To the People of the State of New York:
THE remaining powers which the plan of the convention allots to the Senate, in a distinct capacity, are
comprised in their participation with the executive in the appointment to offices, and in their judicial
character as a court for the trial of impeachments. As in the business of appointments the executive will
be the principal agent, the provisions relating to it will most properly be discussed in the examination of
that department. We will, therefore, conclude this head with a view of the judicial character of the Senate.
A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to
be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which
proceed from the misconduct of public men....
To the People of the State of New York:
THE constitution of the executive department of the proposed government, claims next our attention.
There is hardly any part of the system which could have been attended with greater difficulty in the
arrangement of it than this; and there is, perhaps, none which has been inveighed against with less candor
or criticised with less judgment.
Here the writers against the Constitution seem to have taken pains to signalize their talent of
misrepresentation. Calculating upon the aversion of the people to monarchy, they have endeavored to
enlist all their jealousies and apprehensions in opposition to the intended President of the United States;
not merely as the embryo, but as the full-grown progeny, of that detested parent. To establish the
pretended affinity, they have not scrupled to draw resources even from the regions of fiction. The
authorities of a magistrate....
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To the People of the State of New York:
A REVIEW of the principal objections that have appeared against the proposed court for the trial of
impeachments, will not improbably eradicate the remains of any unfavorable impressions which may still
exist in regard to this matter.
The first of these objections is, that the provision in question confounds legislative and judiciary
authorities in the same body, in violation of that important and wellestablished maxim which requires a
separation between the different departments of power. The true meaning of this maxim has been
discussed and ascertained in another place, and has been shown to be entirely compatible with a partial
intermixture of those departments for special purposes, preserving them, in the main, distinct and
unconnected....
To the People of the State of New York:
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the
system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the
slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print,
has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat
further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in
an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.E1
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so
important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not
to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular
conjuncture....
 
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