ncreased, these qualities will be diminished.

This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in
two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it
ostensibly in one man, subject, in whole or in part, to the control and
co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him. Of the
first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve as an example; of the last, we
shall find examples in the constitutions of several of the States. New
York and New Jersey, if I recollect right, are the only States which
have intrusted the executive authority wholly to single men.(1) Both
these methods of destroying the unity of the Executive have their
partisans; but the votaries of an executive council are the most
numerous. They are both liable, if not to equal, to similar objections,
and may in most lights be examined in conjunction.

The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on this
head. As far, however, as it teaches any thing, it teaches us not to be
enamoured of plurality in the Executive. We have seen that the Achaeans,
on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to abolish one. The Roman
history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the
dissensions between the Consuls, and between the military Tribunes, who
were at times substituted for the Consuls. But it gives us no specimens
of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance
of the plurality of those magistrates. That the dissensions between them
were not more frequent or more fatal, is a matter of astonishment, until
we advert to the singular position in which the republic was almost
continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the
circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a
division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a
perpetual struggle with the plebeians for the preservation of their
ancient authorities and dignities; the Consuls, who were generally
chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal
interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order. In
addition to this motive of union, after the arms of the republic had
considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established
custom with the Consuls to divide the administration between themselves
by lot--one of them remaining at Rome to govern the city and its
environs, the other taking the command in the more di