With another class of adversaries to the Constitution the
language is that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments
are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of
regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of
liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general
expressions, there are but a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each
one come forward with his particular explanation, and scarce any two are
exactly agreed upon the subject. In the eyes of one the junction of the
Senate with the President in the responsible function of appointing to
offices, instead of vesting this executive power in the Executive alone,
is the vicious part of the organization. To another, the exclusion of
the House of Representatives, whose numbers alone could be a due
security against corruption and partiality in the exercise of such a
power, is equally obnoxious. With another, the admission of the
President into any share of a power which ever must be a dangerous
engine in the hands of the executive magistrate, is an unpardonable
violation of the maxims of republican jealousy. No part of the
arrangement, according to some, is more inadmissible than the trial of
impeachments by the Senate, which is alternately a member both of the
legislative and executive departments, when this power so evidently
belonged to the judiciary department.
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