Antoine Destutt de Tracy

One of it’s doctrines indeed, the preference of a plural over a single executive, will probably not be assented to here. when our present government was first established, we had many doubts on this question, and many leanings towards a supreme executive council. it happened that at that time the experiment of such an one was commenced in France, while the single Executive was under trial here. we watched the motions & effects of these two rival plans with an interest and anxiety proportioned to the importance of a choice between them. the experiment in France failed after a short course, and not from any circumstance peculiar to the times or nation, but from those internal jealousies & dissensions in the Directory which will ever arise among men, equal in power, without a Principal to decide and controul their differences. we had tried a similar experiment in 1784 by establishing a Committee of the States, composed of a member from every state, then 13, to exercise the executive functions, during the recess of Congress. they fell immediately into schisms and dissensions, which became at length so inveterate as to render all cooperation among them impracticable: they dissolved themselves, abandoning the helm of government, and it continued without a head, until Congress met the ensuing winter. this was then imputed to the temper of two or three individuals; but the wise ascribed it to the nature of man. the failure of the French Directory, and from the same cause, seems to have authorised a belief that the form of a plurality, however promising in theory is impracticable with men constituted with the ordinary passions. while the tranquil & steady tenor of our single Executive, during a course of twenty two years of the most tempestuous times the history of the world has ever presented, gives a rational hope that this important problem is at length solved. aided by the counsels of a Cabinet of heads of departments, originally four, but now five, with whom the President consults, either singly or all together, he has the benefit of their wisdom and information, brings their views to one center, & produces an unity of action & direction in all the branches of the government. the excellence of this construction of the Executive power has already manifested itself here under very opposite circumstances. during the administration of our first President, his cabinet, of four members, was equally divided, by as marked an opposition of principle as monarchism and republicanism could bring into conflict. had that Cabinet been a Directory, like positive and negative quantities in Algebra, the opposing wills would have balanced each other, and produced a state of absolute inaction. but the President heard with calmness the opinions and reasons of each, decided the course to be pursued, and kept the government steadily in it, unaffected by the agitation. the public knew well the dissentions of the Cabinet, but never had an uneasy thought on their account; because they knew also they had provided a regulating power which would keep the machine in steady movement. I speak with an intimate knolege of these scenes, quorum pars fui; as I may of others of a character entirely opposite. the third administration, which was of eight years, presented an example of harmony in a cabinet of six persons, to which perhaps history has furnished no parallel. there never arose, during the whole time, an instance of an unpleasant thought or word between the members. we sometimes met under differences of opinion, but scarcely ever failed, by conversing & reasoning, so to modify each other’s ideas, as to produce an unanimous result. yet, able & amiable as these members were, I am not certain this would have been the case had each possessed equal & independant powers. ill-defined limits of their respective departments, jealousies trifling at first, but nourished & strengthened by repetition of occasions, intrigues without doors of designing persons to build an importance to themselves on the divisions of others, might, from small beginnings, have produced persevering oppositions. but the power of decision in the president left no object for internal dissension, & external intrigue was stifled in embryo by the knolege which incendiaries possessed that no divisions they could foment would change the course of the Executive power. I am not conscious that my participations in Executive authority have produced any bias in favor of the single executive; because the parts I have acted have been in the subordinate, as well as superior stations, and because, if I know myself, what I have felt, and what I have wished, I know that I have never been so well pleased as when I could shift power3 from my own, on the shoulders of others; nor have I ever been able to concieve how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others. I am still however sensible of the solidity of your principle, that, to ensure the safety of the public liberty, it’s depository should be subject to be changed with the greatest ease possible, and without suspending or disturbing for a moment the movements of the machine of government. you apprehend that a single Executive, with eminence of talent, and destitution of principle, equal to the object, might, by usurpation, render his powers hereditary. yet I think history furnishes as many examples of a single usurper arising out of a government by a plurality, as of temporary trusts of power in a single hand rendered permanent by usurpation. I do not believe therefore that this danger is lessened in the hands of a plural Executive. perhaps it is greatly increased by the state of inefficiency to which they are liable from feuds & divisions among themselves.