Of the
first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve as an example; of the last, we
shall find examples in the constitutions of several of the States. New
York and New Jersey, if I recollect right, are the only States which
have intrusted the executive authority wholly to single men.[1] Both
these methods of destroying the unity of the Executive have their
partisans; but the votaries of an executive council are the most
numerous. They are both liable, if not to equal, to similar objections,
and may in most lights be examined in conjunction.
The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on this
head. As far, however, as it teaches any thing, it teaches us not to be
enamoured of plurality in the Executive. We have seen that the Achaeans,
on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to abolish one. The Roman
history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the
dissensions between the Consuls, and between the military Tribunes, who
were at times substituted for the Consuls. But it gives us no specimens
of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance of
the plurality of those magistrates.
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