The Most Dreaded Enemy of Liberty; J. Madison

[It should be well understood] that the powers proposed to be surrendered [by the Third Congress] to the Execu tive were those which the Constitution has most jealously appropriated to the Legislature .... The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war ... the power of raising armies ... the power of creating offices.... [88 ] A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted. The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them, is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.

The separation of the power of creating officesfrom that of filling them, is an essential guard against the temptation to create officesfor the sake of gratifying favourites or mul tiplying dependents. [89 ] THE GUARANTEED LIFE "A GOVERNMENT is a group of men organized to sell protec tion to the inhabitants of a limited area at monopolistic prices." So said Peter Stuyvesant in Knickerbocker Holi day, and so I believe now. In other words there's no such thing as a "good" government; one and all they partake of the nature of rackets. But government is better than anarchy, and was invented as an insurance against an archy. And some kinds of government are far better than others. Specifically, our American experiment has worked so well that we can point to it as one of the most successful in the history of the world, if not the most successful. In Knickerbocker Holiday I tried to remind the audience of the attitude toward government which was prevalent in this country at the time of the revolution of 1776 and throughout the early years of the republic. At that time it was generally believed, as I believe now, that the gravest and most constant danger toa man's life, liberty and hap piness is the government under which he lives.