Sublime

for to attempt to render the representative of the State a powerful sovereign, and at the same time elective, is, in my opinion, to entertain two incompatible designs.

It is evident that a central government acquires immense power when united to administrative centralization.

Especially sensitive to allegations that the president was vested with excessive power, he stressed the numerous safeguards put in place, telling Lafayette that the new constitution “is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny . . . than any government” previously devised by mortals.28 As president, Washington went

A couple of days later Washington returned to the Senate, which approved the three commissioners to negotiate with the Creeks. It proved his farewell appearance in the Senate chamber. In a decision pregnant with lasting consequences, Washington decided that he would henceforth communicate with that body on paper rather than in person and trim “advi

distinct elements, of which population is the first, real property the second, and personal property the third.

For Washington, who cherished his retirement, this news must have been disturbing. Not surprisingly, Shays’s Rebellion crystallized for him the need to overhaul the Articles of Confederation.

The unanimous consent agreements were a culmination of all the powers that Lyndon Johnson had created over scheduling, over the content of bills, over the managing of bills, over committee assignments. The agreements were made possible—senators had no choice but to accept them—because of the combining of these internal powers with the powers he bro