General Observations on the Frame of National Government
The account which has been so far given of the working of the American government has been necessarily an account rather of its mechanism than of its spirit. Its practical character, its temper and colour, so to speak, largely depend on the party system by which it is worked, and on what may be called the political habits of the people. These will be described in later chapters. Here, however, before quitting the study of the constitutional organs of government, it is well to sum up the criticisms we have been led to make, and to add a few remarks, for which no fitting place could be found in preceeding chapters, on the general features of the national government.
I. No part of the Constitution cost its framers so much time and trouble as the method of choosing the president. They saw the evils of a popular vote. They saw also the objections to placing in the hands of Congress the election of a person whose chief duty it was to hold Congress in check. The plan of having him selected by judicious persons, specially chosen by the people for that purpose, seemed to meet both difficulties, and was therefore recommended with confidence. The presidential electors have, however, turned out mere ciphers, and the president is practically chosen by the people at large. The only importance which the elaborate machinery provided in the Constitution retains, is that it prevents a simple popular vote in which the majority of the nation should prevail, and makes the issue of the election turn on the voting in certain “pivotal” states.
II. The choice of the president, by what is now practically a simultaneous popular vote, not only involves once in every four years a tremendous expenditure of energy, time, and money, but induces a sort of crisis which, if it happens to coincide with any passion powerfully agitating the people, may be dangerous to the commonwealth.
III. There is a risk that the result of a presidential election may be doubtful or disputed on the ground of error, fraud, or violence. When such a case arises, the difficulty of finding an authority competent to deal with it, and likely to be trusted, is extreme. Moreover, the question may not be settled until the preexisting executive has, by effluxion of time, ceased to have a right to the obedience of the citizens. The experience of the election of 1876 illustrates these dangers. Such a risk of interregna is incidental to all systems, monarchic or republican, which make the executive head elective, as witness the Romano-Germanic Empire of the Middle Ages, and the papacy. But it is more serious where he is elected by the people than where, as in France or Switzerland, he is chosen by the chambers.1
IV. The change of the higher executive officers, and of many of the lower executive officers also, which usually takes place once in four years, gives a jerk to the machinery, and causes a discontinuity of policy, unless, of course, the president has served only one term, and is reelected. Moreover, there is generally a loss either of responsibility or of efficiency in the executive chief magistrate during the last part of his term. An outgoing president may possibly be a reckless president, because he has little to lose by misconduct, little to hope from good conduct. He may therefore abuse his patronage, or gratify his whims with impunity. But more often he is a weak president.2 He has little influence with Congress, because his patronage will soon come to an end, little hold on the people, who are already speculating on the policy of his successor. His secretary of state may be unable to treat boldly with foreign powers, who perceive that he has a diminished influence in the Senate, and know that the next secretary may have different views.
The question whether the United States, which no doubt needed a president in 1789 to typify the then created political unity of the nation, might not now dispense with one, has never been raised in America, where the people, though dissatisfied with the method of choice, value the office because it is independent of Congress and directly responsible to the people. Americans condemn any plan under which, as once befell in France, the legislature can drive a president from power and itself proceed to choose a new one.3
V. The vice-president’s office is ill-conceived. His only ordinary function is to act as chairman of the Senate, but as he does not appoint the committees of that house, and has not even a vote (except a casting vote) in it, this function is of little moment. If, however, the president dies, or becomes incapable of acting, or is removed from office, the vice-president succeeds to the presidency. What is the result? The place being in itself unimportant, the choice of a candidate for it excites little interest, and is chiefly used by the party managers as a means of conciliating a section of their party. It becomes what is called “a complimentary nomination.” The man elected vice-president is therefore rarely if ever, when selected, a man in the front rank. But when the president dies during his term of office, which has happened to five out of the twenty presidents, this possibly second-class man steps into a great place for which he was never intended. Sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Arthur, he fills the place respectably. Sometimes, as in that of Andrew Johnson, he throws the country into confusion.
He is aut nullus aut Cæsar.
VI. The defects in the structure and working of Congress, and in its relations to the executive, have been so fully dwelt on already that it is enough to refer summarily to them. They are:
The discontinuity of congressional policy
The want of adequate control over officials
The want of opportunities for the executive to influence the legislature
The want of any authority charged to secure the passing of such legislation as the country needs
The frequency of disputes between three coordinate powers, the president, the Senate, and the House
The maintenance of a continuous policy is a difficulty in all popular governments. In the United States it is specially so, because:
The executive head and his ministers are necessarily (unless when a president is reelected) changed once every four years
One house of Congress is changed every two years
Neither house recognizes permanent leaders
No accord need exist between Congress and the executive
There may not be such a thing as a party in power, in the European sense, because the party to which the executive belongs may be in a minority in one or both houses of Congress, in which case it cannot do anything which requires fresh legislation; may be in a minority in the Senate, in which case it can take no administrative act of importance.
There is little true leadership in political action, because the most prominent man has no recognized party authority. Congress was not elected to support him. He cannot threaten disobedient followers with a dissolution of Parliament like an English prime minister. He has not even the French president’s right of dissolving the House with the consent of the Senate.
There is often no general and continuous cabinet policy, because the cabinet has no authority over Congress, may perhaps have no influence with it.
There is no general or continuous legislative policy, because the legislature, having no recognized leaders, and no one guiding committee, acts through a large number of committees, independent of one another, and seldom able to bring their measures to maturity. What continuity exists is due to the general acceptance of a few broad maxims, such as that of nonintervention in the affairs of the Old World, and to the fact that a large nation does not frequently or lightly change its views upon leading principles. In minor matters of legislation there is little settled policy, for the houses trifle with questions, take them up in one session and drop them the next, seem insensible to the duty of completing work once begun, and are too apt to yield to the pressure which small sections, or even influential individuals in their constituencies,