联邦党人文集第70篇

To the People of the State of New York:

There is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous Executive is inconsistent with the geniusof republican government. The enlightened well-wishers to this species of government must at least hopethat the supposition is destitute of foundation; since they can never admit its truth, without at the same time admitting the condemnation of their own principles. Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to theprotection of the community againstforeign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws;to the protection of property against those irregular and highhanded combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against  the enterprises and assaultsof ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. Everyman the leastconversant in Romanstory, knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator,as well againstthe intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whoseconduct threatened the existence of all government, as against theinvasions of external enemies whomenaced theconquest anddestruction of Rome. There can be no need, however, to multiply argumentsor examples on this head. A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a

bad government.

Taking it for granted, therefore, that all men of sense will agree in the necessity of an energetic Executive, it will only remain to inquire,what are the ingredients whichconstitute this energy? How far can they be combinedwith those other ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense? And how far does this combination characterize the plan which has been reported by the convention?

The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support;fourthly, competentpowers.

The ingredients whichconstitute safety in the republican sense are, first,a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility.

Those politicians and statesmen who have been the most celebrated for the soundness of their principles and for the justiceof their views, have declared in favor of a singleExecutive and a numerous legislature. They have with great propriety,considered energy as the mostnecessary qualification of the former, and have regarded this as most applicable to power in a single hand, while they have, with equal propriety, considered the latter as best adapted to deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and interests.

That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the numberis increased, thesequalities will be diminished.

This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject,in whole or in part, to the control and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him. Of the first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve as an example; of the last, we shall find examples in the constitutions of severalof the States. New York and New Jersey, if I recollect right, are the only States which have intrusted the executive authority wholly to single men.*Both these methods of destroying the unity of the Executive have their partisans; but the votariesof an executive council arethe most numerous. They are bothliable, if not to equal, to similar objections, and may in most lights be examined in conjunction.

The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on this head. As far, however, as it teaches any thing, it teaches us not to be enamoured of plurality in the Executive. We have seen that the Achaeans, on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to abolish one. The Roman history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the dissensions between the Consuls, and between the military Tribunes,who were at times substituted for the Consuls.But it gives us no specimens of any peculiaradvantages derived to thestate from thecircumstance of theplurality of thosemagistrates. That the dissensions between them were not more frequent or more fatal,is a matter of astonishment, until we advert to the singularposition in whichthe republic was almost continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the plebeians for the preservation of their ancientauthorities and

*New York has no council except for the single purpose of appointing to offices; New Jersey has a council whom the governor may consult. But I think, from the terms of the constitution, their resolutions do not bindhim. dignities; the Consuls, who were generallychosen out of the former body, were commonlyunited by the personal interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order. In addition to this motive of union, afterthe arms of the republic had considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established custom with the Consuls to divide the administration between themselves by lot one of them remaining at Rome to govern thecity and its environs, theother taking the command in the more distant provinces. This expedient must,no doubt, havehad great influence in preventing those collisions and rivalships which might otherwise have embroiled the peace of the republic.

But quitting the dim light of historical research,attaching ourselves purely to the dictatesof reason and good se se, we shalldiscover muchgreater cause to rejectthan to approve the idea of plurality in the Executive, under any modification whatever.

Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any commonenterprise or pursuit, there is always dangerof difference of opinion.If it be a publictrust or office,in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity. From either, and especially from all these causes, the most bitter dissensionsare apt to spring. Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority,and distract the plans and operation of those whom they divide. If they should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of  a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the most important measures of the government, in the mostcritical emergencies of the state.And what is still worse, they might split the community into the most violent and irreconcilable factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who composed the magistracy.

Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agencyin planning it, or becauseit may have been planned by those whom they dislike.But if they have been consulted, and have happenedto disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeatthe success of what hasbeen resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright,benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror,to what desperatelengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of societyare sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacyof individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their capricesinteresting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the publicmay, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.

Upon the principles of a free government, inconveniences from the source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the formation of the legislature; but it is unnecessary, and therefore unwise,to introduce them into the constitution of the Executive.It is here too that they may be most pernicious. In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarringsof parties in that department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promotedeliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority. When a resolution too is once taken, the opposition must be at an end. That resolution is a law, and resistance to it punishable. But no favorable circumstances palliateor atone for the disadvantages of dissension in the executive department. Here,they are pureand unmixed. There is no point at which they cease to operate. They serve to embarrassand weaken theexecution of the plan or measure to which they relate, from the first step to the final conclusion of it. Theyconstantly counteract thosequalities in the Executive whichare the most necessary ingredients in its composition, vigor and expedition, and this without anycounterbalancing good. In the conduct of war, in which the energy of the Executive is the bulwark of the national security, every thing would be to be apprehended from its plurality.

It must be confessed that these observations apply with principal weightto the firstcase supposed thatis, to a plurality of magistrates of equal dignityand authority a scheme, the advocates for which are not likelyto form a numerous sect;but they apply, though not with equal, yet with considerable weight to the projectof a council, whose concurrence is made constitutionallynecessary to theoperations of theostensible Executive. An artful cabal in that council would be able to distract and to enervate the whole systemof administration. If no such cabalshould exist, the mere diversity of views and opinions would alone be sufficient to tincture the exercise of theexecutive authority with a spiritof habitual feebleness and dilatoriness.

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much againstthe last as the first plan, is,that it tends to conceal faults and destroyresponsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds to censure and to punishment. The first is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office. Man, in publictrust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to renderhim unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case.It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or seriesof pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under suchplausible appearances, thatthe public opinionis left in suspenseabout the real author.The circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that, where thereare a number of actorswho may have had different degrees and kinds of agency, though we may clearlysee upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounceto whose account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable. “I was overruled by my council. The councilwere so divided in their opinions that it was impossible to obtain any better resolution on the point.’’ These and similarpretexts are constantly at hand,whether trueor false. And whois there that will eithertake the troubleor incur the odium, of a strict scrunity into the secretsprings of the transaction? Should there be found a citizen zealous enough to undertakethe unpromising task, if there happen to be collusion between the parties concerned, how easy it is to clothe the circumstances with so much ambiguity, as to render it uncertain what was the precise conduct of any of those parties?

In the single instancein which the governor of this Stateis coupled with a council that is, in the appointment to offices, we have seen the mischiefs of it in the view now underconsideration. Scandalous appointments to importantoffices have been made.Some cases, indeed,have been so flagrant thatall parties have agreed in the impropriety of the thing. When inquiry has been made, the blame has been laid by the governor on the membersof the council, who, on their part,have charged it upon his nomination; while the people remain altogether at a loss to determine, by whose influencetheir interests have been committedto hands so unqualified and so manifestly improper. In tenderness to individuals, I forbear to descend to particulars.

It is evidentfrom these considerations, that the plurality of the Executive tends to deprivethe people of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power, first, the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy, as well on account of the division of the censureattendant on bad measures amonga number, as on account of the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall; and, secondly,the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the personsthey trust, in order either to their removal from office or to theiractual punishment in cases which admit of it.

In England, the king is a perpetual magistrate; and it is a maxim which has obtainedfor the sake of the pub lic peace, that he is unaccountable for his administration, and his personsacred. Nothing,therefore, can be wiser in that kingdom, than to annex to the king a constitutional council, who may beresponsible to thenation for theadvice they give.Without this, there would be no responsibility whatever in the executive department an idea inadmissible in a free government. But eventhere the kingis not boundby the resolutions of his council, thoughthey are answerable for the advicethey give. He is the absolutemaster of his own conductin the exercise of his office,and may observeor disregard the counsel given tohim at his sole discretion.

But in a republic, whereevery magistrate oughtto be personally responsible for his behaviorin office the reason which in the British Constitution dictates the propriety of a council, not only ceasesto apply, but turnsagainst the institution.

In the monarchy of Great Britain, it furnishes a substitute for the prohibited responsibility of the chief magistrate, which serves in some degree as a hostageto the national justice for hisgood behavior. In the American republic, it would serve todestroy, or would greatlydiminish, the intendedand necessary responsibility of the ChiefMagistrate himself.

The ideaof a council to theExecutive, which hasso generally obtainedin the State constitutions, has been derivedfrom that maximof republican jealousywhich considers poweras safer in the hands of a numberof men than of a single man. If the maxim should be admittedto be applicable to the case, I should contend that the advantage on that side would not counterbalance the numerousdisadvantages on the opposite side. But I do not think the rule at all applicable to the executive power. I clearly concurin opinion, in this particular, with awriter whom thecelebrated Juniuspronounces to be “deep, solid, and ingenious,” that “the executivepower is more easily confined when it is one’’;* that it is far more safe there should be a single object for the jealousy and watchfulness of the people; and, in a word, that all multiplication of the Executive is rather dangerous than friendly to liberty.

A little consideration will satisfy us, that the species of security soughtfor in the multiplication of the Executive, is nattainable. Numbers must be so great as to render combination difficult, or they are rather a source of danger than of security. The united credit and influence of severalindividuals must be more formidable to liberty, than the credit and influence of either of them separately. When power, therefore, is placed in the handsof so small a numberof men, as to admit of their interests and views being easily combined in a commonenterprise, by an artful leader, it becomes more liable to abuse, and more dangerous when abused, than if it be lodged in the hands of one man; who, from the very circumstance of his being alone, will be more narrowly watched and more readilysuspected, and who cannot unite so great a mass of influence as when he is associated with others. The Decemvirsof Rome, whose name denotestheir number,*were more to be dreadedin their usurpation than any one of them would have been. No person would think of proposing an Executive much more numerous than that body; from six to a dozen have been suggested for the number of the council. The extreme of these numbers, is not too greatfor an easy combination; and from such a combination America would have more to fear, than from the ambition of any single individual. A council to a magistrate, who is himself responsible for what he does, are generally nothing better than a clog upon his good intentions, are often the instruments and accomplices of his bad and are almost always a cloak to his faults.

I forbearto dwell upon the subjectof expense; thoughit be evident that if the council should be numerous enough to answerthe principal endaimed at by the institution, the salaries of the members,who must be drawn from their homes to reside at the seat of government, would form an item in the catalogueof public expenditures too seriousto be incurred for an object of equivocal utility. *De Lolme.*Ten.

I will only add that, prior to the appearance of the Constitution, I rarely met with an intelligent man from any of the States, who did not admit, as the result of experience, that the unityofthe executive of this State was one of the best of the distinguishing features of our constitution.

Publius.

中文对照：

大的国库支出，既然并无明确好处，未免得不偿失。笔者只需再进言一句：在宪法草案

公布之前，笔者有幸会晤来自各州的有识之士，几乎无不承认，纽约州行政权集于一人
已为经验证明是本州宪法中最佳特点之一。

普布利乌斯

原载１７８８年３月１８日，星期二，《纽约邮报》

南瓜藤教育