tatious plainness of Citizen Jefferson, who rode up alone and hitched his horse to the post at the gate, the President has settled down into an attitude between that of the mayor of a great English town on a public occasion, and that of a European cabinet minister on a political tour. He is followed about and fêted, and in every way treated as the first man in the company; but the spirit of equality which rules the country has sunk too deep into every American nature for him to expect to be addressed with bated breath and whispering reverence. He has no military guard, no chamberlains or grooms-in-waiting; his everyday life is simple; his wife enjoys precedence over all other ladies, but is visited and received just like other ladies; he is surrounded by no such pomp and enforces no such etiquette as that which belongs to the governors even of second-class English colonies, not to speak of the viceroys of India and Ireland.

It begins to be remarked in Europe that monarchy, which used to be deemed politically dangerous but socially useful, has now, since its claws have been cut, become politically valuable, but of more doubtful social utility. In the United States the most suspicious democrat-and there are democrats who complain that the office of President is too monarchical-cannot accuse the chief magistracy of having tended to form a court, much less to create those evils which thrive in the atmosphere of European courts. No President dare violate social decorum as European sovereigns have so often done. If he did, he would be the first to suffer.

CHAPTER VIII

WHY GREAT MEN ARE NOT CHOSEN PRESIDENTS

EUROPEANS often ask, and Americans do not always explain, how it happens that this great office, the greatest in the world, unless we except the Papacy, to which any man can rise by his own merits, is not more frequently filled by great and striking men? In America, which is beyond all other countries the country of a career open to talents," a country, moreover, in which political life is unusually keen and political ambition widely diffused, it might be expected that the highest place would always be won by a man of brilliant gifts. But since the heroes of the Revolution died out with Jefferson and Adams and Madison some sixty years ago, no person except General Grant has reached the chair whose name would have been remembered had he not been President, and no President except Abraham Lincoln has displayed rare or striking qualities in the chair. Who now knows or cares to know anything about the personality of James K. Polk or Franklin Pierce? The only thing remarkable about them is that being so commonplace they should have climbed so high.

Several reasons may be suggested for the fact, which Americans are themselves the first to admit.

One is that the proportion of first-rate ability drawn into politics is smaller in America than in most European countries. This is a phenomenon whose causes must be elucidated later: in the meantime it is enough to say that in France and Italy, where half-revolutionary conditions have made public life exciting and accessible; in Germany, where an admirably-organized civil service cultivates and develops statecraft with unusual success; in England, where many persons of wealth and leisure seek to enter the political arena, while burning questions touch the interests of all classes and make men eager observers of the

receives a salary of $8000 dollars (£1600). All are appointed by the President, subject to the consent of the Senate (which is practically never refused), and may be removed by the President alone. Nothing marks them off from any other officials who might be placed in charge of a department, except that they are summoned by the President to his private council.

None of them can vote in Congress, Art. xi. § 6 of the Constitution providing that "no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office."

This restriction was intended to prevent the President not merely from winning over individual members of Congress by the allurements of office, but also from making his ministers agents in corrupting or unduly influencing the representatives of the people, as George III. and his ministers corrupted the English Parliament. There is a passage in the Federalist (Letter xl.) which speaks of "Great Britain, where so great a proportion of the members are elected by so small a proportion of the people, where the electors are so corrupted by the representatives, and the representatives so corrupted by the Crown." The Falters th of the Constitution were so resolved to avert this latter form of corruption that they included in the Constitution the provision just mentioned. Its wisdom has sometimes been questioned. But it deserves to be noticed that the Constitution contains nothing to prevent ministers from being present in either House of Congress and addressing it, as the ministers of the King of Italy or of the French President may do in either chamber of Italy or France.2 It is entirely silent on the subject of communications between officials (other than the President) and the representatives of the people. In Washington's days ministers did occasionally speak to Congress, but they soon ceased to do so, and now never appear before any body larger than a committee. We shall presently see how this arrangement, while seeming to defend Congress against presidential intrigue, tends

1 In February 1881 a committee of eight senators unanimously reported in favour of a plan to give seats (of course without the right to vote) in both Houses of Congress to cabinet ministers, they to attend on alternate days in the Senate and in the House. The committee recommended that the necessary modification in the rules should be made, adding that they had no doubt of the constitutionality of the proposal. Nothing has so far been done to carry out this report. 2 The Italian ministers usually are members of one or other House. Of course they cannot vote except in the House to which they have been chosen.

to weaken its legislative efficiency and to embarrass its relations with the executive.

The President has the amplest range of choice for his ministers. He usually forms an entirely new cabinet when he enters office, even if he belongs to the same party as his predecessor. He may take, he sometimes does take, men who not only have never sat in Congress, but have not figured in politics at all, who may never have sat in a State legislature nor held the humblest office. For instance, in 1869 President Grant offered the post of secretary of the treasury to Mr. A. T. Stewart, the owner of a gigantic dry goods warehouse in New York, who had never so much as made a political speech.1 Generally of course the persons chosen have already made for themselves a position of at least local importance. Often they are those to whom the new President owes his election, or to whose influence with the party he looks for support in his policy.2 Sometimes they have been his most prominent competitors for the party nominations. Thus Mr. Lincoln in 1860 appointed Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase to be his secretary of state and secretary of the treasury respectively, they being the two men who had come next after him in the selection by the Republican party of a presidential candidate.

The most dignified place in the cabinet is that of the Secretary of State. It is the great prize often bestowed on the man to whom the President is chiefly indebted for his election, or at any rate on one of the leaders of the party. In early days, it was regarded as the stepping-stone to the presidency. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and J. Q. Adams had all served as secretaries to preceding presidents. The conduct of foreign affairs is the chief duty of the State department: its head has therefore a larger stage to play on than any other minister, and more chances of fame. His personal importance is all the greater because the

1 The nomination was withdrawn because it was discovered that Mr. Stewart, being engaged in business, was ineligible by statute.

2 In Mr. Cleveland's cabinet, formed in 1885, the secretary of state had been for sixteen years a senator, and recognized as one of the leaders of his party; the secretary of the treasury was a leading politician in New York State who had never sat in Congress; the secretary of war had been a judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts, and candidate for the governorship of that State; the secretary of the navy was a lawyer, and a prominent politician in New York; the secretary of the interior had sat in the House of Representatives, and had been for nine years a senator; the postmaster-general was a lawyer practising in Wisconsin, and a political leader there; the attorney-general had been governor of his State, and (for eight years) a senator.

combatants, the total quantity of talent devoted to parliamentary or administrative work is far larger, relatively to the population, than in America, where much of the best ability, both for thought and for action, for planning and for executing, rushes into a field which is comparatively narrow in Europe, the business of developing the material resources of the country.

Another is that the methods and habits of Congress, and indeed of political life generally, seem to give fewer opportunities for personal distinction, fewer modes in which a man may commend himself to his countrymen by eminent capacity in thought, in speech, or in administration, than is the case in the free countries of Europe. This is a point to be explained in later chapters. I merely note here in passing what will there be dwelt

on.

A third reason is that eminent men make more enemies, and give those enemies more assailable points, than obscure men do. They are therefore in so far less desirable candidates. It is true that the eminent man has also made more friends, that his name is more widely known, and may be greeted with louder cheers. Other things being equal, the famous man is preferable. But other things never are equal. The famous man has probably attacked some leaders in his own party, has supplanted others, has expressed his dislike to the crotchet of some active section, has perhaps committed errors which are capable of being magnified into offences. No man stands long before the public and bears a part in great affairs without giving openings to censorious criticism. Fiercer far than the light which beats upon a throne is the light which beats upon a presidential candidate, searching out all the recesses of his past life. Hence, when the choice lies between a brilliant man and a safe man, the safe man is preferred. Party feeling, strong enough to carry in on its back a man without conspicuous positive merits, is not always strong enough to procure forgiveness for a man with positive faults.

A European finds that this phenomenon needs in its turn to be explained, for in the free countries of Europe brilliancy, be it eloquence in speech, or some striking achievement in war or administration, or the power through whatever means of somehow impressing the popular imagination, is what makes a leader triumphant. Why should it be otherwise in America? Because in America party loyalty and party organization have been