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." Storing, Herbert J., ed. The Complete
Anti-Federalist. 7 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
