credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice in the human character.
Upon the principles of a free Government, inconveniences from the source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the formation of the Legislature; but it is unnecessary, and therefore unwise, to introduce them into the constitution of the Executive. It is here too, that they may be most pernicious. In the Legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that department of the Government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection; and serve to check excesses in the majority. When a resolution too is once taken, the opposition must be at an end. That resolution is a law, and resistance to it punishable. But no favorable circumstances palliate, or atone for the disadvantages of dissension in the Executive department. Here, they are pure and unmixed. There is no point at which they cease to operate. They serve to embarrass and weaken the execution of the plan or measure to which they relate, from the first step to the final conclusion of it. They constantly counteract those qualities in the Executive, which are the most necessary ingredients in its composition,—vigor and expedition; and this without any counterbalancing good. In the conduct of war, in which the energy of the Executive is the bulwark of the National security, everything would be to be apprehended from its plurality.
It must be confessed, that these observations apply with principal weight to the first case supposed, that is, to a plurality of Magistrates of equal dignity and authority; a scheme, the advocates for which are not
