and, in some instances, to usurpation. An
avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to
a time when he must at all events yield up the emoluments he enjoyed,
would feel a propensity, not easy to be resisted by such a man, to make
the best use of the opportunity he enjoyed while it lasted, and might
not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients to make the
harvest as abundant as it was transitory; though the same man, probably,
with a different prospect before him, might content himself with the
regular perquisites of his situation, and might even be unwilling to
risk the consequences of an abuse of his opportunities. His avarice
might be a guard upon his avarice. Add to this that the same man might
be vain or ambitious, as well as avaricious. And if he could expect to
prolong his honors by his good conduct, he might hesitate to sacrifice
his appetite for them to his appetite for gain. But with the prospect
before him of approaching an inevitable annihilation, his avarice
would be likely to get the victory over his caution, his vanity, or his
ambition.

An ambitious man, too, when he found himself seated on the summit of his
country's honors, when he looked forward to the time at which he must
descend from the exalted eminence for ever, and reflected that no
exertion of merit on his part could save him from the unwelcome reverse;
such a man, in such a situation, would be much more violently tempted to
embrace a favorable conjuncture for attempting the prolongation of
his power, at every personal hazard, than if he had the probability of
answering the same end by doing his duty.

Would it promote the peace of the community, or the stability of the
government to have half a dozen men who had had credit enough to be
raised to the seat of the supreme magistracy, wandering among the
people like discontented ghosts, and sighing for a place which they were
destined never more to possess?

A third ill effect of the exclusion would be, the depriving the
community of the advantage of the experience gained by the chief
magistrate in the exercise of his office. That experience is the parent
of wisdom, is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as
well as the simplest of mankind. What more desirable or more essential
than this quality in the governors of nations? Where more desirable or
more essential than in the first magistrate of a nation? Can it be
wise to put this desir