f Government to
usurp the rights of the weaker branches:

The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition
of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers
will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.
One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive
as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes on the Republic of
Venice. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves.
An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one
which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the
powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several
bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits
without being effectually checked and controlled by the others.

Should the proceedings of the Covode committee become a precedent, both
the letter and spirit of the Constitution will be violated. One of the
three massive columns on which the whole superstructure rests will be
broken down. Instead of the Executive being a coordinate it will become
a subordinate branch of the Government. The Presidential office will
be dragged into the dust. The House of Representatives will then have
rendered the Executive almost necessarily subservient to its wishes,
instead of being independent. How is it possible that two powers in the
State can be coordinate and independent of each other if the one claims
and exercises the power to reprove and to censure all the official acts
and all the private conversations of the other, and this upon _ex parte_
testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee in short, to assume a
general censorship over the other? The idea is as absurd in public as
it would be in private life. Should the President attempt to assert and
maintain his own independence, future Covode committees may dragoon him
into submission by collecting the hosts of disappointed office hunters,
removed officers, and those who desire to live upon the public Treasury,
which must follow in the wake of every Administration, and they in
secret conclave will swear away his reputation. Under such circumstances
he must be a very bold man should he not surrender at discretion and
consent to exercise his authority according to the will of those
invested with this terrific power. The sovereign people of the several
States have elected him to the highest and most honorable office in
t