Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: tralizing in its effect on federal institutions. It may be remarked, too, in illustration of the revolutions in men's opinions, that this fear was suggested by a member from New York, and the amendment disregarding it was proposed by a member from South Carolina. An elective chief is an experiment. We do not see power turn the heads of judges and legislators; only of the Executive. He may be drawn from obscurity and return to it; but he does not resign, like a minister; he is upheld till his sands are run, like a king, and upheld in courses which, in a minister, would not be tolerated : this is the constitution. It has been the history, in bad times, of all countries, that no crime is too great to gain Executive power or to retain it. These men who sat in the convention were in presence of a question, this, as Hamilton called it, of an Executive chief "on republican principles," which has been never solved. Anxious to do their duty, not rash in its performance, fearing the Executive, fearing democracy more; when they came to this part of their proceedings the debates show they paused, hesitated, changed their minds again and again, and took back what they had done, only to repeat it; and at last were far from satisfied with their work. What else could they do ? Butit is the source from which have flowed the worst ills that afflict us, and is the immediate source of the gravest of the fears for the fate of our institutions. The lack of energy they witnessed in the Confederacy, for war or peace, as well as their own inclinations, disposed them to a vigorous Executive. They resolved to bestow, and they did bestow, and the States were prevailed on to accept, Executive powers, only nominally less than those of the monarch from whose rule they had emancipated themselves; for he wa...