path: root/usr.bin/learn/lib/morefiles/L1.1a

#print
One of the more useful programs on Unix is "spell", which
looks for spelling mistakes in a set of files.  Although spell
is not perfect, it does a reasonable job of presenting you
with a list of possibilities.  To look for mistakes in a set
of files, you simply say

   spell filenames

and of course you can use shorthands like *, ? and [] to name
the files.  For practice, there are some files whose names begin
with "memo" in this directory; somewhere in one of them
is a legitimate spelling mistake.  Use spell to find it, then
type "answer word", where "word" is the mistake.
Spell may also output a number of words
that aren't mistakes; you may have to select real errors
from the false ones.

By the way, an alternative is ispell, which you'll find in the
Ports Tree on OpenBSD. Ispell gives the words one at a time and
presents alternatives.
#create memo1
(This comes from a federalist paper by Alexander Hamilton.)
   It has been mentioned as one of the advantages to be expected
from the cooperation of the Senate, in the business
of appointments, that it would contribute to the
stability of the administration.  The consent of that body
would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint.  A
change of the Chief Magistrate, therefore, would not occasion
so violent or so general a revolution in the officers
of the government as might be expected if he were the
sole disposer of offices.  Where a man in any station had
given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new
President would be restrained from attempting a change
in favor of a person more agreeable to him by the apprehension
that a discountenance of the Senate might frustrate
the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit
upon himself.  Those who can best estimate the value of
a steady administration will be most disposed to prize a
provision which connects the official existence of public
men with the approbation or disapprobation of that body
which, from the greater permanency of its own composition,
will in all probability be less subject to inconstancy
than any other member of the government.
   To this union of the Senate with the President, in the
article of appointments, it has in some cases been suggested
that it would serve to give the President an undue
influence over the Senate, and in others that it would
have an opposite tendency - a strong proof that neither
suggestion is true.
   To state the first in its proper form is to refute it.  It
amounts to this:  the President would have an improper
influence over the Senate, because the Senate would
have the power of restraining him.  This is an absurdity in
terms.  It cannot admit of a doubt that the entire power
of appointment would enable him much more effectually
to establish a dangerous empire over that body than a
mere power of nomination subject to their control.
    Let us take a view of the converse of the proposition:
"the Senate would influence the executive."  As I have
had occasion to remark in several other instances, the indistinctness
of the objection forbids a precise answer.  In
what manner is this influence to be exerted?  In relation
to what objects?  The power of influencing a person, in
the sense in which it is here used, must imply a power of
conferring a benefit upon him.  How could the Senate
confer a benefit upon the President by the manner of employing
their right of negative upon his nominations?  If it
be said they might sometimes gratify him by an acquiescence
in a favorite choice, when public motives might dictate a
different conduct, I answer that the instances in which the
President could be personally interested in the result would
be too few to admit of his being materially affected by the
#create memo2
compliances of the Senate.  Besides this, it is evident that
the POWER which can originate the disposition of honors
and emoluments is more likely to attract than to be attracted
by the POWER which can merely obstruct their
course.  If by influencing the President be want restraining
him, this is precisely what must have been intended.
And it has been shown that the restraint would be salutary,
at the same time that it would not be such as to
destroy a single advantage to be looked for from the uncontrolled
agency of that magistrate.  The right of nomination
would produce all the good, without the ill.
   Upon a comparison of the plan for the appointment of
the officers of the proposed government with that which
is established by the constitution of this State, a decided
preference must be given to the former.  In that plan the
power of nomination is unequivocally vested in the executive.
And as there would be a necessity for submitting
each nomination to the judgment of an entire branch of
the legislature, the circumstances attending an appointment,
from the mode of conducting it, would naturally
become matters of notoriety, and the public would
be at no loss to determine what part had been performed
by the different actors.  The blame of a bad nomination
would fall upon the President singly and absolutely.  The
censure of rejecting a good one would lie entirely at the
door of the senate, aggravated by the consideration
of their having counteracted the good intentions of the
executive.  If an ill appointment should be made, the executive,
for nominating, and the Senate, for approving,
would participate, though in different degrees, in the
opprobrium and disgrace.
   The reverse of all this characterizes the manner of appointment
in this State.  The council of appointment consists
of from three to five persons, of whom the governor
is always one.  This small body, shut up in a private
apartment, impenetrable to the public eye, proceed to the
execution of the trust committed to them.  It is known
that the governor claims the right of nomination upon
the strength of some ambiguous expressions in the Constitution;
but it is not known to what extent, or in what
manner he exercises it; nor upon what occasions he is
contradicted or opposed.  The censure of a bad appointment,
on account of the uncertainty of its author and for
want of a determinate object, has neither poignancy nor
duration.  And while an unbounded field for cabal and intrigue
lies open, all idea of responsibility is lost.  The
most that the public can know is that the governor
claims the right of nomination; that two out of the inconsiderable
number of four men can too often be managed
without much difficulty; that if some of the members of a
#create memo3
particular council should happen to be of an uncomplying
character, it is frequently not impossible to get rid of their
opposition by regulating the times of meeting in such a
manner as to render their attendance inconvenient; and
that from whatever cause it may proceed, a great
number of very improper appointments are from time to
time made.  Whether a governor of this State avails himself
of the ascendant, he must necessarily have in this
delicate and important part of the administration to prefer
to offices men who are best qualified for them; or
whether he prostitutes that advantage to the advancement
of persons whose chief merit is their implicit devotion to
his will and to the support of a despicable and dangerous
system of personal influence are questions which, unfortunately
for the community, can only be the subjects
of speculation and conjecture.
   Every mere council of appointment, however constituted,
will be a conclave in which cabal and intrigue will
have their full scope.  Their number, without an unwarrantable
increase of expense, cannot be large enough to
preclude a facility of combination.  And as each member
will have his friends and connections to provide for,
the desire of mutual gratification will beget a scandalous
bartering of votes and bargaining for places.  The private
attachments of one man might easily be satisfied, but to
satisfy the private attachments of a dozen, or of twenty
men, would occasion a monopoly of all the principal employments
of the government in a few families and
would lead more directly to an aristocracy or an oligarchy
than any measure that could be contrived.  If, to avoid an
accumulation of offices, there was to be a frequent change
in the persons who were to be a frequent change
in the persons who were to compose the council, this
would involve the mischiefs of a mutable administration
in their full extent.  Such a council would also be more
liable to executive influence than the Senate, because
they would be fewer in number, and would act less immediately
under the public inspection.  Such a council, in
fine, as a substitute for the plan of the convention, would
be productive of an increase of expense, a multiplication
of the evils which spring from favoritism and intrigue in
the distribution of public honors, a decrease of stability
in the administration of the government, and a diminution
of the security against an undue influence of the
executive.  And yet such a council has been warmly contended
for as an essential amendment in the proposed
Constitution.
   I could not with propriety conclude my observations
on the subject of appointments without taking notice of
a scheme for which there have appeared some, though
#create memo4
but a few advocates; I mean that of uniting the House of
Representatives in the power of making them.  I shall,
however, do little more than mention it, as I cannot
imagine that it is likely to gain the countenance of any
considerable part of the community.  A body so fluctuating
and at the same time so numerous can never be
deemed proper for the exercise of that power.  Its unfitness
will appear manifest to all when it is recollected that
in half a century it may consist of three or four hundred
persons.  All the advantages of the stability, both of the
Executive and of the Senate, would be defeated by this
union, and infinite delays and embarrassments would be
occasioned.  The exampled of most of the States in their
local constitutions encourages us to reprobate the idea.
   The only remaining powers of the executive are comprehended
in giving information to Congress of the state
of the Union; in recommending to their consideration
such measures as he shall judge expedient; in convening
them, or either branch, upon extraordinary occasions; in
adjourning them when they cannot themselves agree upon
the time of adjournment; in receiving ambassadors and
other public ministers; in faithfully executing the laws;
and in commissioning all the officers of the United States.
   Except some cavils about the power of convening either
house of the legislature, and that of receiving ambassadors,
no objection has been made to this class of
authorities; nor could they possibly admit of any.  It required,
indeed, an insatiable avidity for censure to invent
exceptions to the parts which have been excepted to.  In
regard to the power of convening either house of the legislature
I shall barely remark that in respect to the Senate,
at least, we can readily discover a good reason for it.  As
this body has a concurrent power with the executive in
the article of treaties, it might often be necessary to call
it together with a view to this object, when it would be
unnecessary and improper to convene the House of Representatives.
As to the reception of ambassadors, what I
have said in a former paper will furnish a sufficient answer.
   We have now completed a survy of the structure and
powers of the executive department which, I have endeavored
to show, combines, as far as republican principles
will admit, all the requisites to energy.  The
remaining inquiry is:  does it also combine the requisites
to safety, in the republican sense - due dependence on
the people, a due responsibility?  The answer to this question
has been anticipated in the investigation of its other
characteristics, and is satisfactorily deducible from these
circumstances; the election of the President once in four
years by persons immediately chosen by the people for
that purpose, and his being at all times liable to impeachment,
trial, dismission from office, incapacity to serve
in any other, and to the forfeiture of life and estate by subsequent
prosecution in the common course of law.  But
these precautions, great as they are, are not the only
ones which the plan of the convention has provided in
favor of the public security.  In the only instances in which
the abuse of the executive authority was materially to be
feared, the chief Magistrate of the United States, would,
by that plan, be subjected to the control of a branch of
the legislative body.  What more can an enlightened and
reasonable people desire?
#copyin
#user
#uncopyin
#match survy
#log
#next
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