Chapter 23 2. Guarding officials is like guarding against thieves

Speaking of the defense of officials and powers of the Constituent Assembly, it was really painstaking. For example, the term of office of national administrators is initially set at seven years.Madison thought seven years was appropriate, but not re-elected.This will not only prevent the parliament from being foolish, electing incompetent people, but also control the administrator, lest he always try to collude with the parliament and strive for re-election.Bedford disagreed.He said that with such a long tenure, he would have done what he wanted to do long ago.He advocates re-election every three years, and he can only be re-elected after leaving office for nine years.But there are also problems with not being re-elected.As Guweno Morris said on July 17, this regulation will only have two consequences.One is that you don’t want to make progress, just muddle through, and become a monk for a day, because no matter how good you do, you can’t be re-elected.Then there is the time to engage in corruption, because this regulation is equivalent to saying to the administrator: Hey, hurry up to dry the straw, while the sun is still there!To be honest, I couldn't help laughing when I saw this passage.Isn't this the "right to use it, expired void" that we are very familiar with?It seems the whole world is the same.

So vote.Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia were in favor, and Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina were opposed in April. The meeting passed the proposal of Georgia Representative Housestone, deleting the "non-re-election" rule for administrators. But this is not the final conclusion. On July 18, Luther Martin called for further discussion on the non-re-election of the magistrate, which was scheduled for the next day. On July 19, Randolph urged the meeting to discuss the motion, restoring the non-renewal rule for executive officers.Randolph said that if the executive should be independent, it should not be exposed to the temptation to curry favor with Congress for re-election.If the executive is elected by the parliament and can be re-elected, he will not be able to restrict the parliament, and his right to review the legislation of the parliament will not be established.Instead, just try to ingratiate yourself with Parliament.An incompetent person will continue to serve, and a competent person will not be selected.So the best thing to do is: the magistrate is elected by parliament, but not re-elected.

This motion was not accepted by the meeting of the day (only North Carolina and South Carolina were in favor, and the remaining 8 states were opposed). On July 24, Luther Martin raised the issue again, but was opposed by Ellsworth and Rufus King.Gerry said that he would rather let him serve for 10 years, 15 years, or even 20 years than let him be re-elected.So Luther Martin abandoned the non-re-election motion and advocated a 10-year term.Gerry advocated for 15 years.Rufus King said 20 years, isn't that exactly half of a monarch's term? Rufus King seemed to be sarcastic about Gerry, as he said 20 years in office would be fine.It may also be a satire on Hamilton, because Hamilton not only advocated the tenure of administrators for life, but also said on June 18 that the elected king is the best king if he can resist other people's struggle for power.

All these difficulties, Wilson concludes, arise from the election of the magistrate by parliament.In fact, no matter how long the term is, it is not as good as a good election method.In fact, as early as July 19, Wilson pointed out that the administrator should not be elected by Parliament unless he is not allowed to be re-elected.But when he said that everyone has reached a consensus on this, he was too optimistic.The accurate judgment was reached on this day (July 24): the election of the administrator is bound to become a huge problem. Madison had also seen the problem early on, and had a better insight. On July 17, after the meeting unanimously passed the resolution that "administrators are elected by the National Assembly" and agreed to delete the provision that administrators cannot be re-elected with a majority vote, Madison delivered an important speech.Madison said that the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers is the basic requirement for the protection of civil rights; making these three independent of each other is the basic guarantee for the separation of the three powers.If the magistrate has to curry favor with parliament in order to be re-elected, dependence will prevent him from becoming independent.Why don't judges adopt this repeated election method?Because this will induce judges to go to the parliament to cultivate interpersonal relationships and use inappropriate means to curry favor with members of the parliament. As a result, the parliament is not only the maker of the law, but also the interpreter of the law.In the same way, if the executive depends on parliament, it will make it both the maker and the executor of laws; and the combination of executive and legislative powers is obviously more dangerous than that of judicial and legislative powers.

On July 19, after Randolph and Wilson spoke, Madison reiterated the above point.Then he said that the election of the administrator must come from another source, because as long as it is elected by the parliament, even with the provision of non-renewal, there is no guarantee that the two departments will not have an improper relationship.But if elected by the masses, it is not difficult to elect an outstanding figure.As for the difficulty of direct election, it can be overcome by the system of "electors". The Constitutional Convention ended up largely adopting this plan, but it was much more complicated. On July 24, the Constitutional Convention appointed a 5-member Committee of Details.In the report of the Committee for Details, which is the first draft of the constitution, the name of the national administrator has been changed to the president, but the method of selection is still the election of the Federal Assembly, with a term of 7 years and no re-election. On August 24, the Constituent Assembly discussed this, but there was no result. On August 31, the Constitutional Convention accepted Sherman's motion to establish an 11-member committee with one person per state to deal with issues that had been postponed and not yet discussed. The members were Gilman of New Hampshire, Rufus King of Massachusetts, and Sherman of Connecticut. Braley, New Jersey, Guvener Morris, Pennsylvania, Dickinson, Delaware, Carol, Maryland, Madison, Virginia, Williamson, North Carolina, Butler, South Carolina, Georgia Baldwin, the chairman is Braley.The final plan was formed on September 6th after three days of discussions based on the report of the 11-member committee.

Mr. Yin Xuan, the translator of Madison's "Debate: Minutes of the United States Constitutional Convention", very precisely called the formation process of this plan the "negative exclusion method".Now I will tell the process according to Mr. Yin Xuan's train of thought. Please see how well-intentioned they are on this issue. The first to be ruled out is the federal parliamentary election.Because parliamentary elections are likely to lead to gang formation and selfish fraud, the president cannot be independent of Congress.The solution is non-re-election, but it's not fair.And, on 24 August, the deputies had found out that parliamentary elections were not practical.There are two houses of parliament, which house will be elected?No matter whether the House of Representatives alone, the Senate alone, or the joint vote of the two houses cannot reach a consensus, they have to give up.

People's elections also have problems. The biggest problem is that there are too many people and it is difficult to operate.In addition, the representatives also expressed doubts about whether the people are familiar with the situation and whether they have the judgment.The desirable solution is the election of "electors".But there are also two ways to select electors: elections to state assemblies and elections by the people.The final plan adopted by the Constituent Assembly is for the states to decide for themselves.However, in order to prevent officials from engaging in political transactions, the meeting adopted Rufus King and Gerry's proposal that federal MPs and officials should not serve as electors.As for the number, it is stipulated as the sum of the state's seats in both houses of the Federal Parliament.For example, in the first Congress, Virginia was eligible to produce 10 federal representatives and 2 senators, and the state had 12 electors.Delaware can only produce 1 member of the federal representative, 2 senators, and 3 electors in the state.In this way, the total number of electors in the whole country is the same as the number of members of both houses of the Federal Parliament.In operation, it is equivalent to the federal parliamentary election, but it avoids the disadvantages of parliamentary elections, because the electors are different from the number of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the electors do not have the power and interests of members.

But are electors reliable?Also unreliable.Therefore, in order to prevent the electors from colluding and excluding the capital as the election location, the electors concentrated their elections in each state.In order to prevent the electors from only considering the self-interest of the state, it is stipulated that they must vote for two people, at least one of whom does not live in the state.The results of the election were unsealed and counted by the President of the Federal Senate in front of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The candidate who received the most votes and more than half of them was elected president.

So, what if all the people are less than half?The original proposal, in which the Senate would choose one of the five most voted candidates, was opposed.Everyone said that the whole plan is much better than before, especially in preventing corruption.But giving the final vote to the Senate is inappropriate.In this way, the senator will say to the president, you were elected, thanks to us.Goweno Morris explained that the reason for going to the Senate is to make fewer people say such things (the number of members in the Senate is small).If it is handed over to the House of Representatives, or the two houses jointly vote, wouldn't there be more people saying this?

The problem is that many people are uneasy about the Senate.Williamson said he would rather have less than half the candidates elected than have the Senate be the referee.This sets the stage for co-opting corruption and aristocracy.Wilson also said that this arrangement had a tendency to lead to aristocracy.Legislative, executive, judicial, the three powers have actually been melted into one furnace, all in the hands of the Senate.If the president is elected by the Senate, the president is no longer a man of the people, but the darling of the Senate and ◎◎.Without the consent of the Senate, he would not be able to appoint even a single fencer.The Senate can coerce the emperor to order the princes and suppress the House of Representatives.They will sit in the back room of the pope, rack their brains, spread the votes, and take the presidential election into their own hands.Therefore, he will never agree to buy this package at the expense of the final election of the Senate, nor will he agree to allow the Senate to play any role in it.

In addition, there are Mason, Pinckney, Randolph, Rutledge, Dickinson, Kramer and others who hold opposing views.With so many influential people disagreeing, the plan certainly cannot stand.So the Senate was eliminated and the House of Representatives elected instead.But the election of the House of Representatives is also problematic, because in the House of Representatives, the big states have more seats.What's more, big states already have more electors than small states, so they already took advantage when nominating candidates.If the House of Representatives is allowed to cast the last vote, wouldn't the national administrator become the president of a great state?This is all right, the Senate won't work, the House of Representatives won't work, and the joint vote of the two houses won't work. It's just desperate. Fortunately, Sherman came up with a way: when the electors could not choose the president, the House of Representatives would elect, but the Senate would vote, that is, one vote per state.In this way, all ills are avoided, and all possibilities of corruption are theoretically ruled out.The only thing that the constitution-making delegates did not think of was to prevent partisan struggle and internal division. In the 1800 presidential election, all electors voted according to party will. As a result, the Democratic-Republican candidate Jefferson and the Federalist Burr both got 73 votes (each elector can cast two votes).At that time, there were 16 states in the United States, and the House of Representatives was elected according to the voting method of the Senate, with more than 30 votes, 8 to 8 each time.It was Hamilton who later came out to do the work of the Federalists to give Jefferson the majority.However, Hamilton also had a grudge with Burr, and finally died in a duel with Burr at the age of 49. This is really hard to guard against!But at that time, it was really difficult for them to be able to formulate such a plan.To be honest, if it was someone else, I might not be able to figure it out.