THE GOVERNMENT.
In speaking of the American constitution I have said so much of the
American form of government that but little more is left to me to say
under that heading. Nevertheless, I should hardly go through the work
which I have laid out for myself if I did not endeavour to explain
more continuously, and perhaps more graphically, than I found myself
able to do in the last chapter, the system on which public affairs
are managed in the United States.
And here I must beg my readers again to bear in mind how moderate is
the amount of governing which has fallen to the lot of the government
of the United States; how moderate, as compared with the amount which
has to be done by the Queen's officers of state for Great Britain, or
by the Emperor, with such assistance as he may please to accept from
his officers of state, for France. That this is so must be attributed
to more than one cause; but the chief cause is undoubtedly to be
found in the very nature of a federal government. The States are
individually sovereign, and govern themselves as to all internal
matters. All the judges in England are appointed by the Crown; but in
the United States only a small proportion of the judges are nominated
by the President. The greater number are servants of the different
States. The execution of the ordinary laws for the protection of men
and property does not fall on the government of the United States,
but on the executives of the individual States,--unless in some
special matters, which will be defined in the next chapter. Trade,
education, roads, religion, the passing of new measures for the
internal or domestic comfort of the people,--all these things are
more or less matters of care to our government. In the States they
are matters of care to the governments of each individual State, but
are not so to the central government at Washington.
But there are other causes which operate in the same direction, and
which have hitherto enabled the Presidents of the United States, with
their ministers, to maintain their positions without much knowledge
of statecraft, or the necessity for that education in state matters
which is so essential to our public men. In the first place, the
United States have hitherto kept their hands out of foreign politics.
If they have not done so altogether, they have so greatly abstained
from meddling in them that none of that thorough knowledge of the
affairs of other nations has been necessary to them which is so
essential with us, and which seems to be regarded as the one thing
needed in the cabinets of other European nations. This has been a
great blessing to the United States, but it has not been an unmixed
blessing. It has been a blessing because the absence of such care has
saved the country from trouble and from expense. But such a state of
things was too good to last; and the blessing has not been unmixed,
seeing that now, when that absence of concern in foreign matters
has been no longer possible, the knowledge necessary for taking a
dignified part in foreign discussions has been found wanting. Mr.
Seward is now the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the States, and it
is hardly too much to say that he has made himself a laughing-stock
among the diplomatists of Europe, by the mixture of his ignorance and
his arrogance. His reports to his own ministers during the single
year of his office, as published by himself apparently with great
satisfaction, are a monument not so much of his incapacity as of his
want of training for such work. We all know his long state papers
on the "Trent" affair. What are we to think of a statesman who
acknowledges the action of his country's servant to have been wrong,
and in the same breath declares that he would have held by that
wrong, had the material welfare of his country been thereby improved?
The United States have now created a great army and a great debt.
They will soon also have created a great navy. Affairs of other
nations will press upon them, and they will press against the affairs
of other nations. In this way statecraft will become necessary to
them; and by degrees their ministers will become habile, graceful,
adroit;--and perhaps crafty, as are the ministers of other nations.
And, moreover, the United States have had no outlying colonies or
dependencies, such as an India and Canada are to us, as Cuba is and
Mexico was to Spain, and as were the provinces of the Roman empire.
Territories she has had, but by the peculiar beneficence of her
political arrangements, these territories have assumed the guise
of sovereign States, and been admitted into federal partnership on
equal terms, with a rapidity which has hardly left to the central
Government the reality of any dominion of its own. We are inclined to
suppose that these new States have been allowed to assume their equal
privileges and State rights because they have been contiguous to
the old States--as though it were merely an extension of frontier.
But this has not been so. California and Oregon have been very much
further from Washington than the Canadas are from London. Indeed they
are still further, and I hardly know whether they can be brought much
nearer than Canada is to us, even with the assistance of railways.
But nevertheless California and Oregon were admitted as States,
the former as quickly and the latter much more quickly than its
population would seem to justify Congress in doing, according to
the received ratio of population. A preference in this way has been
always given by the United States to a young population over one that
was older. Oregon with its 60,000 inhabitants has one representative.
New York with 4,000,000 inhabitants has thirty-three. But in order
to be equal with Oregon, New York should have sixty-six. In this way
the outlying populations have been encouraged to take upon themselves
their own governance, and the governing power of the President and
his cabinet has been kept within moderate limits.
But not the less is the position of the President very dominant in
the eyes of us Englishmen by reason of the authority with which he
is endowed. It is not that the scope of his power is great, but that
he is so nearly irresponsible in the exercise of that power. We know
that he can be impeached by the representatives and expelled from
his office by the verdict of the Senate; but this, in fact, does
not amount to much. Responsibility of this nature is doubtless very
necessary, and prevents ebullitions of tyranny such as those in which
a Sultan or an Emperor may indulge; but it is not that responsibility
which especially recommends itself to the minds of free men. So much
of responsibility they take as a matter of course, as they do the
air which they breathe. It would be nothing to us to know that Lord
Palmerston could be impeached for robbing the Treasury, or Lord
Russell punished for selling us to Austria. It is well that such laws
should exist, but we do not in the least suspect those noble lords
of such treachery. We are anxious to know, not in what way they may
be impeached and beheaded for great crimes, but by what method they
may be kept constantly straight in small matters. That they are true
and honest is a matter of course. But they must be obedient also,
discreet, capable, and above all things of one mind with the public.
Let them be that; or if not they, then with as little delay as may
be, some others in their place. That with us is the meaning of
ministerial responsibility. To that responsibility all the cabinet is
subject. But in the Government of the United States there is no such
responsibility. The President is placed at the head of the executive
for four years, and while he there remains no man can question
him. It is not that the scope of his power is great. Our own Prime
Minister is doubtless more powerful,--has a wider authority. But it
is that within the scope of his power the President is free from all
check. There are no reins, constitutional or unconstitutional, by
which he can be restrained. He can absolutely repudiate a majority
of both Houses, and refuse the passage of any act of Congress even
though supported by those majorities. He can retain the services of
ministers distasteful to the whole country. He can place his own
myrmidons at the head of the army and navy,--or can himself take the
command immediately on his own shoulders. All this he can do, and
there is no one that can question him.
It is hardly necessary that I should point out the fundamental
difference between our King or Queen, and the President of the United
States. Our Sovereign, we all know, is not responsible. Such is the
nature of our constitution. But there is not on that account any
analogy between the irresponsibility of the Queen and that of the
President. The Queen can do no wrong; but therefore, in all matters
of policy and governance, she must be ruled by advice. For that
advice her ministers are responsible; and no act of policy or
governance can be done in England as to which responsibility does
not immediately settle on the shoulders appointed to bear it. But
this is not so in the States. The President is nominally responsible.
But from that every-day working responsibility, which is to us so
invaluable, the President is in fact free.
I will give an instance of this. Now, at this very moment of my
writing, news has reached us that President Lincoln has relieved
General Maclellan from the command of the whole army, that he has
given separate commands to two other generals,--to General Halleck,
namely, and alas! to General Fremont, and that he has altogether
altered the whole organization of the military command as it
previously existed. This he did not only during war, but with
reference to a special battle, for the special fighting of which he,
as ex-officio Commander-in-Chief of the forces, had given orders. I
do not hereby intend to criticise this act of the President's, or to
point out that that has been done which had better have been left
undone. The President, in a strategetical point of view, may have
been,--very probably has been, quite right. I, at any rate, cannot
say that he has been wrong. But then neither can anybody else say
so with any power of making himself heard. Of this action of the
President's, so terribly great in its importance to the nation, no
one has the power of expressing any opinion to which the President
is bound to listen. For four years he has this sway, and at the end
of four years he becomes so powerless that it is not then worth the
while of any demagogue in a fourth-rate town to occupy his voice with
that President's name. The anger of the country as to the things done
both by Pierce and Buchanan is very bitter. But who wastes a thought
upon either of these men? A past President in the United States is of
less consideration than a past Mayor in an English borough. Whatever
evil he may have done during his office, when out of office he is not
worth the powder which would be expended in an attack.
But the President has his ministers as our Queen has hers. In one
sense he has such ministers. He has high state servants who under
him take the control of the various departments, and exercise among
them a certain degree of patronage and executive power. But they are
the President's ministers, and not the ministers of the people. Till
lately there has been no chief minister among them, nor am I prepared
to say that there is any such chief at present. According to the
existing theory of the government these gentlemen have simply been
the confidential servants of the commonwealth under the President,
and have been attached each to his own department without concerted
political alliance among themselves, without any acknowledged chief
below the President, and without any combined responsibility even
to the President. If one minister was in fault--let us say the
Postmaster-General,--he alone was in fault, and it did not fall to
the lot of any other minister either to defend him, or to declare
that his conduct was indefensible. Each owed his duty and his defence
to the President alone; and each might be removed alone, without
explanation given by the President to the others. I imagine that the
late practice of the President's cabinet has in some degree departed
from this theory; but if so, the departure has sprung from individual
ambition rather than from any preconcerted plan. Some one place in
the cabinet has seemed to give to some one man an opportunity of
making himself pre-eminent, and of this opportunity advantage has
been taken. I am not now intending to allude to any individual, but
am endeavouring to indicate the way in which a ministerial cabinet,
after the fashion of our British cabinet, is struggling to get itself
created. No doubt the position of Foreign Secretary has for some time
past been considered as the most influential under the President.
This has been so much the case that many have not hesitated to call
the Secretary of State the chief minister. At the present moment,
May, 1862, the gentleman who is at the head of the war department
has, I think, in his own hands greater power than any of his
colleagues.
It will probably come to pass before long that one special minister
will be the avowed leader of the cabinet, and that he will be
recognized as the chief servant of the State under the President. Our
own cabinet, which now-a-days seems with us to be an institution as
fixed as Parliament and as necessary as the throne, has grown by
degrees into its present shape, and is not, in truth, nearly so old
as many of us suppose it to be. It shaped itself, I imagine, into its
present form, and even into its present joint responsibility, during
the reign of George III. It must be remembered that even with us
there is no such thing as a constitutional Prime Minister, and that
our Prime Minister is not placed above the other ministers in any
manner that is palpable to the senses. He is paid no more than the
others; he has no superior title; he does not take the highest rank
among them; he never talks of his subordinates, but always of his
colleagues; he has a title of his own, that of First Lord of the
Treasury, but it implies no headship in the cabinet. That he is the
head of all political power in the nation, the Atlas who has to bear
the globe, the god in whose hands rest the thunderbolts and the
showers, all men do know. No man's position is more assured to him.
But the bounds of that position are written in no book, are defined
by no law, have settled themselves not in accordance with the
recorded wisdom of any great men, but as expediency and the fitness
of political things in Great Britain have seemed from time to time to
require. This drifting of great matters into their proper places is
not as closely in accordance with the idiosyncrasies of the American
people as it is with our own. They would prefer to define by words,
as the French do, what shall be the exact position of every public
servant connected with their Government; or rather of every public
servant with whom the people shall be held as having any concern.
But nevertheless, I think it will come to pass that a cabinet will
gradually form itself at Washington as it has done at London, and
that of that cabinet there will be some recognized and ostensible
chief.
But a Prime Minister in the United States can never take the place
there which is taken here by our Premier. Over our Premier there is
no one politically superior. The highest political responsibility of
the nation rests on him. In the States this must always rest on the
President, and any minister, whatever may be his name or assumed
position, can only be responsible through the President. And it is
here especially that the working of the United States system of
Government seems to me deficient,--appears as though it wanted
something to make it perfect and round at all points. Our ministers
retire from their offices, as do the Presidents; and indeed the
ministerial term of office with us, though of course not fixed, is
in truth much shorter than the Presidential term of four years. But
our ministers do not, in fact, ever go out. At one time they take one
position, with pay, patronage, and power; and at another time another
position, without these good things; but in either position they are
acting as public men, and are, in truth, responsible for what they
say and do. But the President, on whom it is presumed that the whole
of the responsibility of the United States Government rests, goes out
at a certain day, and of him no more is heard. There is no future
before him to urge him on to constancy; no hope of other things
beyond, of greater honours and a wider fame, to keep him wakeful in
his country's cause. He has already enrolled his name on the list of
his country's rulers, and received what reward his country can give
him. Conscience, duty, patriotism may make him true to his place.
True to his place, in a certain degree, they will make him. But
ambition and hope of things still to come are the moving motives in
the minds of most men. Few men can allow their energies to expand
to their fullest extent in the cold atmosphere of duty alone. The
President of the States must feel that he has reached the top of the
ladder, and that he soon will have done with life. As he goes out he
is a dead man. And what can be expected from one who is counting the
last lingering hours of his existence? "It will not be in my time,"
Mr. Buchanan is reported to have said, when a friend spoke to him
with warning voice of the coming rebellion. "It will not be in my
time." In the old days, before democracy had prevailed in upsetting
that system of Presidential election which the constitution had
intended to fix as permanent, the Presidents were generally
re-elected for a second term. Of the seven first Presidents five
were sent back to the White House for a second period of four years.
But this has never been done since the days of General Jackson; nor
will it be done, unless a stronger conservative reaction takes place
than the country even as yet seems to promise. As things have lately
ordered themselves, it may almost be said that no man in the Union
would be so improbable a candidate for the Presidency as the outgoing
President. And it has been only natural that it should be so. Looking
at the men themselves who have lately been chosen, the fault has not
consisted in their non-reelection, but in their original selection.
There has been no desire for great men; no search after a man of such
a nature, that when tried the people should be anxious to keep him.
"It will not be in my time," says the expiring President. And so,
without dismay, he sees the empire of his country slide away from
him.
A President, with the possibility of re-election before him, would
be as a minister who goes out, knowing that he may possibly come
in again before the session is over,--and perhaps believing that
the chances of his doing so are in his favour. Under the existing
political phase of things in the United States, no President has any
such prospect;--but the ministers of the President have that chance.
It is no uncommon thing at present for a minister under one President
to reappear as a minister under another; but a statesman has no
assurance that he will do so because he has shown ministerial
capacity. We know intimately the names of all our possible
ministers,--too intimately as some of us think,--and would be taken
much by surprise if a gentleman without an official reputation were
placed at the head of a high office. If something of this feeling
prevailed as to the President's cabinet, if there were some assurance
that competent statesmen would be appointed as Secretaries of State,
a certain amount of national responsibility would by degrees attach
itself to them, and the President's shoulders would, to that amount,
be lightened. As it is, the President pretends to bear a burden
which, if really borne, would indicate the possession of Herculean
shoulders. But, in fact, the burden at present is borne by no one.
The government of the United States is not in truth responsible
either to the people or to Congress.
But these ministers, if it be desired that they shall have weight
in the country, should sit in Congress either as senators or as
representatives. That they cannot so sit without an amendment of the
constitution I have explained in the previous chapter; and any such
amendment cannot be very readily made. Without such seats they cannot
really share the responsibility of the President, or be in any degree
amenable to public opinion for the advice which they give in their
public functions. It will be said that the constitution has expressly
intended that they should not be responsible, and such, no doubt, has
been the case. But the constitution, good as it is, cannot be taken
as perfect. The government has become greater than seems to have been
contemplated when that code was drawn up. It has spread itself as it
were over a wider surface, and has extended to matters which it was
not then necessary to touch. That theory of governing by the means
of little men was very well while the government itself was small.
A President and his clerks may have sufficed when there were from
thirteen to eighteen States; while there were no territories, or none
at least that required government; while the population was still
below five millions; while a standing army was an evil not known and
not feared; while foreign politics was a troublesome embroglio in
which it was quite unnecessary that the United States should take a
part. Now there are thirty-four States. The territories populated by
American citizens stretch from the States on the Atlantic to those on
the Pacific. There is a population of thirty million souls. At the
present moment the United States are employing more soldiers than any
other nation, and have acknowledged the necessity of maintaining a
large army even when the present troubles shall be over. In addition
to this the United States have occasion for the use of statecraft
with all the great kingdoms of Europe. That theory of ruling by
little men will not do much longer. It will be well that they should
bring forth their big men and put them in the place of rulers.
The President has at present seven ministers. They are the Secretary
of State, who is supposed to have the direction of Foreign Affairs;
the Secretary of the Treasury, who answers to our Chancellor of the
Exchequer; the Secretaries of the Army and of the Navy; the Minister
of the Interior; the Attorney-General; and the Postmaster-General.
If these officers were allowed to hold seats in one House or in the
other,--or rather if the President were enjoined to place in these
offices men who were known as members of Congress, not only would the
position of the President's ministers be enhanced and their weight
increased, but the position also of Congress would be enhanced
and the weight of Congress would be increased. I may, perhaps,
best exemplify this by suggesting what would be the effect on
our Parliament by withdrawing from it the men who at the present
moment,--or at any moment,--form the Queen's cabinet. I will not say
that by adding to Congress the men who usually form the President's
cabinet, a weight would be given equal to that which the withdrawal
of the British cabinet would take from the British Parliament. I
cannot pay that compliment to the President's choice of servants. But
the relationship between Congress and the President's ministers would
gradually come to resemble that which exists between Parliament and
the Queen's ministers. The Secretaries of State and of the Treasury
would after a while obtain that honour of leading the Houses which is
exercised by our high political officers, and the dignity added to
the positions would make the places worthy of the acceptance of great
men. It is hardly so at present. The career of one of the President's
ministers is not a very high career as things now stand; nor is the
man supposed to have achieved much who has achieved that position. I
think it would be otherwise if the ministers were the leaders of the
legislative Houses. To Congress itself would be given the power of
questioning and ultimately of controlling these ministers. The power
of the President would no doubt be diminished as that of Congress
would be increased. But an alteration in that direction is in itself
desirable. It is the fault of the present system of government in the
United States that the President has too much of power and weight,
while the Congress of the nation lacks power and weight. As matters
now stand, Congress has not that dignity of position which it should
hold; and it is without it because it is not endowed with that
control over the officers of the government which our Parliament is
enabled to exercise.
The want of this close connection with Congress and the President's
ministers has been so much felt, that it has been found necessary
to create a medium of communication. This has been done by a system
which has now become a recognized part of the machinery of the
government, but which is, I believe, founded on no regularly
organized authority. At any rate no provision is made for it in the
constitution; nor, as far as I am aware, has it been established by
any special enactment or written rule. Nevertheless, I believe I
am justified in saying that it has become a recognized link in the
system of government adopted by the United States. In each House
standing committees are named, to which are delegated the special
consideration of certain affairs of state. There are, for instance,
committees of foreign affairs, of finance, the judiciary committee,
and others of a similar nature. To these committees are referred all
questions which come before the House bearing on the special subject
to which each is devoted. Questions of taxation are referred to the
finance committee before they are discussed in the House; and the
House, when it goes into such discussion, has before it the report of
the committee. In this way very much of the work of the legislature
is done by branches of each House, and by selected men whose time and
intellects are devoted to special subjects. It is easy to see that
much time and useless debate may be thus saved, and I am disposed
to believe that this system of committees has worked efficiently
and beneficially. The mode of selection of the members has been
so contrived as to give to each political party that amount of
preponderance in each committee which such party holds in the House.
If the democrats have in the Senate a majority, it would be within
their power to vote none but democrats into the committee on finance;
but this would be manifestly unjust to the republican party, and the
injustice would itself frustrate the object of the party in power;
therefore the democrats simply vote to themselves a majority in each
committee, keeping to themselves as great a preponderance in the
committee as they have in the whole House, and arranging also that
the chairman of the committee shall belong to their own party. By
these committees the chief legislative measures of the country are
originated and inaugurated,--as they are with us by the ministers of
the Crown, and the chairman of each committee is supposed to have
a certain amicable relation with that minister who presides over
the office with which his committee is connected. Mr. Sumner is at
present chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, and he is
presumed to be in connection with Mr. Seward, who, as Secretary of
State, has the management of the foreign relations of the Government.
But it seems to me that this supposed connection between the
committees and the ministers is only a makeshift, showing by its
existence the absolute necessity of close communication between the
executive and the legislative, but showing also by its imperfections
the great want of some better method of communication. In the first
place the chairman of the committee is in no way bound to hold any
communication with the minister. He is simply a senator, and as such
has no ministerial duties, and can have none. He holds no appointment
under the President, and has no palpable connection with the
executive. And then it is quite as likely that he may be opposed in
politics to the minister as that he may agree with him. If the two
be opposed to each other on general politics, it may be presumed
that they cannot act together in union on one special subject.
Nor, whether they act in union or do not so act, can either have
any authority over the other. The minister is not responsible to
Congress, nor is the chairman of the committee in any way bound
to support the minister. It is presumed that the chairman must
know the minister's secrets, but the chairman may be bound by party
considerations to use those secrets against the minister.
The system of committees appears to me to be good as regards the work
of legislation. It seems well adapted to effect economy of time and
the application of special men to special services. But I am driven
to think that that connection between the chairmen of the committees
and the ministers, which I have attempted to describe, is an
arrangement very imperfect in itself, but plainly indicating the
necessity of some such close relation between the executive and the
legislature of the United States as does exist in the political
system of Great Britain. With us the Queen's minister has a greater
weight in Parliament than the President's minister could hold in
Congress, because the Queen is bound to employ a minister in whom the
Parliament has confidence. As soon as such confidence ceases, the
minister ceases to be minister. As the Crown has no politics of its
own, it is simply necessary that the minister of the day should hold
the politics of the people as testified by their representatives. The
machinery of the President's Government cannot be made to work after
this fashion. The President himself is a political officer, and the
country is bound to bear with his politics for four years, whatever
those politics may be. The ministry which he selects on coming to
his seat will probably represent a majority in Congress, seeing that
the same suffrages which have elected the President will also have
elected the Congress. But there exists no necessity on the part of
the President to employ ministers who shall carry with them the
support of Congress. If, however, the ministers sat in Congress,--if
it were required of each minister that he should have a seat either
in one House or in the other,--the President would, I think, find
himself constrained to change a ministry in which Congress should
decline to confide. It might not be so at first, but there would be a
tendency in that direction.
The governing powers do not rest exclusively with the President, or
with the President and his ministers; they are shared in a certain
degree with the Senate, which sits from time to time in executive
Session, laying aside at such periods its legislative character. It
is this executive authority which lends so great a dignity to the
Senate, gives it the privilege of preponderating over the other
House, and makes it the political safeguard of the nation. The
questions of government as to which the Senate is empowered to
interfere are soon told. All treaties made by the President must be
sanctioned by the Senate; and all appointments made by the President
must be confirmed by the Senate. The list is short, and one is
disposed to think, when first hearing it, that the thing itself does
not amount to much. But it does amount to very much; it enables the
Senate to fetter the President, if the Senate should be so inclined,
both as regards foreign politics and home politics. A Secretary
for Foreign Affairs at Washington may write what despatches he
pleases without reference to the Senate; but the Senate interferes
before those despatches can have resulted in any fact which may
be detrimental to the nation. It is not only that the Senate is
responsible for such treaties as are made, but that the President
is deterred from the making of treaties for which the Senate would
decline to make itself responsible. Even though no treaty should
ever be refused its sanction by the Senate, the protecting power of
the Senate in that matter would not on that account have been less
necessary or less efficacious. Though the bars with which we protect
our house may never have been tried by a thief, we do not therefore
believe that our house would have been safe if such bars had
been known to be wanting. And then, as to that matter of state
appointments, is it not the fact that all governing powers consist in
the selection of the agents by whom the action of Government shall
be carried on? It must come to this, I imagine, when the argument
is pushed home. The power of the most powerful man depends only
on the extent of his authority over his agents. According to the
constitution of the United States, the President can select no agent
either at home or abroad, for purposes either of peace or war, or
to the employment of whom the Senate does not agree with him. Such
a rule as this should save the nation from the use of disreputable
agents as public servants. It might, perhaps, have done more towards
such salvation than it has as yet effected;--and it may well be hoped
that it will do more in future.
Such are the executive powers of the Senate; and it is, I think,
remarkable that the Senate has always used these powers with extreme
moderation. It has never shown a factious inclination to hinder
Government by unnecessary interference, or a disposition to clip
the President's wings by putting itself altogether at variance with
him. I am not quite sure whether some fault may not have lain on the
other side; whether the Senate may not have been somewhat slack in
exercising the protective privileges given to it by the constitution.
And here I cannot but remark how great is the deference paid to all
governors and edicts of Government throughout the United States.
One would have been disposed to think that such a feeling would be
stronger in an old country such as Great Britain than in a young
country such as the States. But I think that it is not so. There
is less disposition to question the action of government either at
Washington or at New York, than there is in London. Men in America
seem to be content when they have voted in their governors, and to
feel that for them all political action is over until the time shall
come for voting for others. And this feeling, which seems to prevail
among the people, prevails also in both Houses of Congress. Bitter
denunciations against the President's policy or the President's
ministers are seldom heard. Speeches are not often made with the
object of impeding the action of Government. That so small and so
grave a body as the Senate should abstain from factious opposition to
the Government when employed on executive functions was perhaps to
be expected. It is of course well that it should be so. I confess,
however, that it has appeared to me that the Senate has not used the
power placed in its hands as freely as the constitution has intended.
But I look at the matter as an Englishman, and as an Englishman I
can endure no government action which is not immediately subject to
Parliamentary control.
Such are the governing powers of the United States. I think it will
be seen that they are much more limited in their scope of action than
with us; but within that scope of action much more independent and
self-sufficient. And, in addition to this, those who exercise power
in the United States are not only free from immediate responsibility,
but are not made subject to the hope or fear of future judgment.
Success will bring no award, and failure no punishment. I am not
aware that any political delinquency has ever yet brought down
retribution on the head of the offender in the United States, or
that any great deed has been held as entitling the doer of it to his
country's gratitude. Titles of nobility they have none; pensions they
never give; and political disgrace is unknown. The line of politics
would seem to be cold and unalluring. It is cold;--and would be
unalluring, were it not that as a profession it is profitable. In
much of this I expect that a change will gradually take place. The
theory has been that public affairs should be in the hands of little
men. The theory was intelligible while the public affairs were small;
but they are small no longer, and that theory, I fancy, will have
to alter itself. Great men are needed for the government, and in
order to produce great men a career of greatness must be opened to
them. I can see no reason why the career and the men should not be
forthcoming.