And, as the nation is less able to choose than a Parliament, so it has worse people to choose out of. The American legislators of the last century have been much blamed for not permitting the Ministers of the President to be members of the assembly; but, with reference to the specific end which they had in view, they saw clearly and decided wisely. They wished to keep “the legislative branch absolutely distinct from the executive branch”; they believed such a separation to be essential to a good constitution; they believed such a separation to exist in the English, which the wisest of them thought the best Constitution. And, to the effectual maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the President’s Ministers from the legislature is essential. If they are not excluded they become the executive, they eclipse the President himself. A legislative chamber is greedy and covetous; it acquires as much, it concedes as little as possible. The passions of its members are its rulers; the lawmaking faculty, the most comprehensive of the imperial faculties, is its instrument; it will take the administration if it can take it. Tried by their own aims, the founders of the United States were wise in excluding the Ministers from Congress.