our constitution, in an inhibition on the legislature to take
new offices created by itself. It acknowledges the evil by
an insufficient attempt to prevent it. The remedy does not
pretend to provide for the case of money, to be gotten by
contracts; insuffices for the case of old offices unnecessarily
retained; and may be wholly evaded by transplanting officers.
Suppose the constitution had contained the following article: "The legislative, executive and judicial powers of shall be distinct and independent of each other; that is to say, the president may influence the judges, by appointing and preferring them; and he may influence the legislature by means of offices and money, created, and raised by the legislature." Would this plain language have obtained the publick approbation?
It is admitted by Mr. Adams and all who defend the system of limited monarchy, that the safety of the plebeian order, rests upon the independence of its representatives of the other two orders. If either of these orders can influence these representatives, the limitation is abolished, and the plebeian order is enslaved. Integrity and fraud with share equally in the suspicions excited by a power to corrupt; and a want of confidence in popular representatives, will work in concert with bribery and corruption, to destroy the liberty which these representatives were instituted to defend.
An opinion, that the confidence of the people is lost, or a conviction that it is not merited, will eradicate from the mind of the representative a reliance upon the people, and plant fear and hatred in its place. This fear and hatred, combining with the influence of office and money, will produce an alliance against the people, between their own agents, and the power these agents were designed to control. If this reasoning is justified by the test of moral cause and effect; it is also justified by the experience of England. Theoretically and practically it results, that a power in one man to bestow offices and money upon a
