Furnished with these qualifications, and
not being liable to lose their office from the accidents of home
politics, they identify their character and consideration with their
special trust, and have a much more permanent interest in the
success of their administration, and in the prosperity of the
country which they administer, than a member of a Cabinet under a
representative constitution can possibly have in the good government
of any country except the one which he serves. So far as the choice of
those who carry on the management on the spot devolves upon this body,
the appointments are kept out of the vortex of party and parliamentary
jobbing, and freed from the influence of those motives to the abuse of
patronage, for the reward of adherents, or to buy off those who
would otherwise be opponents, which are always stronger, with
statesmen of average honesty, than a conscientious sense of the duty
of appointing the fittest man. To put this one class of appointments
as far as possible out of harm's way is of more consequence than the
worst which can happen to all other offices in the state; for, in
every other department, if the officer is unqualified, the general
opinion of the community directs him in a certain degree what to do:
but in the position of the administrators of a dependency where the
people are not fit to have the control in their own hands, the
character of the government entirely depends on the qualifications,
moral and intellectual, of the individual functionaries.
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