James L. Perry is Distinguished Profes- sor at Indiana University Bloomington and World Class University Distinguished Professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. He is the coeditor of Motiva- tion in Public Management: The Call of Public Service (2008). Dr. Perry is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. His current research interests include public service motivation, performance pay, and job security. E-mail: perry@indiana.edu What Happened to the Public Service Ideal? S143 James L. Perry Indiana University Bloomington and Yonsei University Federalist No. 72 is an oft-neglected defense of the president’s reeligibility for election. However, the paper goes well beyond this issue to basic models of human nature and motivation. James L. Perry’s essay confronts this broad issue as a guide to “a public service ethic.” Like other authors in this special issue, Perry reads broadly through the Federalist Papers in search of a deeper definition of public service motivation as a balance between the potency of passion and the limits of reason. Controlling passion was no doubt important to the founders, but it may have drowned out the greater good envisioned in public service commitments to acting on behalf of the people. F ederalist No. 72 focuses on a narrow issue: whether the chief magistrate—subsequently called the president—should be permitted to serve without term limits, or whether he should be subject to term limits specified in the Constitu- tion. Te issue is framed as one of “reeligibility”: should the chief magistrate be eligible for reelec- tion or unlimited terms as long as citizens voted to return him to office? Alexander Hamilton offers a detailed accounting of the advantages and disadvan- tages of limiting the tenure of the chief executive. Te insights that he offers about the mind-set of the founders, however, go well beyond the narrow issue of reeligibility. During the course of his arguments about the chief executive, Hamilton revealed a good deal about his view of the administrative psyche. What models of human nature and human motivation can we glean from Hamilton’s arguments in Federalist No. 72? This is the first of sev- eral questions that I take up in this essay. In rethinking The Federalist Papers for the twenty-first century, I seek first to establish Hamilton’s original position and then to assess how his models of human nature have held up in the nearly 225 years since he wrote Federalist No. 72. Has anything changed to alter the viability of Hamilton’s model? How should we modify administration for the twenty-first century? The essay will conclude with revised language for Federalist No. 72 to articulate the importance of a public service ethic and how to reinforce it across federal administration. Hamilton’s Vision of Administration: What Does Federalist No. 72 Tell Us? Te focus of Federalist No. 72 was on the chief mag- istrate and whether his duration in office should be limited. Hamilton came down squarely against term limits for the chief magistrate. Hamilton built his argument that any form of term limits on the chief magistrate was pernicious on three premises. His first premise rested on the motivational consequences of imposing rules about terms. He contended that term limits dimin- ished inducements for good behavior. Te second premise—that term limits reduced the wisdom that comes with experience—mixed motivation- and cognition-based arguments. Finally, term limits risked banishing people from positions when their presence could be of critical importance for the public interest. Tis disadvantage touched on the potential negative effects that removing an incumbent would have on the confidence of citizens, who would see the removal of an incumbent as irrational. Although commentators frequently refer to the spare administrative apparatus that characterized America in its formative years, Hamilton’s de- scription of the executive in the opening paragraph of Federalist Federalist No. 72: What Happened to the Public Service Ideal? Although commentators frequently refer to the spare administrative apparatus that characterized America in its formative years, Hamilton’s description of the executive in the opening paragraph of Federalist No. 72 conveyed both the significance and potential scope of the executive function.