e satisfaction, as it is said, of the people.

FEDERALIST No. 72

The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive
Considered.

From The Independent Journal. Wednesday, March 19, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE administration of government, in its largest sense, comprehends all
the operations of the body politic, whether legislative, executive,
or judiciary; but in its most usual, and perhaps its most precise
signification. it is limited to executive details, and falls peculiarly
within the province of the executive department. The actual conduct of
foreign negotiations, the preparatory plans of finance, the application
and disbursement of the public moneys in conformity to the general
appropriations of the legislature, the arrangement of the army and navy,
the directions of the operations of war--these, and other matters of a
like nature, constitute what seems to be most properly understood by the
administration of government. The persons, therefore, to whose immediate
management these different matters are committed, ought to be considered
as the assistants or deputies of the chief magistrate, and on this
account, they ought to derive their offices from his appointment,
at least from his nomination, and ought to be subject to his
superintendence. This view of the subject will at once suggest to us the
intimate connection between the duration of the executive magistrate in
office and the stability of the system of administration. To reverse and
undo what has been done by a predecessor, is very often considered by a
successor as the best proof he can give of his own capacity and desert;
and in addition to this propensity, where the alteration has been
the result of public choice, the person substituted is warranted in
supposing that the dismission of his predecessor has proceeded from a
dislike to his measures; and that the less he resembles him, the more
he will recommend himself to the favor of his constituents. These
considerations, and the influence of personal confidences and
attachments, would be likely to induce every new President to promote
a change of men to fill the subordinate stations; and these causes
together could not fail to occasion a disgraceful and ruinous mutability
in the administration of the government.

With a positive duration of considerable extent, I connect the
circumstance of re-eligibility. The first is necessary to give to the
of