Installment 4 
A Behavioral Reading of the Constitution Series 
Article I, Sections 4 – 6 
The Legislative Branch 
The Framers Anticipated Disorder – and Designed for It 

Introduction: Article I, Sections 4-6
Before we enter the text of Article I, Sections 4 through 6, it is essential to remember where we began. Installment 1: “Introduction and the Preamble” invited us to see the Constitution not as a static civic scripture but as a design manual for human frailty – a vessel of restraint and aspiration, aware of ambition, faction, and short-termism. Installment 2: “The Backdrop to the Articles of the Constitution” then pulled us into the disarray that demanded such a vessel: the chaos and economic fracture of post-Revolutionary America, the fragility mistaken for freedom, and the immediate panic that forced the framers from theory into architecture. Installment 3: “Article I Sections 1-3, The Legislative Branch” examined how the framers grounded the new government in a deliberately bicameral Congress – split to slow, temper, and channel power – embedding the most human and directly representative of the branches with structural brakes against impulse, populism, and concentration. 

In this installment, as we approach Article I, Sections 4 through 6. We continue through the legislative branch where the behavioral insights of the framers crystallize into institutional form. Sections 4 through 6 are more procedural and structural, with less immediately apparent behavioral richness than what we will see in the upcoming and remaining sections in Article I which reveal deeper tensions and checks among the branches of government. 

Article I, Section 4
“Controlling Time and Process to Regulate Temptation” 
Where an emergency switch and the calendar become constitutional safeguards 

Text of Article I, Section 4 

Clause 1: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” 

Clause 2: “The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December,¹ unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.” 

These clauses may appear procedural at first glance — merely about the “when” and “how” of Congressional elections and meetings. Beneath that administrative surface lies a deeper purpose: structuring time and procedure to discipline the human tendencies to delay, evade, and entrench factional concurrence-seeking behaviors. 

Behavioral Flaws Addressed  

• Within Clause 1: This clause vests the power to regulate legislative elections initially with the states but crucially provides for a federal override – and emergency switch that can be employed to prevent state-level factionalism or local self-interest from paralyzing the dependent operations of the legislative branch.  As Hamilton affirms in Federalist No. 59, it rests on the plain proposition that “every government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation.” Clause 1 anticipates the following factional behaviors: 
  • Passive sabotage. The quiet nullification of federal authority through state-level inaction or procedural delay. By simply failing to hold elections, a state could cripple the machinery of federal representation – without ever overtly defying the union. This clause anticipates disuse as a strategic form of obstruction. 
  • Opportunistic manipulation. The rigging of electoral logistics—timing, location, or process – to entrench incumbents or exclude opponents. Clause 1 anticipates and counters this behavior by authorizing Congress to intervene when local rules become tools of partisan entrenchment or structural unfairness. 
• Within Clause 2 
  • Procrastination. It’s a quieter but equally corrosive flaw. Leaders may avoid the discomfort of hard decisions, postponing meetings indefinitely to delay accountability. Inaction can serve as a comforting shield, allowing leaders to drift rather than decide, defer rather than act. 

Behavioral Virtues Invoked 

• Vigilance: By requiring meetings and empowering federal oversight, the framers reinforce engagement and compel leaders to confront challenges directly. 
• Civic duty: The virtue here is not in trusting human nature but in compelling it toward collective responsibility. 

¹This Clause was altered by the 20th Amendment Section 2 ratified in 1933 in which it was established that Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting will begin at noon on the 3rd day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Structural Response 

• Clause 1  
  • States initially control election logistics, but Congress retains a “fail-safe” authority to override if state self-interest threatens the integrity of national governance. This embodies Hamilton’s assertion in Federalist No. 59 that “every government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation.” Without this clause, a coalition of states could starve the union of representatives and effectively dismantle it through coordinated neglect. 
• Clause 2  
  • Mandates an annual assembly of Congress, forcibly overcoming human inertia. This is no ceremonial requirement—it is an architectural intervention. By constitutional design, leaders cannot simply refuse to meet; they must face each other and the nation’s work regularly. Time itself becomes a constitutional structural defense against political cowardice, delay, and refusal to decide.  

Philosophical and Historical Grounding (as a kind of bibliography for those that want to go deeper): 

Enlightenment Period Thought, particularly: 

• John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, 1689, distrusted unchecked human virtue, advocating for institutional design to contain self-interest. 
• Charles de Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, whose separation of powers framework profoundly shaped the framers’ understanding of liberty and institutional design. 

Federalist and Framer Sources  

• Federalist No. 59 (Hamilton): affirms that self-preservation is an essential principle of governance, and Congress’s power over elections secures this. 
• Federalist No. 60 (Hamilton): warns against factional manipulation of election logistics, asserting that diverse economic and social interests provide natural checks. 
• Federalist No. 61 (Hamilton): underscores the value of uniformity and flexibility in election timing, preventing factional entrenchment and promoting adaptability. 
• James Madison, Convention Notes (June 6, 1787): expressed concern that reliance on virtue alone was “a chimerical idea”—reinforcing the need for institutional safeguards. 
• Convention Debates (June and July 1787): reveal the anxiety that states could weaponize election procedures to undermine participation, national unity and exclude disfavored voices particularly to exclude certain economic classes or political opponents. 

Reflection on Section 4 
Clause 1 reminds us that democracy does not run on goodwill alone; it requires explicit mechanisms to ensure continuity and fairness. Clause 2 shows that even the most virtuous assemblies can erode under the weight of delay and avoidance if not compelled to act. Together, they reveal the framers’ profound grasp of human nature: that sabotage can occur not only through active malice but also through calculated idleness. 

Modern Leadership Parallels 
Modern governance and corporate leadership grapple with the same timeless temptations. Do executives schedule meetings to advance clarity and progress, or to avoid confronting inconvenient truths? Are annual reviews and shareholder meetings designed to genuinely engage or merely to check a box? Process and timing can become instruments of manipulation—or tools for real accountability. 

Leaders today must consciously design organizational rhythms that force engagement. From strategic off-sites to budget deadlines, from board cycles to audit committees – without a deliberate temporal architecture, any group can fall prey to the same evasions that threatened early American governance. 

Article I, Section 5
“Order in the House: Governing the Governors”
When self-regulation becomes the highest test of governance 

Text of Article I, Section 5 (Full Text)
Clause 1 “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide”

Clause 2 “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” 

This lithograph titled “Southern Chivalry – Argument versus Club’s” by John L. Magee, published in 1856 vividly depicts Representative Preston Brooks beating Senator Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber after Sumner’s incendiary speech 

Clause 3 “Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.” 

Clause 4 “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.” 

In Section 5, the Constitution turns inward. Now that the legislative houses are formed and assembled, the focus turns to self-governance, and we see the behavioral challenge of group dynamics take center stage. Section 5 reads like an internal operations manual with rules about attendance, discipline, voting records, and adjournments. These provisions not only provide organization of the chamber, but also they are directed toward the deeper purpose of compelling a governing body to govern itself.  

The framers knew that before a legislature could credibly exercise authority over others, it had to develop mechanisms for internal legitimacy, discipline, and transparency. These clauses are where the Constitution calls on Congress to practice what it preaches. 

Behavioral Flaws Addressed  

• Free riding (Clause 1): Without quorum and attendance enforcement, members could skip proceedings without consequence while still benefiting from legislative outcomes. This clause anticipates the age-old temptation to shirk duties while others shoulder the work. 
• Disorder and grandstanding (Clause 2): The power to punish and expel exists because members, like all humans, are prone to lapses in decorum, moral failure, or deliberate disruption – especially when there’s a public stage. Clause 2 assumes disorder, not decorum. It arms the legislature with tools for discipline, correction, and self-preservation.   
• Obfuscation and historical erasure (Clause 3): Without the mandate to journal proceedings, there would be little accountability. Leaders could rewrite the record, conceal votes, or make decisions in darkness. This clause curtails revisionism by turning process into public record. 
• Manipulative delay and political theater (Clause 4): By requiring mutual consent for adjournments, the Constitution prevents one chamber from theatrically withdrawing or stalling legislation to frustrate the other. It compels continuity and cooperation in governance.

This clause anticipates a behavioral pattern common in groups: when conflict arises, some actors disengage or “exit the room” rather than resolve it. Strategic absence becomes a tactic either to delay decisions, or to avoid accountability. The Constitution compels continuity and co-presence, recognizing that meaningful governance demands discomfort, discourse, and shared presence, even when compromise is hard. 

Behavioral Virtues Invoked 

• Responsibility: Quorum rules and attendance enforcement force members to show up. Public duty is reinforced not by noble assumption, but by structural demand. 
• Integrity: The power to expel is not only merely punitive – it’s curative. It protects the whole by confronting corruption or dangerous behavior in the part. 
• Transparency: The Journal transforms memory into mechanism. By compelling documentation and disclosing votes, Congress binds itself to history and to public scrutiny. 
• Mutual accountability: Requiring joint consent for adjournments reflects an understanding that disunity between houses can be a form of sabotage. Instead, each must account for the other’s presence and progress. 

Structural Response 

• Qualification and Election Review (Clause 1): Empowers each chamber to validate its own members—an authority rooted in institutional self-definition. This secures the legitimacy of who is a member.  
• Quorum and Attendance Enforcement (Clause 1): The clause authorizes compelling attendance, an explicit admission that noble intention is insufficient to ensure presence and participation. A majority is required to act otherwise small groups may compel absent members. Therefore, physical presence is constitutionally enforced. This prevents governing by absence, or minority obstruction through nonparticipation. 
• Internal Rules and Discipline (Clause 2): Grants authority to establish rules, enforce order, and remove those who violate norms. But it sets the bar high for expulsion – two-thirds concurrence – protecting against the retaliatory purge while preserving the chamber’s integrity. This forces ethical discipline to be delegated inward and thereby tests and supports group cohesion and moral courage. 
• Required Journal and Public Record (Clause 3): Proceedings must be documented and published, but allows for exceptions in cases of secrecy, acknowledging real needs of diplomacy and national security. Still, the overall thrust is toward institutional memory and public traceability. Without transparency, public institutions become echo chambers of excuse. 
• Joint Consent for Recess (Clause 4): Limits strategic obstruction by ensuring one chamber cannot unilaterally adjourn and go dark. This provision forces co-presence and co-responsibility and prevents walkouts, tantrums, or disappearing acts from stalling national business.  

Philosophical and Historical Grounding (as a kind of bibliography for those that want to go deeper): 

Enlightenment Period Thought, particularly: 

• James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana, 1656, written during England’s Interregnum (between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration of Charles II), it proposed an idealized republican constitution for England and advocated for rotation, quorum, and transparency to prevent oligarchy and elite stagnation. Though it was initially suppressed by Oliver Cromwell, the book was eventually published after some revisions.  
• John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, 1689, stressed that legislatures must have “fixed laws” and not operate on arbitrary will. These clauses enforce that ideal. 

Federalist and Framer Sources  

• Federalist No. 55 (Madison): Warns against relying on presumed virtue in representatives, asserting instead that institutional checks are the true safeguard. Madison defends small enough chambers to preserve deliberation. But he also assumes rational behavior is fragile in groups; he states, “In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason.” 
• Federalist No. 58 (Madison): Notes the risk of factional capture and the importance of procedural balance. Rules matter as much as motives. 
• Convention Debates (August 1787): There were sharp debates over how much to trust each chamber to regulate itself – and what recourse existed if it did not. Framers directly debated quorum size, expulsion power, and record-keeping – aware that disorder and disengagement were not rare exceptions but predictable tendencies. 

Reflection on Section 5
Institutions are not protected by their prestige – they are protected by their procedures. 

A legislature that cannot govern its own members, or summon them to appear, cannot hope to govern a nation. These clauses are not just about administrative efficiency; they are about self-control as a prerequisite to authority. The architects of the Constitution understood that dysfunction does not always erupt; it often festers quietly – through absence, delay, unruly behavior, or erasure of history. 

Modern Leadership Parallels 
Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution outlines rules for congressional order—attendance, discipline, record-keeping, and internal correction. These are not simply bureaucratic functions; they are essential to the legitimacy of any self-governing body. 

The same logic applies to boards of directors and leadership teams today. If they do not discipline themselves, no external force can guarantee integrity or effectiveness.  

The section causes us to turn the mirror inward on our own governing body. It says: 

• You must show up and participate. 
• You must keep order. 
• You must document the truth and be accountable. 
• You must guide and correct your own. 

Because if self-regulation fails, nothing else can hold the center. 

We recently shared Lyceum’s Well Tuned Corporate Governance Wheel as a diagnostic tool for assessing various governance elements in an integrated manner. It is reintroduced here to align these constitutional principles with their boardroom parallel.

Questions for leaders [with Board Wheel and Other References] 

Self-Regulation & Order 

• What happens when members disengage, show up unprepared, or pursue theatrics over contribution?
  [Board Wheel: Role of the Chairman, Board Effectiveness Review] 
• Is there a structure for calling out disorder, or is dysfunction tolerated to avoid conflict?
  [Rules of Order and Parliamentary Procedure – time-tested methods for orderly deliberation and group self-discipline. These remain essential for any governing body that seeks to function with integrity and seriousness.] 
• What rules exist not only to prevent chaos, but to discipline against entropy over time? (The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that entropy in a closed system tends to increase – meaning systems naturally decay into disorder unless energy is applied to maintain order. It’s a law of group behavior too.)
  [Rules of Order and Parliamentary Procedure.] 

Truth & Accountability 

• Do minutes and decisions reflect real accountability, or are they formalities?
  [Board Wheel: Board Minutes] 
• When was the last time your governing body exercised its power to correct its own behavior?
  [Board Wheel: Role of the Chairman, Board Effectiveness Review, Director Development] 
• Have you built the mechanisms that let a group stay honest with itself?
  [Board Wheel: Improved Board Processes, Essential Functions, and Board Effectiveness Review] 

Participation & Membership 

• How are attendance and participation treated – as essential, or optional?
  [Referencing ISS/Glass Lewis standards] 
• Who judges membership? And is the process fair?
  [Board Wheel: Director Search, Selection & Induction] 

Guidance vs. Performance 

• Do mechanisms exist to channel stakeholder sentiment without succumbing to it?
  [Board Wheel: Role of the Board, Strategy Oversight] 
• What prevents your board or leadership team from becoming a stage for performance rather than deliberation?
  [Board Wheel: Role of the Chairman, Board Meeting Agenda] 
• Do your processes assume goodwill and order, or are they designed to withstand lapses in both?
  [Board Wheel: Compliance, Risk Management, Committee Structure provide fail-safes when goodwill breaks down.] 
• How do leaders balance responsiveness with responsibility?
  [Board Wheel: Committee Structure] 
• Are they governed by quarterly pressures or guided by enduring principles?
  [Board Wheel: Defined Governance Roles] 

Article I, Section 6 
“Honor and Temptation: Paying the Legislature Without Buying It”
Guarding integrity with clear lines and clean hands 

“It is not only what men do, but what they may do, that the law must contemplate.”
~ Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. 

Text of Article I, Section 6 (Full text)  

Clause 1: “The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.²“

Clause 2: “They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” 

Clause 3: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.” 

Article I, Section 6 introduces what may seem like mundane details: salaries, privileges, and restrictions on holding other offices. But here, the framers reveal that corruption is not always dramatic. It is often quiet – a blending of roles, a subtle conflict of interest, a favor traded, a silence purchased. And so, they wrote in behavioral guardrails not just against loud tyranny, but against quiet temptation. The framers knew too well the fragile boundary between public duty and private benefit. They saw how power, once concentrated, tends to accumulate more of itself, and how the mingling of legislative power with financial inducement or executive authority corrodes independence. In Section 6, they attempted to draw two sharp lines: one around compensation and independence, the other around the separation of powers. 

Let’s take it clause by clause. 

Clause 1: Compensation  

“The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.” 

This opening clause institutionalizes a foundational paradox: legislators must be paid but not bought. The salary is to come from the national treasury, not the state legislatures, so that loyalty accrues to the whole Union rather than any faction, state, or local interest. Here again, the Constitution acts as a behavioral regulator: it recognizes that where the purse lies, the allegiance often follows. 

Behavioral flaws addressed: financial self-dealing, bribery, intimidation 

Behavioral virtue invoked: Note: virtue is not actively cultivated here. Rather, alignment is engineered by taking away alternate allegiances. The Constitution isn’t appealing to solidarity; it’s blocking disloyalty by design. 

Clause 2: Immunity from Arrest and Speech Protection 

“They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses…” 

This privilege is not a reward, but a safeguard. It is designed to prevent the executive or judiciary from arresting legislators on spurious grounds to thwart or delay lawmaking. It protects the deliberative process from interruption by power plays. Yet it also reveals a psychological insight: even legitimate power, if unchecked, will use procedural tools to undermine adversaries. The Framers sought to blunt that impulse by insulating the legislature’s operations from such gamesmanship. 

And in a stroke of behavioral wisdom: 

“…and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” 

Here is the constitutional recognition that free deliberation requires insulation from retaliation. This is not merely a structural safeguard; it is a protection of the human voice – to prevent fear from silencing speech. Without it, the chilling effect of fear of external retribution would do what no tyrant needs openly attempt: silence dissent and hollow out the institution from within. 

Behavioral flaws addressed: executive or judicial coercion/intimidation, self-preservation through fear-induced silence or preemptive compliance (self-censoring under perceived threat), retaliatory abuse of legal tools, threat of prosecution or retaliation. 

Behavioral virtue invoked: This clause does indeed protect a virtue – but it doesn’t cultivate it. It enables principled actions like courage to speak freely and independent thought by shielding it from penalty. It does not inspire these virtues; it defends their right to exist. 

²This Clause was altered by the 27^th Amendment in 1992. It was proposed to prevent Congress from granting itself immediate pay raises. By requiring that any change only take effect after the next election of Representatives, the amendment gives voters an opportunity to react and express disapproval at the ballot box. Interestingly, this amendment was originally proposed by James Madison in 1789 as part of the original package of constitutional amendments known as the Bill of Rights. While ten of those amendments were ratified in 1791, this proposal languished for over two centuries.

In 1982, Gregory Watson, then a 19-year-old undergraduate student at the University of Texas, wrote a term paper arguing that this proposed amendment from 1789 was still technically pending because it did not include a ratification deadline (unlike most modern amendments). His professor graded the paper with a C, thinking the argument was impractical and merely theoretical. Watson, however, began a personal campaign to convince state legislatures to ratify the amendment, sending letters and lobbying legislators. He pointed out two key things: first, that original amendment had no time limit for ratification and so it was still alive; and second, he emphasized the public’s frustration with congressional pay increases. He used the facts as leverage to push legislatures to act. This remarkable story highlights both the persistence of constitutional ideas and the role, and power, of citizen initiative in American governance.

Structural Response 

Section 6 constructs a triad of protections: 

1. Compensation by law and not by favor 
   Pay comes from the public treasury, set by statute, not by negotiation with the executive. As Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 73, this design guards against the executive “winning over” legislators through economic dependency or manipulation. Behavioral logic: Prevents a dynamic where a legislator is dependent on or grateful to the president. You must be paid but not owned.  
2. Privilege of Speech and Immunity from Arrest  
   Members cannot be arrested for civil offenses while traveling to or from session and cannot be prosecuted for speeches made in Congress. This acts to prevents executive intimidation, especially under the guise of legal action. Protects unfiltered debate by encouraging candor without fear of retribution. Note: While Article I, Section 6, Clause 2 protects members of Congress from arrest and prosecution related to their legislative activities, the framers recognized that an executive might still attempt to intimidate through less direct means such as economic reprisals, public smear campaigns, patronage threats, or selective law enforcement. Although these subtler tactics were not enumerated in the Constitution, they were implicitly understood and addressed through broader structural safeguards like separation of powers and electoral accountability.
3. Incompatibility and Emoluments Clause 
   A legislator cannot hold an executive or judicial post while in Congress and may not be appointed to an office that has increased in benefits during their term. Behavioral protection: Blocks legislative vote-buying through future jobs or compensation – an early constitutional response to what we now call the “revolving door.” It also anticipates the modern behavioral dynamic of regulatory capture, where private interests co-opt public agents by exploiting overlapping roles, career paths, or deferred rewards. 

Philosophical and Historical Grounding (as a kind of bibliography for those that want to go deeper): 

Federalist and Framer Sources  

• Federalist No. 55 (Madison) Warns of “the love of power and the desire of pre-eminence and dominion” as enduring dangers in representative assemblies. 
• Federalist No. 72 (Hamilton) Explains the danger of appointments as tools of executive patronage, noting they can “nourish the elevation of favorites” and suppress independence. 
• Federalist No. 76 (Hamilton) in support of Section 6’s preventative design “There is nothing so apt to agitate the passions of mankind as personal considerations, whether they relate to ourselves or to others, who are to be the objects of our choice or preference. Hence, in every exercise of the power of the appointing to offices by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who composed the assembly.” 

Reflection on Section 6 

Article I, Section 6 speaks to one of the most delicate, and violated, areas of integrity. It is not a legal domain per se, but lawyers are asked to opine, and judges are asked to rule. However, it exists in the gray area of human action.  

Last year I wrote a short essay referencing a speech that Lord Moulton had given in 1914 on “Law and Manners.” You can read it here on our website: Unlocking Boardroom Excellence: The Unseen Duty of Directors ‘Obedience to the Unenforceable’.  

In his speech Moulton frames “the three great domains of human action.”  

• The first domain is the domain of “positive law,” where law, in all of its various forms, binds and constrains us. 
• At the other end of the spectrum is the domain of “free choice” or “absolute freedom,” where citizens can claim complete freedom of personal action.  
• The middle domain is that of “manners.” Where citizens abide by an “obedience to the unenforceable.” 

Since writing that essay, I stumbled upon an essay written by Princeton University President John Grier Hibben in 1913 called “On Responsibility” that made me rethink Moulton’s middle domain. Especially in light of Moulton’s prophetic statement “I am not afraid to trust people – my fear is that people will not see that trust is being reposed in them.” Hibben states in similar fashion “We are also completely dependent upon the integrity, fidelity, and efficiency of our fellowmen in the more complex relations of life that we must at times, and often the most critical, trust them implicitly.” As a matter of fact, Moulton and Hibben were contemporaries wrestling with the same question of how to cultivate moral action beyond legal or procedural compliance. 

Rather than “manners,” Hibben would probably have us call that middle domain “the domain of moral responsibility” – where the weight of the trust reposed in us, even when no law demands our action and no one is watching, is not manners but responsibility.  Responsibility conveys weight, duty, and moral courage. Hibben eloquently and thoroughly framed personal responsibility – indivisible, inescapable, and grounded in individual moral judgment. In the essay he defends and closes off all escape routes. He even establishes standards such as “We are responsible not only for that which we see and hear, but also for that which may be implied in the things seen and heard, and which we are compelled to recognize as the necessary consequence of them.” The expectations here go beyond responsibility for commissions or omissions but also second and third order downstream, consequential impacts. In order to achieve this level of awareness, there are certain requisite human factors and performance standards that must be achieved. But that raises the deeper question the framers quietly posed, and Hibben squarely confronted: are you prepared to repose trust in human beings to reliably achieve that? 

Modern Leadership Parallels: Temptations of Influence and the Gray Zones of Power 

Modern governance has blurred many of these lines. How do you ensure compensation, gifts, privilege, and access do not erode independence, clarity, and loyalty to mission?  

This behavioral reading of the Constitution reminds us that good governance begins with prevention, not reaction. The design must draw the line early – not when the corruption or impropriety must be proven, but before temptation is allowed to take root. The framers did not build the republic on the assumption of virtue prevailing over time; they built it to anticipate the slow drift away from virtue. They recognized that systems erode first through subtle entanglements: an offered appointment, a softened stance, a tolerated conflict. These are not explosive trespasses but incremental accommodations – each one preying on common behavioral flaws: the need for approval, the lure of access, the desire for influence, the comfort of familiarity. Liberty is rarely lost in a single blow; it fades through quiet compromise or surrender to human weakness. The genius of the framers’ architecture lies not in its capacity to fight tyranny once it has emerged, but in its ability to forestall its arrival—by closing doors early and guarding them jealously. 

Revolving doors between Congress and regulatory agencies, lobbying firms, or cabinet posts test the spirit if not the letter of this section. “Soft landings” are promised in the wings, even as votes are cast. A behavioral reading would ask: what does a system reward? What does it punish? And how do incentives quietly reshape motives, even in principled individuals? 

As political scientists have noted, the real challenge is not overt corruption but systemic drift – the slow erosion of independence through careerism, ambition, and entanglement. Section 6 was meant to counteract that drift. Its prohibitions are not merely rules; they are friction – designed to slow the slide from service to self-service.

Questions for leaders: 

• Is this board immune to quiet influence – or merely blind to its creeping forms? 
• Do our structures encourage principled dissent – or subtly reward compliance? 
• Are we shaping decisions to serve the mission – or preserving comfort, position, and access? 
• Do we assume integrity will prevail – or have we deliberately built the friction to prevent its erosion?