upon it. But for inferior officers, not under the same control of public opinion, or at least not to the same extent, the payments by those whose business is transacted seems to form a proper fund. In respect to the members of the legislature, our practice corresponds with that of some, though not of all the nations of Europe. In one, to which we are apt more frequently to look than any other, the ancient usage has melted away, and the members of parliament now receive no compensation for their attendance. The consequence is, that only men of fortune can take seats in the house of commons. This is inconsistent with the equality that ought to be found in a republic. Men of virtue and talent, though depressed by poverty, ought to have the avenues to public trust as open to them as to the most wealthy. We will venture to add that the compensation ought to be liberal: a generous people, if it is faithfully served, will never complain. But the compensation ought to bear as exact a proportion as possible to the time employed. An act of congress was passed a few years ago,* in which, a gross sum was allotted for an entire session. The dissatisfaction it occasioned, produced an early repeal. The compensation of the president is not to be increased or diminished while he is in office; the legislature shall neither bribe nor terrify him in this mode. The compensations of judges shall not be diminished, but there is no restraint on their being increased, because their offices being in legal contemplation equivalent to offices for life; since the law benignly calculates that a judge will always behave well; the value of money may depreciate, and the salary become inadequate to the support intended to be allowed. It may be observed, that the president and judicial officers are to receive their compensations at stated periods, the inten * March 19, 1816. tion of which is, that services shall not be paid for, before they are performed; but no such restriction is imposed on the members of the legislature, because it is presumed that they will not violate a principle so just, and also, because from the uncertain duration of their sessions, no stated period can be fixed. The military power is also in this respect to be distinguished from other executive offices; being liable to be employed in various places where it may be difficult or impossible to be regularly supplied with the means of discharging their pay, it would be impolitic to entitle them to demand it at certain periods. Their compensations cannot be diminished during the time for which they are engaged, because it would be a breach of the contract: they may be increased, because the public safety would not be endangered by it. Fortuitous additions, tending to stimulate their exertions are allowed: an army is entitled to share in some parts of what is taken from the enemy, which, according to the laws of war, become the property of the captors. A rule, however, which in modern practice is rather specious than profitable, for it is rarely enforced; but to the navy the same principle is often productive of great emolument; a discrimination having been long established between maritime captures and those on shore, on a foundation not perceptibly just. The property of peaceable and private individuals on the land is seldom considered in modern times, as a just subject of confiscation, although the owners are inhabitants of a hostile country; but at sea, the merchant vessel, unarmed and unoffending, is the lawful prey of the commissioned cruizer, and is condemned to his use, on being captured and brought into the ports of his country. The amount of these additional compensations is from time to time regulated by congress. The appropriation for the support of the army and navy can be made only by congress, and in respect to the army, as has been already observed, for no longer time than two years. This may, at first view, appear inconsistent with the practice of enlisting soldiers for a longer time, but when we take a view of the whole political system and recollect that this limitation has been adopted as a suitable check upon the possible ill use of a regular army, we must allow a predominant operation to the greater principle. The military contracts must be construed, in all cases, as subject to the constitutional restriction, which must be considered as a proviso introduced into every law that authorizes the president to raise an army. To disband an army entirely, must be a legislative act. To dismiss any or all of the officers is, by the tenure of their commissions, within the power of the president. It is the practice in many countries when an army is reduced, to allow to the officers whose active services are no longer required, half the amount of their pay during life. Such compensations with us depend on the judgment of congress, and from that quarter also must proceed those charitable provisions which seem fairly due to the disabled and infirm soldier who has faithfully served his country. A recent instance has proved that the charge of ingratitude cannot always be justly preferred against a republic. Invited to revisit a country, to which in early life he had rendered splendid and successful service; the heroism of General La Fayette has been rewarded, not merely by unbounded effusions of the public mind, but with a pecuniary compensation equally honourable to the donors and to the receiver. CHAPTER XIX. OF INCOMPATIBLE OFFICES. Two offices may be so incompatible in their nature, that the same person shall not be admitted to hold them both. The Constitution in this respect is not altogether silent, and we shall endeavour to show the justness of the principles on which it proceeds. It is a rule of general law, that an officer who accepts another appointment inconsistent with the first, is held to have thereby resigned the first.* If the marshal of one of the districts were to be appointed judge of that district, it would virtually vacate his office as marshal. If a member of the house of representatives accepted an appointment as senator, he would cease to be a member of the house of representatives. But a man may hold two or more offices, if they are not incompatible in their nature, and therefore there would seem no reason, other than general policy, for excluding some of the executive officers, below the president, from seats in either house, or to prevent an individual from holding at the same time the office of secretary of state and of the treasury, or any similar offices. But although no reasons, merely of a legal nature, might be opposed to it, the impolicy of admitting such * 2 Rolle's Reports, 452. Brooke's ab. Commissions, 25. 3 Burr, 616. 2 Durn. & East, 85. † 4 Serg. & Rawle, 275. officers to compose a part of the legislature is exceedingly plain. We must once more recur to England, and examine the effects of their practice in this respect. The great officers of the crown, unless they are members of the other house, are eligible as members of the house of commons. The whole administration partakes in one or the other of the houses, of the legislative power. There is no doubt that some benefit is derived from it, in the facility of obtaining information in regard to public measures, and the inquiries of other members on such subjects, are usually answered with great courtesy; but this small advantage is counterbalanced by the influence they possess there, and by the total subversion of one of the chief pillars, on which the importance and value of the house of commons have always been asserted to rest. Every panegyrist of the British Constitution delights to draw a perspective view of the house of commons as keeper of the purse of the nation; regulating its expenses and withholding supplies from the crown, except on such terms as the good of the people may require. But nothing is at present more remote from the fact. The whole scheme of taxation; the amount to be raised; the subjects to be taxed, and the objects to which the product is to be applied, are laid before them by the ministers of the crown; not indeed in that capacity, but in the professed quality of members of the house, and perhaps since the restoration of Charles II. certainly not for many years back, the other members of the house have never proposed other plans of finance, or undertaken to act on the old principle of representatives of the people, further than to object to and vote against the ministerial propositions. Thus the house of commons is rendered part of the machinery of the executive government, and whenever a minister becomes so unpopular as to lose his ascendency in the house, either it must be dissolved, and the chance of one more pliant be taken by another election, or the |