To the People of the State of New York:
THE third ingredient towards constituting the vigor of the executive authority, is an adequate provision
for its support. It is evident that, without proper attention to this article, the separation of the executive
from the legislative department would be merely nominal and nugatory. The legislature, with a
discretionary power over the salary and emoluments of the Chief Magistrate, could render him as
obsequious to their will as they might think proper to make him. They might, in most cases, either reduce
him by famine, or tempt him by largesses, to surrender at discretion his judgment to their inclinations.
These expressions, taken in all the latitude of the terms, would no doubt convey more than is intended.
There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue
is the growth of few soils....
To the People of the State of New York:
THE President is to have power, "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties,
provided two thirds of the senators present concur." Though this provision has been assailed, on different
grounds, with no small degree of vehemence, I scruple not to declare my firm persuasion, that it is one of
the best digested and most unexceptionable parts of the plan. One ground of objection is the trite topic of
the intermixture of powers; some contending that the President ought alone to possess the power of
making treaties; others, that it ought to have been exclusively deposited in the Senate. Another source of
objection is derived from the small number of persons by whom a treaty may be made. Of those who
espouse this objection, a part are of opinion that the House of Representatives ought to have been
associated in the business....
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To the People of the State of New York:
THE President of the United States is to be "commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United
States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States."
The propriety of this provision is so evident in itself, and it is, at the same time, so consonant to the
precedents of the State constitutions in general, that little need be said to explain or enforce it. Even those
of them which have, in other respects, coupled the chief magistrate with a council, have for the most part
concentrated the military authority in him alone. Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction
of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.
The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength....
To the People of the State of New York:
THE President is "to nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint
ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of
the United States whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution. But the
Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, in the President
alone, or in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. The President shall have power to fill up all
vacancies which may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire
at the end of their next session."
It has been observed in a former paper, that "the true test of a good government is its aptitude and
tendency to produce a good administration."....
 
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