Federalist No. 67

Federalist No. 67 (Federalist Number 67) is an essay by Alexander Hamilton and the sixty-seventh of The Federalist Papers. This essay's title is "The Executive Department", and it begins a series of eleven separate papers discussing the powers and limitations of that branch. Federalist No. 67 was published, like the rest of the Federalist Papers, under the pseudonym Publius. It was published in the New York Packet on Tuesday, March 11, 1788.

In this paper, Hamilton draws a distinction between the constitutionally limited executive powers of the president and the far more extensive powers of a monarch as a ruler. He also chastises opponents of the Constitution who believe the President is granted excessive power by being allowed to fill vacancies in the Senate. Hamilton points out this power is limited in scope as the President's appointments expire at the end of the Senate's next session, and permanent appointments are left to the state legislatures.

Hamilton’s arguments are a response to anti-federalist arguments against the new constitution and the strong central government that it implied. The anti-federalists feared that the national government would weaken their individual states and that national debts would burden the country, and were particularly concerned with the executive branch, arguing that it would eventually become a monarchy or dictatorship. People questioned why Hamilton and the Federalists would propose a constitution that created an executive branch that seemed to have way too much power. America was coming off the revolution where they fought England to gain independence from an oppressive government who they believed had too much power. People were concerned that this new executive branch would destroy the freedom that they just fought and died for. Another major fear was that the executive would have too much say in the senate. They thought the executive would be controlling from behind the scenes and appointing whoever they wanted to congress. Hamilton set out to prove that these fears were something not to worry about because the executive branch would be tightly regulated.

To refute the notion that the executive branch would become a monarchy, allowing the President to put a person in any office, Hamilton wrote, “To nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of United States whose appointments are not in the Constitution otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law.” What this statement means is that the President of the United States can only nominate members as ambassadors, public ministries and consuls, Supreme Court judges and any other member that is not directly named in the Constitution currently or that will be named in the future without first consulting the Senate and then getting the Senate's approval of his nomination.

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