffer the punishment they would deserve when they were themselves to decide upon the accusation brought against them for the treachery of which they have been guilty?
This objection has been circulated with more earnestness, and with greater show of reason than any other which has appeared against this part of the plan; and yet I am deceived, if it does not rest upon an erroneous foundation.
The security essentially intended by the Constitution against corruption and treachery in the formation of treaties, is to be sought for in the numbers and characters of those who are to make them. The joint agency of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, and of two thirds of the members of a body selected by the collective wisdom of the Legislatures of the several States, is designed to be the pledge for the fidelity of the National Councils in this particular. The Convention might with propriety have meditated the punishment of the Executive, for a deviation from the instructions of the Senate, or a want of integrity in the conduct of the negotiations committed to him; they might also have had in view the punishment of a few leading individuals in the Senate, who should have prostituted their influence in that body as the mercenary instruments of foreign corruption: but
