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*t- 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‘ 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** 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 lst 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? 
Unhappily, the indefiniteness 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 
5Jbid., Vol. II., pp. 1-2. 
