If this is true, it is the part
of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least
to whom she has intrusted the management of her foreign relations, the
execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a
period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable
agent, not the principal; the servant, not the master. Until an
amendment of the Constitution can be effected public opinion may secure
the desired object. I give my aid to it by renewing the pledge
heretofore given that under no circumstances will I consent to serve a
second term.
But if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledged defects
of the Constitution in the want of limit to the continuance of the
Executive power in the same hands, there is, I apprehend, not much less
from a misconstruction of that instrument as it regards the powers
actually given. I can not conceive that by a fair construction any or
either of its provisions would be found to constitute the President a
part of the legislative power. It can not be claimed from the power to
recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty upon him, it is a
privilege which he holds in common with every other citizen; and
although there may be something more of confidence in the propriety of
the measures recommended in the one case than in the other, in the
obligations of ultimate decision there can be no difference. In the
language of the Constitution, "all the legislative powers" which it
grants "are vested in the Congress of the United States.
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