Some of them, it will be found, may be imputable to peculiar
circumstances connected with the war; but the greater part of them may
be considered as the spontaneous shoots of an ill-constituted
government.
It appears, also, that the executive department had not been innocent of
frequent breaches of the constitution. There are three observations,
however, which ought to be made on this head: FIRST, a great proportion
of the instances were either immediately produced by the necessities of
the war, or recommended by Congress or the commander-in-chief; SECOND,
in most of the other instances, they conformed either to the declared or
the known sentiments of the legislative department; THIRD, the
executive department of Pennsylvania is distinguished from that of the
other States by the number of members composing it. In this respect, it
has as much affinity to a legislative assembly as to an executive
council. And being at once exempt from the restraint of an individual
responsibility for the acts of the body, and deriving confidence from
mutual example and joint influence, unauthorized measures would, of
course, be more freely hazarded, than where the executive department is
administered by a single hand, or by a few hands.
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