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1.1 root 1: #print
2: One of the more useful programs on Unix is "spell", which
3: looks for spelling mistakes in a set of files. Although spell
4: is not perfect, it does a reasonable job of presenting you
5: with a list of possibilities. To look for mistakes in a set
6: of files, you simply say
7:
8: spell filenames
9:
10: and of course you can use shorthands like *, ? and [] to name
11: the files. For practice, there are some files whose names begin
12: with "memo" in this directory; somewhere in one of them
13: is a legitimate spelling mistake. Use spell to find it, then
14: type "answer word", where "word" is the mistake.
15: Spell may also output a number of words
16: that aren't mistakes; you may have to select real errors
17: from the false ones.
18:
19: By the way, spell takes a minute to run;
20: go get a cup of coffee or something while you wait.
21: #create memo1
22: (This comes from a federalist paper by alexander hamilton.)
23: It has been mentioned as one of the advantages to be expected
24: from the cooperation of the Senate, in the business
25: of appointments, that it would contribute to the
26: stability of the administration. The consent of that body
27: would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint. A
28: change of the Chief Magistrate, therefore, would not occasion
29: so violent or so general a revolution in the officers
30: of the government as might be expected if he were the
31: sole disposer of offices. Where a man in any station had
32: given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new
33: President would be restrained from attempting a change
34: in favor of a person more agreeable to him by the apprehension
35: that a discountenance of the Senate might frustrate
36: the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit
37: upon himself. Those who can best estimate the value of
38: a steady administration will be most disposed to prize a
39: provision which connects the official existence of public
40: men with the approbation or disapprobation of that body
41: which, from the greater permanency of its own composition,
42: will in all probability be less subject to inconstancy
43: than any other member of the government.
44: To this union of the Senate with the President, in the
45: article of appointments, it has in some cases been suggested
46: that it would serve to give the President an undue
47: influence over the Senate, and in others that it would
48: have an opposite tendency - a strong proof that neither
49: suggestion is true.
50: To state the first in its proper form is to refute it. It
51: amounts to this: the President would have an improper
52: influence over the Senate, because the Senate would
53: have the power of restraining him. This is an absurdity in
54: terms. It cannot admit of a doubt that the entire power
55: of appointment would enable him much more effectually
56: to establish a dangerous empire over that body than a
57: mere power of nomination subject to their control.
58: Let us take a view of the converse of the proposition:
59: "the Senate would influence the executive." As I have
60: had occasion to remark in several other instances, the indistinctness
61: of the objection forbids a precise answer. In
62: what manner is this influence to be exerted? In relation
63: to what objects? The power of influencing a person, in
64: the sense in which it is here used, must imply a power of
65: conferring a benefit upon him. How could the Senate
66: confer a benefit upon the President by the manner of employing
67: their right of negative upon his nominations? If it
68: be said they might sometimes gratify him by an acquiescence
69: in a favorite choice, when public motives might dictate a
70: different conduct, I answer that the instances in which the
71: President could be personally interested in the result would
72: be too few to admit of his being materially affected by the
73: #create memo2
74: compliances of the Senate. Besides this, it is evident that
75: the POWER which can originate the disposition of honors
76: and emoluments is more likely to attract than to be attracted
77: by the POWER which can merely obstruct their
78: course. If by influencing the President be want restraining
79: him, this is precisely what must have been intended.
80: And it has been shown that the restraint would be salutary,
81: at the same time that it would not be such as to
82: destroy a single advantage to be looked for from the uncontrolled
83: agency of that magistrate. The right of nomination
84: would produce all the good, without the ill.
85: Upon a comparison of the plan for the appointment of
86: the officers of the proposed government with that which
87: is established by the constitution of this State, a decided
88: preference must be given to the former. In that plan the
89: power of nomination is unequivocally vested in the executive.
90: And as there would be a necessity for submitting
91: each nomination to the judgment of an entire branch of
92: the legislature, the circumstances attending an appointment,
93: from the mode of conducting it, would naturally
94: become matters of notoriety, and the public would
95: be at no loss to determine what part had been performed
96: by the different actors. The blame of a bad nomination
97: would fall upon the President singly and absolutely. The
98: censure of rejecting a good one would lie entirely at the
99: door of the senate, aggravated by the consideration
100: of their having counteracted the good intentions of the
101: executive. If an ill appointment should be made, the executive,
102: for nominating, and the Senate, for approving,
103: would participate, though in different degrees, in the
104: opprobrium and disgrace.
105: The reverse of all this characterizes the manner of appointment
106: in this State. The council of appointment consists
107: of from three to five persons, of whom the governor
108: is always one. This small body, shut up in a private
109: apartment, impenetrable to the public eye, proceed to the
110: execution of the trust committed to them. It is known
111: that the governor claims the right of nomination upon
112: the strength of some ambiguous expressions in the Constitution;
113: but it is not known to what extent, or in what
114: manner he exercises it; nor upon what occasions he is
115: contradicted or opposed. The censure of a bad appointment,
116: on account of the uncertainty of its author and for
117: want of a determinate object, has neither poignancy nor
118: duration. And while an unbounded field for cabal and intrigue
119: lies open, all idea of responsibility is lost. The
120: most that the public can know is that the governor
121: claims the right of nomination; that two out of the inconsiderable
122: number of four men can too often be managed
123: without much difficulty; that if some of the members of a
124: #create memo3
125: particular council should happen to be of an uncomplying
126: character, it is frequently not impossible to get rid of their
127: opposition by regulating the times of meeting in such a
128: manner as to render their attendance inconvenient; and
129: that from whatever cause it may proceed, a great
130: number of very improper appointments are from time to
131: time made. Whether a governor of this State avails himself
132: of the ascendant, he must necessarily have in this
133: delicate and important part of the administration to prefer
134: to offices men who are best qualified for them; or
135: whether he prostitutes that advantage to the advancement
136: of persons whose chief merit is their implicit devotion to
137: his will and to the support of a despicable and dangerous
138: system of personal influence are questions which, unfortunately
139: for the community, can only be the subjects
140: of speculation and conjecture.
141: Every mere council of appointment, however constituted,
142: will be a conclave in which cabal and intrigue will
143: have their full scope. Their number, without an unwarrantable
144: increase of expense, cannot be large enough to
145: preclude a facility of combination. And as each member
146: will have his friends and connections to provide for,
147: the desire of mutual gratification will beget a scandalous
148: bartering of votes and bargaining for places. The private
149: attachments of one man might easily be satisfied, but to
150: satisfy the private attachments of a dozen, or of twenty
151: men, would occasion a monopoly of all the principal employments
152: of the government in a few families and
153: would lead more directly to an aristocracy or an oligarchy
154: than any measure that could be contrived. If, to avoid an
155: accumulation of offices, there was to be a frequent change
156: in the persons who were to be a frequent change
157: in the persons who were to compose the council, this
158: would involve the mischiefs of a mutable administration
159: in their full extent. Such a council would also be more
160: liable to executive influence than the Senate, because
161: they would be fewer in number, and would act less immediately
162: under the public inspection. Such a council, in
163: fine, as a substitute for the plan of the convention, would
164: be productive of an increase of expense, a multiplication
165: of the evils which spring from favoritism and intrigue in
166: the distribution of public honors, a decrease of stability
167: in the administration of the government, and a diminution
168: of the security against an undue influence of the
169: executive. And yet such a council has been warmly contended
170: for as an essential amendment in the proposed
171: Constitution.
172: I could not with propriety conclude my observations
173: on the subject of appointments without taking notice of
174: a scheme for which there have appeared some, though
175: #create memo4
176: but a few advocates; I mean that of uniting the House of
177: Representatives in the power of making them. I shall,
178: however, do little more than mention it, as I cannot
179: imagine that it is likely to gain the countenance of any
180: considerable part of the community. A body so fluctuating
181: and at the same time so numerous can never be
182: deemed proper for the exercise of that power. Its unfitness
183: will appear manifest to all when it is recollected that
184: in half a century it may consist of three or four hundred
185: persons. All the advantages of the stability, both of the
186: Executive and of the Senate, would be defeated by this
187: union, and infinite delays and embarrassments would be
188: occasioned. The exampled of most of the States in their
189: local constitutions encourages us to reprobate the idea.
190: The only remaining powers of the executive are comprehended
191: in giving information to Congress of the state
192: of the Union; in recommending to their consideration
193: such measures as he shall judge expedient; in convening
194: them, or either branch, upon extraordinary occasions; in
195: adjourning them when they cannot themselves agree upon
196: the time of adjournment; in receiving ambassadors and
197: other public ministers; in faithfully executing the laws;
198: and in commissioning all the officers of the United States.
199: Except some cavils about the power of convening either
200: house of the legislature, and that of receiving ambassadors,
201: no objection has been made to this class of
202: authorities; nor could they possibly admit of any. It required,
203: indeed, an insatiable avidity for censure to invent
204: exceptions to the parts which have been excepted to. In
205: regard to the power of convening either house of the legislature
206: I shall barely remark that in respect to the Senate,
207: at least, we can readily discover a good reason for it. As
208: this body has a concurrent power with the executive in
209: the article of treaties, it might often be necessary to call
210: it together with a view to this object, when it would be
211: unnecessary and improper to convene the House of Representatives.
212: As to the reception of ambassadors, what I
213: have said in a former paper will furnish a sufficient answer.
214: We have now completed a survy of the structure and
215: powers of the executive department which, I have endeavored
216: to show, combines, as far as republican principles
217: will admit, all the requisites to energy. The
218: remaining inquiry is: does it also combine the requisites
219: to safety, in the republican sense - due dependence on
220: the people, a due responsibility? The answer to this question
221: has been anticipated in the investigation of its other
222: characteristics, and is satisfactorily deducible from these
223: circumstances; the election of the President once in four
224: years by persons immediately chosen by the people for
225: that purpose, and his being at all times liable to impeachment,
226: trial, dismission from office, incapacity to serve
227: in any other, and to the forfeiture of life and estate by subsequent
228: prosecution in the common course of law. But
229: these precautions, great as they are, are not the only
230: ones which the plan of the convention has provided in
231: favor of the public security. In the only instances in which
232: the abuse of the executive authority was materially to be
233: feared, the chief Magistrate of the United States, would,
234: by that plan, be subjected to the control of a branch of
235: the legislative body. What more can an enlightened and
236: reasonable people desire?
237: #copyin
238: #user
239: #uncopyin
240: #match survy
241: #log
242: #next
243: 1.1b 10
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