This is more particularly the case in relation to that part of the instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and not only as regards the exercise of powers claimed under a general clause giving that body the authority to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the specified powers, but in relation to the latter also.
It is, however, consolatory to reflect that most of the instances of alleged departure from the letter or spirit of the Constitution have ultimately received the sanction of a majority of the people.
And the fact that many of our statesmen most distinguished for talent and patriotism have been at one time or other of their political career on both sides of each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us the inference that the errors, if errors there were, are attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances of ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the Constitution rather than the influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive.
But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the Government of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation in one of the departments of that which was assigned to others.
Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments. This danger is greatly heightened, as it has been always observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of one department upon another than upon their own reserved rights.
When the Constitution of the United States first came from the hands of the Convention which formed it, many of the sternest republicans of the day were alarmed at the extent of the power which had been granted to the Federal Government, and more particularly of that portion which had been assigned to the executive branch.
There were in it features which appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative democracy or republic, and knowing the tendency of power to increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single individual, predictions were made that at no very remote period the Government would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been already realized; but as I sincerely believe that the tendency of measures and of men's opinions for some years past has been in that direction, it is, I conceive, strictly proper that I should take this occasion to repeat the assurances I have heretofore given of my determination to arrest the progress of that tendency if it really exists and restore the Government to its pristine health and vigor, as far as this can be effected by any legitimate exercise of the power placed in my hands.
I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of and the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the Constitution ; others, in my judgment, are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions.
Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States to its correction.
As, however, one mode of correction is in the power of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system.
It may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their systems of government which may be calculated to create or increase the lover of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit the management of their affairs; and surely nothing is more likely to produce such a state of mind than the long continuance of an office of high trust.
Nothing can be more corrupting, nothing more destructive of all those noble feelings which belong to the character of a devoted republican patriot. When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim. If this is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant, not the master.
Until an amendment of the Constitution can be effected public opinion may secure the desired object. I give my aid to it by renewing the pledge heretofore given that under no circumstances will I consent to serve a second term. But if there is danger to public liberty from the acknowledged defects of the Constitution in the want of limit to the continuance of the Executive power in the same hands, there is, I apprehend, not much less from a misconstruction of that instrument as it regards the powers actually given.
I can not conceive that by a fair construction any or either of its provisions would be found to constitute the President a part of the legislative power. It can not be claimed from the power to recommend, since, although enjoined as a duty upon him, it is a privilege which he holds in common with every other citizen; and although there may be something more of confidence in the propriety of the measures recommended in the one case than in the other, in the obligations of ultimate decision there can be no difference.
In the language of the Constitution , "all the legislative powers" which it grants "are vested in the Congress of the United States. It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by refusing to them his assent. So a similar power has necessarily resulted from that instrument to the judiciary, and yet the judiciary forms no part of the Legislature.
There is, it is true, this difference between these grants of power: The Executive can put his negative upon the acts of the Legislature for other cause than that of want of conformity to the Constitution , whilst the judiciary can only declare void those which violate that instrument.
But the decision of the judiciary is final in such a case, whereas in every instance where the veto of the Executive is applied it may be overcome by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress. The negative upon the acts of the legislative by the executive authority, and that in the hands of one individual, would seem to be an incongruity in our system.
Like some others of asimilar character, however, it appears to be highly expedient, and if used only with the forbearance and in the spirit which was intended by its authors it may be productive of great good and be found one of the best safeguards to the Union. At the period of the formation of the Constitution the principle does not appear to have enjoyed much favor in the State governments. It existed but in two, and in one of these there was a plural executive.
If we would search for the motives which operated upon the purely patriotic and enlightened assembly which framed the Constitution for the adoption of a provision so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic principle that the majority should govern, we must reject the idea that they anticipated from it any benefit to the ordinary course of legislation.
They knew too well the high degree of intelligence which existed among the people and the enlightened character of the State legislatures not to have the fullest confidence that the two bodies elected by them would be worthy representatives of such constituents, and, of course, that they would require no aid in conceiving and maturing the measures which the circumstances of the country might require. And it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the country, could better understand the wants and wishes of the people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a part of every year among them, living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection.
To assist or control Congress, then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I conceive, have been the motive for conferring the veto power on the President. This argument acquires additional force from the fact of its never having been thus used by the first six Presidents--and two of them were members of the Convention, one presiding over its deliberations and the other bearing a larger share in consummating the labors of that august body than any other person.
But if bills were never returned to Congress by either of the Presidents above referred to upon the ground of their being inexpedient or not as well adapted as they might be to the wants of the people, the veto was applied upon that of want of conformity to the Constitution or because errors had been committed from a too hasty enactment.
There is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle, which had probably more influence in recommending it to the Convention than any other. I refer to the security which it gives to the just and equitable action of the Legislature upon all parts of the Union. It could not but have occurred to the Convention that in a country so extensive, embracing so great a variety of soil and climate, and consequently of products, and which from the same causes must ever exhibit a great difference in the amount of the population of its various sections, calling for a great diversity in the employments of the people, that the legislation of the majority might not always justly regard the rights and interests of the minority, and that acts of this character might be passed under an express grant by the words of the Constitution , and therefore not within the competency of the judiciary to declare void; that however enlightened and patriotic they might suppose from past experience the members of Congress might be, and however largely partaking, in the general, of the liberal feelings of the people, it was impossible to expect that bodies so constituted should not sometimes be controlled by local interests and sectional feelings.
It was proper, therefore, to provide some umpire from whose situation and mode of appointment more independence and freedom from such influences might be expected. Such a one was afforded by the executive department constituted by the Constitution. A person elected to that high office, having his constituents in every section, State, and subdivision of the Union, must consider himself bound by the most solemn sanctions to guard, protect, and defend the rights of all and of every portion, great or small, from the injustice and oppression of the rest.
I consider the veto power, therefore given by the Constitution to the Executive of the United States solely as a conservative power, to be used only first, to protect the Constitution from violation; secondly, the people from the effects of hasty legislation where their will has been probably disregarded or not well understood, and, thirdly, to prevent the effects of combinations violative of the rights of minorities.
In reference to the second of these objects I may observe that I consider it the right and privilege of the people to decide disputed points of the Constitution arising from the general grant of power to Congress to carry into effect the powers expressly given; and I believe with Mr. Madison that "repeated recognitions under varied circumstances in acts of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Government, accompanied by indications in different modes of the concurrence of the general will of the nation," as affording to the President sufficient authority for his considering such disputed points as settled.
Upward of half a century has elapsed since the adoption of the present form of government. It would be an object more highly desirable than the gratification of the curiosity of speculative statesmen if its precise situation could be ascertained, a fair exhibit made of the operations of each of its departments, of the powers which they respectively claim and exercise, of the collisions which have occurred between them or between the whole Government and those of the States or either of them.
We could then compare our actual condition after fifty years' trial of our system with what it was in the commencement of its operations and ascertain whether the predictions of the patriots who opposed its adoption or the confident hopes of its advocates have been best realized.
The great dread of the former seems to have been that the reserved powers of the States would be absorbed by those of the Federal Government and a consolidated power established, leaving to the States the shadow only of that independent action for which they had so zealously contended and on the preservation of which they relied as the last hope of liberty. Without denying that the result to which they looked with so much apprehension is in the way of being realized, it is obvious that they did not clearly see the mode of its accomplishment The General Government has seized upon none of the reserved rights of the States.
AS far as any open warfare may have gone, the State authorities have amply maintained their rights. To a casual observer our system presents no appearance of discord between the different members which compose it. Even the addition of many new ones has produced no jarring.
They move in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central head and with each other. But there is still an undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be realized, and not only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great increase of power in the executive department of the General Government, but the character of that Government, if not its designation, be essentially and radically changed.
This state of things has been in part effected by causes inherent in the Constitution and in part by the never-failing tendency of political power to increase itself. By making the President the sole distributer of all the patronage of the Government the framers of the Constitution do not appear to have anticipated at how short a period it would become a formidable instrument to control the free operations of the State governments.
Of trifling importance at first, it had early in Mr. Jefferson's Administration become so powerful as to create great alarm in the mind of that patriot from the potent influence it might exert in controlling the freedom of the elective franchise.
If such could have then been the effects of its influence, how much greater must be the danger at this time, quadrupled in amount as it certainly is and more completely under the control of the Executive will than their construction of their powers allowed or the forbearing characters of all the early Presidents permitted them to make. But it is not by the extent of its patronage alone that the executive department has become dangerous, but by the use which it appears may be made of the appointing power to bring under its control the whole revenues of the country.
The Constitution has declared it to be the duty of the President to see that the laws are executed, and it makes him the Commander in Chief of the Armies and Navy of the United States. If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that species of mixed government which in modern Europe is termed monarchy in contradistinction to despotism is correct, there was wanting no other addition to the powers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical character on our Government but the control of the public finances; and to me it appears strange indeed that anyone should doubt that the entire control which the President possesses over the officers who have the custody of the public money, by the power of removal with or without cause, does, for all mischievous purposes at least, virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal.
The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight.
I am not insensible of the great difficulty that exists in drawing a proper plan for the safe- keeping and disbursement of the public revenues, and I know the importance which has been attached by men of great abilities and patriotism to the divorce, as it is called, of the Treasury from the banking institutions It is not the divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union of the Treasury with the executive department, which has created such extensive alarm.
To this danger to our republican institutions and that created by the influence given to the Executive through the instrumentality of the Federal officers I propose to apply all the remedies which may be at my command. The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity have greatly increased.
The virtue of temperanceis held in higher estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not all of our people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuousand law-abiding. But on the whole the opportunities offered to the individualto secure the comforts of life are better than are found elsewhere andlargely better than they were here one hundred years ago. The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General Government,effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not accomplished untilthe suggestions of reason were strongly reenforced by the more imperativevoice of experience.
The divergent interests of peace speedily demandeda "more perfect union. The commercial policy of the mother country had not relaxed any ofits hard and oppressive features. To hold in check the development of ourcommercial marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth ofmanufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market for theirshops and the carrying trade for their ships, was the policy of Europeanstatesmen, and was pursued with the most selfish vigor.
Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of discriminatingduties that should encourage the production of needed things at home. Thepatriotism of the people, which no longer found afield of exercise in war,was energetically directed to the duty of equipping the young Republicfor the defense of its independence by making its people self-dependent.
Societies for the promotion of home manufactures and for encouraging theuse of domestics in the dress of the people were organized in many of theStates. The revival at the end of the century of the same patriotic interestin the preservation and development of domestic industries and the defenseof our working people against injurious foreign competition is an incidentworthy of attention.
It is not a departure but a return that we have witnessed. The protective policy had then its opponents. The argument was made, asnow, that its benefits inured to particular classes or sections. If the question became in any sense or at any time sectional, it wasonly because slavery existed in some of the States.
But for this therewas no reason why the cotton-producing States should not have led or walkedabreast with the New England States in the production of cotton fabrics. There was this reason only why the States that divide with Pennsylvaniathe mineral treasures of the great southeastern and central mountain rangesshould have been so tardy in bringing to the smelting furnace and to themill the coal and iron from their near opposing hillsides.
Mill fires werelighted at the funeral pile of slavery. The emancipation proclamation washeard in the depths of the earth as well as in the sky; men were made free,and material things became our better servants. The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the tariff discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily only planting States. Noneare excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among thepeople which brings wealth and contentment.
The cotton plantation willnot be less valuable when the product is spun in the country town by operativeswhose necessities call for diversified crops and create a home demand forgarden and agricultural products. Every new mine, furnace, and factoryis an extension of the productive capacity of the State more real and valuablethan added territory. Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang uponthe skirts of progress?
How long will those who rejoice that slavery nolonger exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I look hopefully to the continuance of our protective system and to theconsequent development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the Stateshitherto wholly given to agriculture as a potent influence in the perfectunification of our people. The men who have invested their capital in theseenterprises, the farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood,and the men who work in shop or field will not fail to find and to defenda community of interest.
Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the greatmining and manufacturing enterprises which have recently been establishedin the South may yet find that the free ballot of the workingman, withoutdistinction of race, is needed for their defense as well as for his own?
I do not doubt that if those men in the South who now accept the tariffviews of Clay and the constitutional expositions of Webster would courageouslyavow and defend their real convictions they would not find it difficult,by friendly instruction and cooperation, to make the black man their efficientand safe ally, not only in establishing correct principles in our nationaladministration, but in preserving for their local communities the benefitsof social order and economical and honest government.
At least until thegood offices of kindness and education have been fairly tried the contraryconclusion can not be plausibly urged. I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive policyfor any section of our country. It is the duty of the Executive to administerand enforce in the methods and by the instrumentalities pointed out andprovided by the Constitution all the laws enacted by Congress.
These lawsare general and their administration should be uniform and equal. As acitizen may not elect what laws he will obey, neither may the Executiveeject which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute embraces theConstitution in its entirety and the whole code of laws enacted under it.
The evil example of permitting individuals, corporations, or communitiesto nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest orprejudices is full of danger, not only to the nation at large, but muchmore to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligationsor to obtain an unjust advantage over others.
They will presently themselvesbe compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would usethe law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others. If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legallimitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawfullimitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations.
The community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens deniesto a portion of its members their plain rights under the law has severedthe only safe bond of social order and prosperity.
The evil works froma bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who practice it and destroysthe faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safeprotector. The man in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturallythe subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawfulmethods, if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that promptedthem, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this.
An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community either practiceor connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to crosstheir convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenienceor a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness hasbeen well learned by the ignorant classes? A community where law is therule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is theonly attractive field for business investments and honest labor.
Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiryinto the character and good disposition of persons applying for citizenshipmore careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in their administrationan unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man asa citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the dutiesof citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are.
The privilegesof American citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we maywell insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for citizenshipand a good knowledge by him of our institutions.
We should not cease tobe hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as tothe character of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose comingis necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat to socialorder. These should be identified and excluded. He also had the shortest presidential term, dying 32 days after his March 4, , inauguration. The speech, which you can read here sometime if you're on a transcontinental flight or camped outside the Apple store for a new iPhone, came in at a whopping 8, words and took him almost two hours to complete.
That's more than four times as long as President Obama's speech. The second-longest speech, delivered by President Taft in , was shorter by 3, words.
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