date

1823. Feb. 27 Greece. J.B. Observations
1823. Feb. 27

Greece. J.B. Observations on particular Articles

?.3. III Grecian points unapt

Be these rules what they may, I proceed to shew why in the first place this body is in my view of the matter useless.

1. It is itself composed of five Members. By these five (per Article 20) are to be appointed eight other functionaries, under the name of Ministers. Number of functionaries thus belonging to the Executive Department, adding the two grades together, 13. To these same five belongs moreover (per Article 21) the power of placing functionaries in all the other employments of government, to which by Article 67 is added the power of displacing them.

Now of these thirteen, eight at least are I say altogether useless. For proof I appeal as above to particular experience: the experience afforded by the only Constitution that ever really had for its object or end in view the greatest happiness of the greatest number: I mean the Constitution of the Anglo-American United States. Here at the head of the Executive Department you have a single person the President of the United States. To him alone belongs the direction of the whole business of that Department. To him belongs the direction to be given to, the command over, the whole Military force of the Country by Sea and Land. + To him belongs the placing and at his pleasure the displacing of the four Ministers stiled Secretaries by whom in subordination to the President and the Legislative Assembly stiled the Congress the whole civil power of the confederacy is exercised: namely 1 Secretary of State, 2. Secretary of War, 3. Secretary of Navy, 4. Secretary of Finance. If the business of the Greek Nation is but carried on with a degree of aptitude and success not very much below that with which it is carried on in that Confederated Commonwealth, the Grecian will be a happy people. Nothing approaching to it has yet been seen any where else; nor /no: nor/ ever will be, on any other condition than that of imitating it: Now then, supposing my advice on the subject asked for, it would be this. Take some one individual, for example the President of that same Executive Council give him the power possessed in the Anglo-American Commonwealth by the functionary whose title is President of the United States.

Take

+ Constitution Art. │ │
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    This done, take four other individuals say for example the four other Members of the so-stiled Executive Council, and give to them respectively the functions and powers possessed respectively by the abovementioned Secretaries. Call them Secretaries or Ministers as you please: but on account of the collateral ideas associated with the two denominations respectively my recommendation would be to call them Secretaries and not Ministers. Under the appellation of Secretaries they present to my imagination the images of so many responsible instruments of good government, under a free and happy people: under the name of Ministers, as the ever mischievous and profligate tools of a Monarch leagued or not leagued with a set of sub-despots in the condition of Aristocrats, having for their sole business the exercise of depredation and oppression in all their forms over, and at the expence of, all the other members of the community who are not sharers with them in the spoil.

    Be this as it may, having these five functionaries thus equipped with power, no need have you either of the Executive Council with its five Members or of Your eight Ministers of State.

    Note that seeing that four Secretaries are sufficient, for conducting, under the President, the whole of the business of the Executive Department in the Anglo-American United States, not merely four, but even fewer than four, should be sufficient in Greece, were it not for a Secretary or a Minister of Justice which I should see reason to add, tho' no such functionary was found requisite in those United States. For whether it be population or territory that is considered, but more especially if it be territory, think how small the scale is, upon which every thing, that has place, has place in Greece, when compared with the vast scale upon which population, but more particularly territory, has place in that only as yet known seat of Good Government!
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    As to the number of these Ministers, it is as above mentioned no less than 8. In

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    Greece. J.B's Observations on particular Articles

    Warning against latent Negatives

    Mark now the secret perils, which every offspring of the wisdom of the so stiled Legislative Senate has to encounter and surmount before it can come into existence. Instead of birth comes abortion, if either to the so stiled Executive Council, that is to say to those out of its five Members, or to the President of the so-stiled Legislative Senate, or to the Principal Secretary of that same Legislative Senate, it has the misfortune to be an object of displeasure, or even of indifference.

    But the list of its perils is not yet at an end. When it has passed through them, and (under Article 32) received existence from the hands of the so stiled Executive Council, if as affairs turn out so it happens that to three of the five Members of which the so stiled Executive Council is composed it afterwards ceases to be agreable, it is consigned to a sleep, to which there is no assignable termination. For, says Article 54, "The Council causes the laws to be executed by the Ministers." Suppose then a law, which, to the Minister, by whom execution and effect should be given to it happens to be disagreable or an object of indifference: if so it be likewise to three out of the five Members of the so stiled Executive Council, they have but to let the law pass unnoticed, and so long as this is the case with it it sleeps. Suppose it even to be agreable to the Minister, still if it fails or ceases to be so to any three of these five great functionaries, I would not give much for any benefit that rested upon it.

    One concluding point is yet behind. Be the arrangement what it may, in vain might it suit the views of a majority of the so stiled Legislative Senate; in vain might it suit moreover the views of four fifths of the five Members of the so stiled Executive Council. If the President of this same Council is not one of them, he has but to withold from the Act his signature and there is an end of it. For, by Article 57, "Every Act and decree of the Council is signed by the President, countersigned by the Principal Secretary and sealed by Seal of the State."