superior discernment.

The sole and undivided responsibility of one man will naturally beget a
livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard to reputation. He will,
on this account, feel himself under stronger obligations, and more
interested to investigate with care the qualities requisite to the
stations to be filled, and to prefer with impartiality the persons who
may have the fairest pretensions to them. He will have fewer personal
attachments to gratify, than a body of men who may each be supposed to
have an equal number; and will be so much the less liable to be misled
by the sentiments of friendship and of affection. A single well-directed
man, by a single understanding, cannot be distracted and warped by that
diversity of views, feelings, and interests, which frequently distract
and warp the resolutions of a collective body. There is nothing so apt
to agitate the passions of mankind as personal considerations whether
they relate to ourselves or to others, who are to be the objects of
our choice or preference. Hence, in every exercise of the power of
appointing to offices, by an assembly of men, we must expect to see
a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes,
partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are
felt by those who compose the assembly. The choice which may at any time
happen to be made under such circumstances, will of course be the
result either of a victory gained by one party over the other, or of a
compromise between the parties. In either case, the intrinsic merit
of the candidate will be too often out of sight. In the first, the
qualifications best adapted to uniting the suffrages of the party, will
be more considered than those which fit the person for the station.
In the last, the coalition will commonly turn upon some interested
equivalent: "Give us the man we wish for this office, and you shall
have the one you wish for that." This will be the usual condition of the
bargain. And it will rarely happen that the advancement of the public
service will be the primary object either of party victories or of party
negotiations.

The truth of the principles here advanced seems to have been felt by the
most intelligent of those who have found fault with the provision made,
in this respect, by the convention. They contend that the President
ought solely to have been authorized to make the appointments under the
federal government. But it is easy to show, th