CHAPTER II

THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER

"IF," Mr. Goldwin Smith tells the Americans, "you have an empire, you will have an emperor, not perhaps, in the Old World form of a man crowned and sceptred, yet in the shape of centralized and practically autocratic power." "There are only two absolute monarchies in the modern world," remarks M. Bourget, "Russia and America." 1

Let us look into this matter of the growth of Presidential power. We are all of us to-day-democrats and aristocrats-bound hand and foot by those feudal definitions. An emperor means merely the ruler of an empire a king (according to Professor Skeat) is only the elected chief of a people: a monarch is the supreme ruler. May not president, so simple, so innocent in its origin, yet come to signify arbitrary power? 2

1 The base wretch who murdered President McKinley declared, "I shot him because he was the ruler, and held such power as I do not think any man should have."

2 Boundless power is not incompatible with the absence of personal pomp and even of titular distinction. The Americans are only following the example of the Romans. "The kingly power in the United States of Australia," remarks Sir Robert Stout, "is less than the President's power in the United States of America. Practically, the kingly power is a mere name. It has no actuality . . . practically the Parliament of the Commonwealth in its limited legislative sphere is supreme. It is true there is a veto power in the

When the founders of the republic divided what Jefferson held to be a necessary evil, the national government, into the three branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial, they intended that while each of these three branches should be independent of each other, in Congress, as representing the people, was to reside the major power.

How little they would have credited the prophet who should have told them that the President would become the most important factor in the government!1

Yet slowly, but surely, the powers of the executive have evolved, until the President has for some time had ascendency over the legislative and judicial. Now the office and its occupant have taken a stride further. Let us see what the President's position is at present based upon

1. His command of the Army and Navy.

2. His command of the administrative system, including control of the offices and the initiative of administrative work.

3. His veto power.

4. The fact that by the elimination of any independent

Governor-General: but the Governor-General must act even in vetoing a Bill, as he is advised by his ministers." On the other hand, “The kingly power of the United States of America is very much in evidence, and this has been recognized by Americans." See "Abolition of the Presidency," by H. C. Lockwood.

1 "A king for the United States when they first established themselves was impossible. A total rupture from the Old World and all the habits became necessary for them. The name of a king, or monarch, or sovereign had become horrible in their ears. Even to this day they have not learned the difference between arbitrary power retained in the hand of one man, such as that now held by the Emperor over the French, and such hereditary hardship in the States as that which belongs to the Crown in Great Britain." -Anthony Trollope, North America.

action by the presidential electors he has become the direct agent of the national popular will.

It is worthy of note that in none of the wars in which America has been engaged, has the President been so directly concerned with the movements of the armies. and fleets as in the conflict with Spain. In that war, for the first time in American history, the President realized in practice the constitutional provision that the President shall actually lead and command in war. At all times, throughout the few brief weeks of hostilities, the President was in telegraphic touch of both land and naval forces. In the concentration of war-ships and transports, and mobilization of armed battalions at points on the sea-board or in the disembarkation of American troops on foreign soil, both were never beyond his instant control. Although these facilities for immediate communication between the Commander-in-Chief of the active fighting force were not absolutely new or novel, since they have been applied by Great Britain in many of her colonial wars, yet the practice awakened the rapturous enthusiasm of the Americans.1

By virtue of what is termed the war-powers of the Constitution, the President has become as powerful as any living monarch, the autocratic ruler of hundreds of thousands of people in Cuba and of millions of people

1 "The great Cæsar at the head of his invincible legions tramped over most of the known world of his day in his career of conquest. The great Bonaparte from his snow-white battle-steed surveyed the field and met and delivered the wager of conflict. The foremost citizen of this republic, McKinley, from his official residence at the American capital, at the touch of a button put in motion fleets which in a few brief hours changed the maps of two continents, and placed a nation, for centuries the foremost in the world, prostrate and powerless at his feet!" I extract this gem of rhetoric from the pages of a popular American magazine.

in the Spanish possessions of the Orient. To paraphrase those invidious personal charges contained in the Declaration of Independence concerning George III.—

He has appointed and removed officials without asking the co-operation of the Senate.

He has framed tariff schedules independently of Congressional action.

He has established Governments at his own will and pleasure.

He has exerted undue pressure upon the people's representatives to force them to do his will.

He has issued public mandates "By the authority of the President" contrary to the Constitution, etc.

In brief, "the pivot," exclaims one patriot, "upon which we as a nation revolve is no longer the Capitol, where the people's representatives assemble, but the White House, where one man sits in almost supreme power.

2

Congress seems to have abdicated. The laws promulgated by the American authorities in the Philippine Islands declared that they were enacted "by the authority of the President of the United States," a phrase up to then unknown in American History.

In 1898 the President declared that no privateering would be resorted to by the nation. Whence did the President derive his authority? not from the Constitution, which declared that Congress alone has the power "to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and sea." Two years earlier President Cleveland called upon

1 H. L. West, The Forum, March, 1901.

2 Report of the Taft Commission.

Congress to provide at once for an independent American Commission to fix the true boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana. From what source did the President derive his power to induce Congress to comply with his demand? Not from the Constitution.

The growing power of the President is a thing long foreshadowed. Even Jefferson, who feared Washington might desire to be made King, and who believed in always following the initiative of the people, achieved a very bold and arbitrary thing in purchasing Louisiana. But after its purchase he did not attempt to govern the newly acquired territory without a delegation of authority from Congress. With this precedent in view, it was suggested in 1898-99 that similar legislation be enacted to legalize the action of President McKinley ; but the suggestion was promptly quashed by the friends of the executive; and it was not until the burden of governing became onerous that the President felt compelled to ask Congress for relief.

Yet subsequently Congress "refused to restrain the importation of liquor into those islands"-a traffic then assuming enormous proportions-because the executive authority was admitted to be supreme.

But in the case of war abnormal conditions arise. The people, in the present case, more than ever absorbed in commercial affairs, and more than ever disposed to place confidence in the President, acquiesced without a murmur. The results of the war with Spain may, without exaggeration, be said to have intoxicated the nation, to have opened such a new and brilliant vista of worldpower before their eyes that they would not have protested had the executive gone to even greater lengths.