THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 281 



that purpose. It is necessary then that the Executive Magistrate should be 

 the guardian of the people, even of the lower classes, ag st - Legislative tyranny, 

 against the great & the wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily 

 compose the legislative body. Wealth tends to corrupt the mind to nourish its 

 love of power, and to stimulate it to oppression. History proves this to be the 

 spirit of the opulent. The check provided in the 2 d branch was not meant 

 as a check on legislative usurpations of power, but on the abuse of lawful 

 powers, on the propensity in the 1 st branch to legislate too much to run into 

 projects of paper money & similar expedients. It is no check on legislative 

 tyranny. On the contrary it may favor it, and if the 1st branch can be seduced 

 may find the means of success. The executive therefore ought to be so consti- 

 tuted as to be the great protector of the mass of the people. It is the duty of 

 the executive to appoint the officers & to command the forces of the republic: 

 to appoint 1. ministerial officers for the administration of public affairs. 

 2. officers for the dispensation of Justice. Who will be the best judges whether 

 these appointments will be well made? The people at large, who will know, 

 will see, will feel the effects of them. Again who can judge so well of the 

 discharge of military duties for the protection & security of the people, as the 

 people themselves who are to be protected & secured ? 5 



Unhappily, the inclefmiteness begat uncertainty, which has multi- 

 plied with the growth of the country; for public affairs requiring ad- 

 ministrative attention tend to increase geometrically (just as do trans- 

 portation lines) with the number of individuals and communities 

 touched. Under the natural desire to protect prerogatives (so clearly 

 foreseen by Morris), and with a facility due to the weight of numbers, 

 the congress gradually grew inattentive to the first duty of the presi- 

 dent under the constitution (" He shall, from time to time, give to the 

 congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their 

 consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedi- 

 ent"), and drifted into the habit of obtaining "information of the 

 state of the union " by more cumbrous methods directly through their 

 own committees or indirectly (and of course unconstitutionally) from 

 the administrative departments. Moreover, they increasingly ignored 

 the warning of George Washington (the presiding officer and moving 

 spirit in the constitutional convention) in that ever-memorable fare- 

 well address read annually in their hearing : " Let me . . . warn you 

 in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of 

 party generally. . . . The alternate domination of one faction over 

 another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention 

 . . . serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public 

 administration " — so that the nominally representative congress has 

 virtually ceased to act in behalf of the people and come to act instead 

 in behoof of party, in ways for which no shadow of constitutional war- 

 rant exists. It would appear that the gravest apprehensions of Wash- 

 ington and Morris have been realized in a policy of special legislation 

 so pronounced that — mirabile dictu ! — fully 99 per cent, of the bills 

 Ubid., Vol. II., pp. 1-2. 



