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THE EXECUTIVE POWER.

LECTURE IV.

The President of the United States-The British Sovereign -Their ministers-Elections-Elective and hereditary monarchy-The veto-Mutual relations of the executive and the legislature in both countries-How far these have been affected in England by the Reform bill-Opinions of American statesmen respecting the British constitution.

EACH state of the union having a separate legislature, the sovereignty is divided between the states and the federal government. The President of the United States is only the executive organ of the federal government, to which the state legislatures, as we have seen, are not uniformly submissive. But the British Sovereign wields the executive power of the whole nation; and the vigour which is necessary to rule an empire, situated in every quarter of the globe, is unimpaired by the insubordination of conflicting authorities.

The President may convoke Congress on extraordinary occasions, but cannot dissolve it. Ordinarily it meets, adjourns, and is dissolved, without his interposition.

The British Sovereign summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliament; a privilege designed to protect the monarchy, and to prevent the legislature from

perpetuating and abusing its great power, as the Long Parliament did in the reign of Charles the First.

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The President is personally responsible for the measures of his ministers. But in England, the person the Sovereign is deemed sacred and inviolable, while his ministers are made responsible for their acts, done in his name.

The President cannot conclude treaties without the sanction of two-thirds of the senate. Like the British Monarch, he is commander-in-chief of the army and navy; but the American army consists only of about six thousand regular soldiers, and its navy is much less numerous than ours.

If he ob

The President's veto is only suspensive. jects to any measure of Congress, he may send it back, with his objections, to the house where it originated, to be reconsidered. If two-thirds of that house agree to pass the bill, it is sent to the other house, and if there also it is approved by two-thirds, the bill becomes law.

It is consistent with the high dignity of the British Sovereign, that his veto should be absolute. But it is a power vested in him for extraordinary occasions, and in the admirable working of our constitution, the struggle is made in parliament, and is decided without having recourse to the royal veto.

The American President is elected for four years only. He is not directly chosen by the people, nor yet by Congress; but by delegates specially appointed, as follows. The whole body of electors choose as many delegates as they return representatives to Congress: these delegates do not assemble together, but vote in their respective states. Three candidates may be proposed, and he who has the majority of votes is appointed the President. If no one candidate has a majority, the house of representatives at Washington determine which of the three shall be elected. This arrangement has

been admirably contrived, to produce the least possible excitement and delay in the choice of the supreme magistrate-for the President is only a chief magistrate, and the executive power is almost wholly absorbed by the representatives of the people in Congress. This evil was apprehended by the ablest and wisest of the statesmen who framed the constitution. General Hamilton, in the Federalist, a masterly work, to which he was the chief contributor, in treating of the tendency of the popular branch of the legislature to absorb every other, says, "In governments purely republican, this tendency is almost irresistible." The history of his country, since the decease of that wise and patriotic statesman, has evinced his foresight.

The official authority of the American President is only the shadow of regal power. He must have respect to local and sectional interests, in the appointment of the ministers of state, and consequently is not free to choose the best. The ministers are jealously excluded from Congress.

But in England it is considered necessary that the cabinet ministers should sit in parliament, and be conversant with all its proceedings. They must be ready to explain and defend their measures, before a vigilant and active opposition, zealous to expose every error, fraud, and inconsistency of the party in power. Nothing but sterling talent and integrity-a wise, constitutional, and vigorous course of policy, can stand the test of this public scrutiny, which affords a most powerful motive to the faithful and laborious discharge of ministerial duties, and the best possible safeguard against corruption, negligence, and incapacity.

But the American ministers of state are required to burrow in their government offices. For high crimes and misdemeanours they may be impeached, while minor official delinquencies may escape detection and punish

ment. Mr. Fearon relates that his brother radical, the well known Wm. Cobbett, declared that during the several years which he resided near the Treasury, in London, he "did not witness so much bribery, corruption, and place hunting, as he had seen in one week in Pennsylvania." Mr. Fearon says, although he cannot go the length of Mr. Cobbett and his friend, in their wholesale censures, perhaps from not having had the same opportunity with them of forming a judgment, "Yet I have become acquainted with facts in Washington, which no man could have induced me to believe without personal observation." And Mr. Buckingham, a very recent traveller, who has visited many other foreign countries, says, "In no country which I have visited, has such an array of delinquencies committed by men in confidential public situations been exhibited, as has met my eye since I came to the United States."

The communications of the American ministers with Congress are not made orally, but in writing. Consequently, unprofitable debates often arise, for want of such immediate explanations as our ministers are called upon to give, in their places in parliament. And further, by a practical alteration of the American constitution, Congress has assumed in a great measure the power of the officers of state. The committees of the British house of commons do not exercise any functions not properly belonging to the house itself. They are appointed to investigate various public questions and private bills, and they report to the house the result of their investigations. But the American Congress appoints committees for finance, for foreign affairs, and other departments of the executive government, from which the ministers who have charge of them are excluded. Those committees manage, in a great measure, the business of the country; and bills brought into Congress without their approbation, would probably

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not pass. In the United States then, the President and his ministers are excluded from the legislature and its committees, which absorb the essential power of the executive. But in Great Britain the ministers form the government, are constitutionally checked by the parliament, and are responsible to the nation. To the scrutiny and decision of parliament-to the observation of the country, and the discussion of a free press-all their measures are openly submitted; and thus the executive and the legislature work together with fewer abuses, with more effect, and with greater harmony.

The President of the United States may be re-elected. To prohibit this would be to deprive the nation in many cases of the services of a man of talent, after they had become more valuable by his experience. But the defects of the American executive are still more obvious on the second election of the President, to secure which he is allured to mingle in the intrigues of his partizans to stoop to popular arts-to fetter himself with pledges and promises-to misemploy his power and patronage, and to govern with a view to gain the suffrages by which his term of authority may be prolonged. The constitution has placed him in the situation of a tenant at will, who is anxious to renew his lease of office; it tempts him to act in the spirit of the unjust steward in the sacred parable-"I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me into their houses."

As regards the President, his ministers and the American statesmen generally, the tendency of this system is unfavourable to comprehensive and farsighted plans of government, to an independent, generous, and noble course of conduct,—to legislation for the best and highest interests of the community and of posterity. Such is its tendency, though upright and distinguished men may resist it.

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