66      BAD EFFECTS OF THIS EXCLUSION.
delicate a flower for the rough handling of a pubUt assembly, and of course may disregard attack, when the constitution has so wisely precluded the possibility of defence.
It is no answer to all this to say, that every publk-officer in the United States is liable to impeachment, in case of individual malversation in office. No donh he is so; but violation of trust in a minister of state, so flagrant as to warrant impeachment, is an offena of rare occurrence, and one for which the disgrace ol public exposure is generally a sufficient punishment What is chiefly to be guarded against are the job the trickeries, the petty impurities of office, which ih necessity of braving personal examination in a pubit assembly would probably prevent. The Americam therefore, in excluding their executive officers frofl all place in their representative bodies, have grat* tously discarded a powerful and efficient guaranW for the honest and upright administration of theii affairs. The knowledge that every political measu" will be subjected to a rigid and unsparing scrutiny* and must be defended to the satisfaction of honoured