Such a body kings generally
have as a council. A monarchy may exist without it; but it seems to be
in the very essence of a republican government. It holds a sort of
middle place between the supreme power exercised by the people, or
immediately delegated from them, and the mere executive. Of this there
are no traces in your Constitution; and in providing nothing of this
kind, your Solons and Numas have, as much as in anything else,
discovered a sovereign incapacity.
Let us now turn our eyes to what they have done towards the formation of
an executive power. For this they have chosen a degraded king. This
their first executive officer is to be a machine, without any sort of
deliberative discretion in any one act of his function. At best, he is
but a channel to convey to the National Assembly such matter as may
import that body to know. If he had been made the exclusive channel, the
power would not have been without its importance, though infinitely
perilous to those who would choose to exercise it. But public
intelligence and statement of facts may pass to the Assembly with equal
authenticity through any other conveyance. As to the means, therefore,
of giving a direction to measures by the statement of an authorized
reporter, this office of intelligence is as nothing.
To consider the French scheme of an executive officer, in its two
natural divisions of civil and political.
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