Antifederalist No. 47 

"BALANCE" OF DEPARTMENTS NOT ACHIEVED UNDER NEW CONSTITUTION 


This essay is made up of of excerpts from "CENTINEL's," letters 
of October 5 and 24, 1787.  Taken from The Independent Gazetteer, 


    I am fearful that the principles of government inculcated in 
Mr. [John] Adams' treatise [Defence of the Constitutions of 
Government of the United States of America], and enforced in the 
numerous essays and paragraphs in the newspapers, have misled 
some well designing members of the late Convention.  But it will 
appear in the sequel, that the construction of the proposed plan 
of government is infinitely more extravagant. 
     I have been anxiously expecting that some enlightened 
patriot would, ere this, have taken up the pen to expose the 
futility, and counteract the baneful tendency of such principles.  
Mr. Adams' sine qua non of a good government is three balancing 
powers; whose repelling qualities are to produce an equilibrium 
of interests, and thereby promote the happiness of the whole 
community.  He asserts that the administrators of every 
government, will ever be actuated by views of private interest 
and ambition, to the prejudice of the public good; that therefore 
the only effectual method to secure the rights of the people and 
promote their welfare, is to create an opposition of interests 
between the members of two distinct bodies, in the exercise of 
the powers of government, and balanced by those of a third.  This 
hypothesis supposes human wisdom competent to the task of 
instituting three co-equal orders in government, and a 
corresponding weight in the community to enable them respectively 
to exercise their several parts, and whose views and interests 
should be so distinct as to prevent a coalition of any two of 
them for the destruction of the third.  Mr. Adams, although he 
has traced the constitution of every form of government that ever 
existed, as far as history affords materials, has not been able 
to adduce a single instance of such a government.  He indeed says 
that the British constitution is such in theory, but this is 
rather a confirmation that his principles are chimerical and not 
to be reduced to practice.  If such an organization of power were 
practicable, how long would it continue?  Not a day-for there is 
so great a disparity in the talents, wisdom and industry of 
mankind, that the scale would presently preponderate to one or 
the other body, and with every accession of power the means of 
further increase would be greatly extended.  The state of society 
in England is much more favorable to such a scheme of government 
than that of America. There they have a powerful hereditary 
nobility, and real distinctions of rank and interests; but even 
there, for want of that perfect equality of power and distinction 
of interests in the three orders of government, they exist but in 
name.  The only operative and efficient check upon the conduct of 
administration, is the sense of the people at large. 
     Suppose a government could be formed and supported on such 
principles, would it answer the great purposes of civil society?  
If the administrators of every government are actuated by views 
of private interest and ambition, how is the welfare and 
happiness of the community to be the result of such jarring 
adverse interests? 
     Therefore, as different orders in government will not 
produce the good of the whole, we must recur to other principles.  
I believe it will be found that the form of government, which 
holds those entrusted with power in the greatest responsibility 
to their constituents, the best calculated for freemen.  A 
republican, or free government, can only exist where the body of 
the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally 
divided.  In such a government the people are the sovereign and 
their sense or opinion is the criterion of every public measure.  
For when this ceases to be the case, the nature of the government 
is changed, and an aristocracy, monarchy or despotism will rise 
on its ruin. The highest responsibility is to be attained in a 
simple structure of government, for the great body of the people 
never steadily attend to the operations of government, and for 
want of due information are liable to be imposed on.  If you 
complicate the plan by various orders, the people will be 
perplexed and divided in their sentiment about the source of 
abuses or misconduct; some will impute it to the senate, others 
to the house of representatives, and so on, that the 
interposition of the people may be rendered imperfect or perhaps 
wholly abortive.  But if, imitating the constitution of 
Pennsylvania, you vest all the legislative power in one body of 
men (separating the executive and judicial) elected for a short 
period, and necessarily excluded by rotation from permanency, and 
guarded from precipitancy and surprise by delays imposed on its 
proceedings, you will create the most perfect responsibility.  
For then, whenever the people feel a grievance, they cannot 
mistake the authors, and will apply the remedy with certainty and 
effect, discarding them at the next election.  This tie of 
responsibility will obviate all the dangers apprehended from a 
single legislature, and will the best secure the rights of the 
people. 
     Having premised this much, I shall now proceed to the 
examination of the proposed plan of government, and I trust, 
shall make it appear to the meanest capacity, that it has none of 
the essential requisites of a free government; that it is neither 
founded on those balancing restraining powers, recommended by Mr. 
Adams and attempted in the British constitution, or possessed of 
that responsibility to its constituents, which, in my opinion, is 
the only effectual security for the liberties and happiness of 
the people.  But on the contrary, that it is a most daring 
attempt to establish a despotic aristocracy among freemen, that 
the world has ever witnessed.... 
     Thus we see, the house of representatives are on the part of 
the people to balance the senate, who I suppose will be composed 
of the better sort, the well born, etc. The number of the 
representatives (being only one for every 30,000 inhabitants) 
appears to be too few, either to communicate the requisite 
information of the wants, local circumstances and sentiments of 
so extensive an empire, or to prevent corruption and undue 
influence, in the exercise of such great powers; the term for 
which they are to be chosen, too long to preserve a due 
dependence and accountability to their constituents; and the mode 
and places of their election not sufficiently ascertained, for as 
Congress have the control over both, they may govern the choice, 
by ordering the representatives of a whole State, to be elected 
in one place, and that too may be the most inconvenient. 
     The senate, the great efficient body in this plan of 
government, is constituted on the most unequal principles.  The 
smallest State in the Union has equal weight with the great 
States of Virginia, Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania.  The senate, 
besides its legislative functions, has a very considerable share 
in the executive; none of the principal appointments to office 
can be made without its advice and consent.  The terin and mode 
of its appointment will lead to permanency. The members are 
chosen for six years, the mode is under the control of Congress, 
and as there is no exclusion by rotation, they may be continued 
for life, which, from their extensive means of influence, would 
follow of course.  The President, who would be a mere pageant of 
State, unless he coincides with the views of the senate, would 
either become the bead of the aristocratic junto in that body, or 
its minion; besides, their influence being the most predominant, 
could the best secure his re-election to office.  And from his 
power of granting pardons, he might screen from punishment the 
most treasonable attempts on the liberties of the people, when 
instigated by the senate.... 
     Mr. [James] Wilson asserts that never was charge made with 
less reason, than that which predicts the institution of a 
baneful aristocracy in the federal Senate.' In my first number, I 
stated that this body would be a very unequal representation of 
the several States, that the members being appointed for the long 
term of six years, and there being no exclusion by rotation, they 
might be continued for life, which would follow of course from 
their extensive means of influence, and that possessing a 
considerable share in the executive as well as the legislative, 
it would become a permanent aristocracy, and swallow up the other 
orders in the government. 
     That these fears are not imaginary, a knowledge of the 
history of other nations, where the powers of government have 
been injudiciously placed, will fully demonstrate.  Mr. Wilson 
says, "the senate branches into two characters; the one 
legislative and the other executive.  In its legislative 
character it can effect no purpose, without the co-operation of 
the house of representatives, and in its executive character it 
can accomplish no object without the concurrence of the 
president.  Thus fettered, I do not know any act which the senate 
can of itself perform, and such dependence necessarily precludes 
every idea of influence and superiority." This I confess is very 
specious, but experience demonstrates that checks in government, 
unless accompanied with adequate power and independently placed, 
prove merely nominal, and will be inoperative.  Is it probable, 
that the President of the United States, limited as he is in 
power, and dependent on the will of the senate, in appointments 
to office, will either have the firmness or inclination to 
exercise his prerogative of a conditional control upon the 
proceedings of that body, however injurious they may be to the 
public welfare?  It will be his interest to coincide with the 
views of the senate, and thus become the head of the aristocratic 
junto.  The king of England is a constituent part in the 
legislature, but although an hereditary monarch, in possession of 
the whole executive power, including the unrestrained appointment 
to offices, and an immense revenue, enjoys but in name the 
prerogative of a negative upon the parliament.  Even the king of 
England, circumstanced as he is, has not dared to exercise it for 
near a century past.  The check of the house of representatives 
upon the senate will likewise be rendered nugatory for want of 
due weight in the democratic branch, and from their constitution 
they may become so independent of the people as to be indifferent 
of its interests. Nay, as Congress would have the control over 
the mode and place of their election, by ordering the 
representatives of a whole state to be elected at one place, and 
that too the most inconvenient, the ruling powers may govern the 
choice, and thus the house of representatives may be composed of 
the creatures of the senate.  Still the semblance of checks may 
remain, but without operation. 
     This mixture of the legislative and executive moreover 
highly tends to corruption.  The chief improvement in government, 
in modern times, has been the complete separation of the great 
distinctions of power; placing the legislative in different hands 
from those which hold the executive; and again severing the 
judicial part from the ordinary administrative.  "When the 
legislative and executive powers (says Montesquieu) are united in 
the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be 
no liberty." 
                        CENTINEL