States. Third. The power of the president, in respect to pardons, would extend to all cases, except those of impeachment. The governor of New York may pardon in all cases, even in those of impeachment, except for treason and murder. Is not the power of the governor in this article, on a calculation of political consequences, greater than that of the president? All conspiracies and plots against the government, which have not been matured into actual treason, may be screened from punishment of every kind, by the interposition of the prerogative of pardoning. If a governor of New York, therefore, should be at the head of any such conspiracy, until the design had been ripened into actual hostility, he could insure his accomplices and adherents an entire impunity. A president of the union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender in any degree, from the effects of impeachment and conviction. Would not the prospect of a total indemnity for all the preliminary steps, be a greater temptation to undertake, and persevere in an enterprise against the public liberty, than the mere prospect of an exemption from death and confiscation, if the final execution of the design, upon an actual appeal to arms, should miscarry? Would this last expectation have any influence at all, when the probability was computed, that the person who was to afford that exemption might himself be involved in the consequences of the measure ; and might be incapacitated by his agency in it, from affording the desired impunity? The better to judge of this matter, it will be necessary to recollect that, by the proposed constitution, the offence of treason is limited "to levying war upon the United States, and adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort;" and that by the laws of New York, it is confined within similar bounds. Fourth. The president can only adjourn the national legislature, in the single case of disagreement about the time of adjournment. The British monarch may prorogue, or even dissolve the parliament. The governor of New York may also prorogue the legislature of this
