Federalist #67

The Executive Department  (Hamilton)

Hamilton says the executive department is the focus of Federalist 67. The executive is the hardest department to set up. It is the most vehemently criticized department. He says that with the executive department those who are against the Constitution seem to have utilized their talent for misrepresentation. Knowing the people's aversion to monarchy, they have endeavored to enlist all of their jealousies and apprehension in opposition to the proposed president of the United States. Hamilton says that the anti-Federalists, in order to establish the pretended affinity  have even drawn from the realm of fiction. The authorities of the magistrate, in some instances greater, in some instances less, than those of the governor of New York have been magnified into more than royal prerogatives. The  anti-federalists believe the president has been decorated with attributes superior to those of the King of Great Britain. The president has been shown to us with a diadem sparkling on his brow and the Imperial purple flowing in his train. He has been seated on the throne surrounded by minions and mistresses, while meeting leaders of foreign countries in all the pomp of majesty. Hamilton says that citizens have almost been taught to tremble at the terrific vestiges of murdering janizaries, and to bloodshed that unveiled its mysteries of a future seraglio.

Hamilton says attempts to disfigure or metamorphose the presidency make it necessary to take an accurate view of its real nature and form in order to ascertain its true aspect in genuine appearance. The anti-Federalists deduced that the president has the power to fill vacancies in the Senate. It is a pretend power. Hamilton explains the second clause of the second section of the second article to the Constitution w empowers the president of the United States to, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and councils, judges to the Supreme Court and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not in the Constitution not otherwise established by law. The president also has the power to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. Hamilton says that this provision is where the pretend power of the president to fill all vacancies on the Senate comes from.

The first of the two clauses of the second section of the second article of the Constitution only provides a mode for appointing officers whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution, and which are not established by law. This does not extend to the appointment of senators whose appointments are otherwise provided for in the Constitution, and  are established by the Constitution, and will not require a future establishment by law. Hamilton says this position will hardly be contested. 

The last two of these clauses cannot be understood to comprehend the power of  filling vacancies in the Senate either for the following reasons. First, how these clauses relate to each other in that they do know the general mode of appointing officers of the United States. They are a supplement to the other for the purpose of establishing, in cases to which the general method was inadequate. The ordinary power of appointment lies with the president and the Senate jointly, and can therefore only be exercised during the session of the Senate; but because it would have been improper to make this body be continually incessant for the appointment of officers, and vacancies that might happen in the recess, which it might be necessary to fill without delay, the succeeding clause is intended to authorize the president to make temporary appointments during the recess of the Senate. 

 

 Second, if this clause is considered supplementary to the one which precedes it, the vacancies it speaks of must be construed to relate to the officers described in the preceding one; and this excludes from its description members of the Senate. Third, the time within which the power is to operate conspired to elucidate the sense of the provision which, if it had been intended to comprehend senators, but naturally have referred the temporary power filling vacancies to the recess of state legislatures, who are to make the permanent appointments, and not to the recess of the national Senate is no concern and those appointments would have extended the duration of the temporary senators to the next session of the state legislature. The body authorized to make the appointments would, of course, have governed the modification of power which related to the temporary appointments. The Senate is the body the situation is contemplated in the clause upon which the suggestion under examination. Therefore, the vacancies that it talks about can only be thought to be those in the appointment that has a concurrent agent with the president. Lastly, the first and second clauses of the third section of the last article not only obviate all possibility of doubt, but destroy the pretext of misconception. The former provides that the Senate of the United States is to be comprised of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature of each state for 6 years. The latter directs that if vacancies and should happen by resignation or otherwise, during the recess of any state legislature, the executive of the state may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature which will then fill any vacancies. This is a clear and express power given to state executives to fill casual vacancies in the Senate by temporary appointments. This not only invalidates that such power rests with the president of the United States, but proves that this power must not have originated in the intention to deceive the people of the United States.

          
Hamilton says in this Federalist paper he has taken great pains to clear up this misrepresentation as proof of the unwarrantable arts which are practiced to prevent a fair and impartial judgment of the real merits of the Constitution by the people.