Federalist Papers # 51
In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of
government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation
of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently
should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in
the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would
require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary
magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels
having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the
several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear.
Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some
deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary
department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first,
because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought
to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because
the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy |
all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them.