be vested in a single person, not a body. For the
rest, it is a simple designation of office. The final form of the clause
came from the Committee of Style,[5] and was never separately acted on
by the Convention.

"EXECUTIVE POWER"; HAMILTON'S CONTRIBUTION

Is this term a summary description merely of the powers which are
granted in more specific terms in succeeding provisions of article II,
or is it also a grant of powers; and if the latter, what powers
specifically does it comprise? In the debate on the location of the
removal power in the House of Representatives in 1789[6] Madison and
others urged that this was "in its nature" an "executive power";[7] and
their view prevailed so far as executive officers appointed without
stated term by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate,
were concerned. Four years later Hamilton, in defending President
Washington's course in issuing a Proclamation of Impartiality upon the
outbreak of war between France and Great Britain, developed the
following argument: "The second article of the Constitution of the
United States, section first, establishes this general proposition, that
'the Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States
of America.' The same article, in a succeeding section, proceeds to
delineate particular cases of executive power. It declares, among other
things, that the president shall be commander in chief of the army and
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states,
when called into the actual service of the United States; that he shall
have power, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, to make
treaties; that it shall be his duty to receive ambassadors and other
public ministers, _and to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed._ It would not consist with the rules of sound construction, to
consider this enumeration of particular authorities as derogating from
the more comprehensive grant in the general clause, further than as it
may be coupled with express restrictions or limitations; as in regard to
the co-operation of the senate in the appointment of officers, and the
making of treaties; which are plainly qualifications of the general
executive powers of appointing officers and making treaties. The
difficulty of a complete enumeration of all the cases of executive
authority, would naturally dictate the use of general terms, and would
render it improbable that a specification of certai