question often put in America, but never yet answered. The position of a past chief magistrate is not a happy one. He has been a species of sovereign at home. He is received General Grant was with almost royal honours abroad. His private income may be insufficient to enable him to live in ease, yet he cannot without loss of dignity, the country's dignity as well as his own, go back to practice at the bar or become partner in a mercantile firm. If he tries to enter the Senate, it may happen that there is no seat vacant for his own State, or that the majority in the State legislature is against him. It has been suggested that he might be given a seat in that chamber as an extra member; but to this plan there is the objection that it would give to the State from which he comes a third senator, and thus put other States at a disadvantage. In any case, however, it would seem only right to bestow such a pension as would relieve him from the necessity of re-entering business or a profession. We may now answer the question from which we started. Great men are not chosen Presidents, firstly, because great men are rare in politics; secondly, because the method of choice does not bring them to the top; thirdly, because they are not, in quiet times, absolutely needed. Subsequent chapters will, I hope, further elucidate the matter. Meantime, I may observe that the Presidents, regarded historically, fall into three periods, the second inferior to the first, the third rather better than the second. Down till the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, all the Presidents had been statesmen in the European sense of the word, men of education, of administrative experience, of a certain largeness of view and dignity of character. All except the first two had served in the great office of secretary of state; all were well known to the nation from the part they had played. In the second period, from Jackson till the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the Presidents were either mere politicians, such as Van Buren, Polk, or Buchanan, or else successful soldiers, such as Harrison or Taylor, whom their party found useful as figure-heads. They were intellectual pigmies beside the real leaders of that generation-Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. A new series begins with Lincoln in 1861. He and General Grant his successor, who cover sixteen years between them, belong to the history of the world. The other less distinguished Presidents of this period contrast favourably with the Polks and Pierces of the days before the war, but they are not, like the early Presidents, the first men of the country. If we compare the eighteen Presidents who have been elected to office since 1789 with the nineteen English prime ministers of the same hundred years, there are but six of the latter, and at least eight of the former whom history calls personally insignificant, while only Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Grant can claim to belong to a front rank represented in the English list by seven or possibly eight names." It would seem that the natural selection of the English parliamentary system, even as modified by the aristocratic habits of that country, has more tendency to bring the highest gifts to the highest place than the more artificial selection of America. 1 Jackson himself was something of both politician and soldier, a strong character, but a narrow and uncultivated intellect. 2 The American average would be further lowered were we to reckon in the four Vice-Presidents who have succeeded on the death of the President. Yet the English system does not always secure men personally eminent. Addington, Perceval, and Lord Goderich are no bigger than Tyler or Fillmore, which is saying little enough. CHAPTER IX THE CABINET THERE is in the government of the United States no such thing as a Cabinet in the English sense of the term. But I use the term, not only because it is current in America to describe the chief ministers of the President, but also because it calls attention to the remarkable difference which exists between the great officers of State in America and the similar officers in the free countries of Europe. Almost the only reference in the Constitution to the ministers of the President is that contained in the power given him to "require the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices." All these departments have been created by Acts of Congress. Washington began in 1789 with four only, at the head of whom were the following four officials: Secretary of State. Secretary of the Treasury. Attorney-General. In 1798 there was added a Secretary of the Navy, in 1829 a Postmaster-General,' and in 1849 a Secretary of the Interior. These seven now make up what is called the Cabinet. Each receives a salary of $8000 (£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 Fathers of the Constitution were so resolved to avert this latter form of corruption that they 1 The postmaster-general had been previously deemed a subordinate in the Treasury department, although the office was organized by Act of Congress in 1794; he has been held to belong to the cabinet since Jackson in 1829 invited him to cabinet meetings. 2 There is also a commissioner of agriculture with a salary of $3000 a year, but his duties are confined to the collection and publication of information, and to the "procuring and distributing of new and valuable seeds and plants." And an Inter-state Commerce Commission, with powers over railways, was created in February 1887 by Act of Congress. 2 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. 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 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 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. VOL. I I |