of offices, would be governed much more by his private
inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the
propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a
different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the
legislature. 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. It has been found to exist in the most corrupt
periods of the most corrupt governments. The venalty of the British
House of Commons has been long a topic of accusation against that body,
in the country to which they belong as well as in this; and it cannot be
doubted that the charge is, to a considerable extent, well founded. But
it is as little to be doubted, that there is always a large proportion
of the body, which consists of independent and public-spirited men, who
have an influential weight in the councils of the nation. Hence it is
(the present reign not excepted) that the sense of that body is often
seen to control the inclinations of the monarch, both with regard to men
and to measures. Though it might therefore be allowable to suppose
that the Executive might occasionally influence some individuals in
the Senate, yet the supposition, that he could in general