hat
right denied.

It is clear that the greater the privileges of the executive authority
are, the greater is the temptation; the more the ambition of the
candidates is excited, the more warmly are their interests espoused by
a throng of partisans who hope to share the power when their patron has
won the prize. The dangers of the elective system increase, therefore,
in the exact ratio of the influence exercised by the executive power
in the affairs of State. The revolutions of Poland were not solely
attributable to the elective system in general, but to the fact that the
elected monarch was the sovereign of a powerful kingdom. Before we can
discuss the absolute advantages of the elective system we must make
preliminary inquiries as to whether the geographical position, the laws,
the habits, the manners, and the opinions of the people amongst whom
it is to be introduced will admit of the establishment of a weak
and dependent executive government; for to attempt to render the
representative of the State a powerful sovereign, and at the same time
elective, is, in my opinion, to entertain two incompatible designs. To
reduce hereditary royalty to the condition of an elective authority, the
only means that I am acquainted with are to circumscribe its sphere
of action beforehand, gradually to diminish its prerogatives, and to
accustom the people to live without its protection. Nothing, however, is
further from the designs of the republicans of Europe than this course:
as many of them owe their hatred of tyranny to the sufferings which they
have personally undergone, it is oppression, and not the extent of the
executive power, which excites their hostility, and they attack the
former without perceiving how nearly it is connected with the latter.

Hitherto no citizen has shown any disposition to expose his honor and
his life in order to become the President of the United States; because
the power of that office is temporary, limited, and subordinate. The
prize of fortune must be great to encourage adventurers in so desperate
a game. No candidate has as yet been able to arouse the dangerous
enthusiasm or the passionate sympathies of the people in his favor, for
the very simple reason that when he is at the head of the Government he
has but little power, but little wealth, and but little glory to share
amongst his friends; and his influence in the State is too small for
the success or the ruin of a faction to depend upon the elev