The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to
care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of
an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a
spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the
observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming
that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one
and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward,
for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no
other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he
particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally
allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy
to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.
To this reasoning it has been objected that the President, by the
influence of the power of nomination, may secure the complaisance of the
Senate to his views. This supposition of universal venalty in human
nature is little less an error in political reasoning, than the
supposition of universal rectitude. The institution of delegated power
implies, that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind,
which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence; and experience
justifies the theory.
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