to be entitled to particular commendation. It is no easy to conceive a plan better calculated to promote a judicious choice of men for filling the offices of the union and it will not need proof, that on this point must essentially depend the character of its administration.
It will be agreed on all hands, that the power of appointment, in ordinary cases, can be properly modifier only in one of three ways. It ought either to be vested in a single man; or in a select assembly of a moderate number; or in a single man, with the concurrence of such an assembly. The exercise of it by the people at large, will be readily admitted to be impracticable; since waving every other consideration, it would leave them little time to do any thing else. When, therefore, mention is made in the subsequent reasonings, of an assembly or body of men, what is said must be understood to relate to a select body or assembly, of the description already given. The people collectively, from their number and from their dispersed situation, cannot be regulated in their movements by that systematic spirit of cabal and intrigue, which will be urged as the chief objections to reposing the power in question in a body of men.
Those who have themselves reflected upon the subject, or who have attended to the observations made in other parts of these papers, in relation to the appointment of the president, will, I presume, agree to the position, that there would always be great probability of having the place supplied by a man of abilities, at least respectable. Premising this, I proceed to lay it down as a rule, that one man of discernment is better fitted to analyze and estimate the peculiar qualities adapted to particular offices, than a body of men of equal, or perhaps even of superior discernment.
The sole and undivided responsibility of one man, will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty, and a more exact regard to reputation. He will, on this account, feel himself under stronger obligations, and more interested to investigate with care the qualities requisite to the stations to be filled, and to prefer with impartiality the persons who may have the fairest pretensions to them. He
