Those which relate to domestic administra

tion.

Those which concern legislation.

The power of appointment.

The President has not a free hand in foreign policy. He cannot declare war, for that belongs to Congress, though he may bring affairs to a point at which it is hard for Congress to refrain from the declaration. Treaties require the approval of two thirds of the Senate; and in order to secure this, it is usually necessary for the Executive to be in constant communication with the Foreign Affairs Committee of that body. Practically, and for the purposes of ordinary business, the President is independent of the House, while the Senate, though it can prevent his settling anything, cannot keep him from unsettling everything. He, or rather his Secretary of State, retains an unfettered initiative, by means of which he may embroil the country abroad or excite passion at home.

The domestic authority of the President is in time of peace very small, because by far the larger part of law and administration belongs to the State governments, and because Federal administration is regulated by statutes which leave little discretion to the Executive. In war time, however, and especially in a civil war, it expands with portentous speed. Both as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and as charged with the "faithful execution of the laws," the President is likely to be led to assume all the powers which the emergency requires. How much he can legally do without the aid of statutes is disputed, but it is at least clear that Congress can make him, as it did make Lincoln, almost a dictator. Without any previous legislative sanction President Lincoln issued his emancipation proclamations.

It devolves on the Executive as well as on Congress to give effect to the provisions of the Constitution whereby a republican form of government is guaranteed to every State: and a State may, on the application of its legislature, or executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), obtain protection against domestic violence. Where there are two governments disputing by force the control of a State, or where an insurrection breaks out, this power becomes an important one, for it involves the employment of troops, and enables the President to establish the government he prefers to recognize. Fortunately the case has been one of rare occurrence.

The President has the right of speaking to the nation by addresses or proclamations, a right not expressly conferred by the Constitution, but inherent in his position. On entering office, it is usual for the new magistrate to issue an inaugural address, stating his views on current public questions. He retains all rights of the ordinary citizen, including the right of voting at Federal as well as State elections in his own State.

The position of the President as respects legislation is a peculiar one. He is not a member of the legislature at all. He is an independent and separate power on whom the people, for the sake of checking the legislature and of protecting themselves against it, have specially conferred the function of arresting by his disapproval, its acts. He cannot introduce bills, either directly or through his ministers, for they do not sit in Congress. All that the Constitution permits him to do in this direction is to inform Congress of the state of the nation, and to recommend the measures which his experience in administration shows to be necessary. This latter function is discharged by the messages which the President addresses to Congress. The most import

ant is that sent by the hand of his private secretary at the beginning of each session.

George Washington used to deliver his addresses orally, like an English king, and drove in a coach and six to open Congress with something of an English king's state. But Jefferson, when his turn came in 1801, whether from republican simplicity, as he said himself, or because he was a poor speaker, as his critics said, began the practice of sending communications in writing; and this has been followed ever since. The message usually discusses the leading questions of the moment, indicates mischiefs needing a remedy, and suggests the requisite legislation. But as no bills are submitted by the President, and as, even were he to submit them, no one of his ministers sits in either House to explain and defend them, the message is a shot in the air without practical result. It is rather a manifesto, or declaration of opinion and policy, than a step towards legislation. Congress is not moved: members go their own way and bring in their own bills.

Far more effective is the President's part in the last stage of legislation, for here he finds means provided for carrying out his will. When a bill is presented to him, he may sign it, and his signature makes it law. If, however, he disapproves of it, he returns it within ten days to the House in which it originated, with a statement of his grounds of disapproval. If both Houses take up the bill again and pass it by two-thirds majority in each House, it becomes law forthwith without requiring the President's signature. If it fails to obtain this majority it drops.

Considering that the arbitrary use, by George III. and his colonial governors, of the power of refusing bills passed by a colonial legislature had been a chief cause of the Revolution of 1776, it is to the credit of

the Americans that they inserted this apparently undemocratic provision in the Constitution of 1789. It has worked wonderfully well. Most Presidents have used it sparingly, and only where they felt either that there was a case for delay, or that the country would support them against the majority in Congress. Preverse or headstrong Presidents have been usually defeated by the use of the two-thirds vote to pass the bill over their objections.

The reasons why the veto provisions of the Constitution have succeeded appear to be two. One is that the President, being an elective and not a hereditary magistrate, is deemed to act for the people, is responsible to the people, and has the weight of the people behind him. The people regard him as a check, an indispensable check, not only upon the haste and heedlessness of their representatives, the faults that the framers of the Constitution chiefly feared, but upon their tendency to yield either to pressure from any section of their constitutents, or to temptations of a private nature. He is expected to resist these tendencies on behalf of the whole people, whose interests may suffer from the selfishness as well of sections as of individuals. The other reason is that a veto can never take effect unless there is a substantial minority of Congress, a minority exceeding one third in one or other House, which agrees with the President. Should the majority threaten him he is therefore sure of considerable support.

In its practical working the presidential veto power furnishes an interesting illustration of the tendency of unwritten or flexible constitutions to depart from, of written or rigid constitutions to cleave to, the letter of the law. The strict legal theory of the rights of the head of the State is in this point exactly the same in England and in America. But whereas it is now the undoubted duty of an English king to as

sent to every bill passed by both Houses of Parliament, however strongly he may personally disapprove its provisons, it is the no less undoubted duty of an American President to exercise his independent judgment on every bill, not sheltering himself under the representatives of the people, or foregoing his own opinion at their bidding.

As the President is charged with the whole Federal administration, and responsible for its due conduct, he must of course be allowed to choose his executive subordinates. But as he may abuse this tremendous power, the Constitution associates the Senate with him, requiring the "advice and consent" of that body to the appointments he makes. It also permits Congress to vest in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments, the right of appointing to "inferior offices." This last clause has been used to remove many posts from the nomination of the President. But a vast number still remains in his gift. The confirming power entrusted to the Senate has become a political factor of the highest moment. The framers of the Constitution probably meant nothing more than that the Senate should check the President by rejecting nominees who were personally unfit, morally or intellectually, for the post to which he proposed to appoint them. The Senate has always, except in its struggle with President Johnson, left the President free to choose his cabinet ministers. But it early assumed the right of rejecting a nominee to any other office on any ground which it pleased, as, for instance, if it disapproved his political affiliations, or simply if it disliked him, or wished to spite the President. Presently the senators from the State wherein a Federal office to which the President has made a nomination lay, being the persons chiefly interested in the appointment, and most entitled to be listened to by the rest of the Senate when considering