have less temptation to make laws to strengthen their own hands; because the laws, when they are made, pass out of their hands, leaving behind them no power to enforce the laws. The judicial body is under still less temptation to interpret laws wrongly; for it can gain nothing by it, as it has nothing to do with making the laws or with enforcing them.

Hence, as civilization advanced in the world, and governments improved, this distinction was made, and the importance of it discerned. Thus, in England, the government is monarchical in form, but a mingled web of aristocracy and democracy in fact; for the English king or queen has no political power, and is only a pageant. But there are many republican elements in their government, and a great deal of freedom in the nation. And there this distinction between the three great powers of government is carried out to a considerable extent. Our fathers, when they lived in colonies subject to Great Britain, had more of this distinction than they had in the parent country, and saw it more clearly and valued it more highly. And when they became independent, and framed their own constitutions, State and national, they took excellent care to make this distinction as perfect as possible.

We shall see as we go on that this distinction is not perfect; and perhaps we shall have reason to look upon this imperfection as a weak spot in our national constitution, and to think it would be strengthened if these great powers were more distinctly separated, and the bodies which hold them made more independent of each other.

SECTION IV.

THE EXECUTIVE POWER.

The executive power is vested in a President. He holds his office for four years; and there is nothing in the constitution to prevent him, or the Vice-President, from being re-elected any number of times.

Originally the method of electing the President and Vice-President was very different from that now in force. Then the electors voted for two persons, and whoever had the highest number of votes (if he had a majority of all the votes) was President; and the person having the next greatest number of votes was Vice-President. If there was no majority, the House of Representatives, voting by States, and each State having one vote, chose the President. At the election for 1801 there was no majority,-Thomas Jefferson having sixty-three votes; Aaron Burr, the same number; John

Adams, sixty-five; C. C. Pinkney, sixty-four; and John Jay, one. On the first ballot in the House, eight States voted for Jefferson, six for Burr, and the votes of two States were divided; three States having then been added to the original thirteen. There were thirty-four ballots without any change from the first; but on the thirty-sixth ballot Jefferson had ten votes and Burr had four: so Jefferson became President, and Burr Vice-President. This exhibition of the inconvenience and embarrassment which might arise from that method of electing these officers, led to the 12th amendment, which was adopted in 1804, and has been in force ever since. By this amendment the electors vote in distinct ballots for President and for Vice-President. The provisions for filling these offices in case no one has a majority will be seen in the 12th amendment, as heretofore given in the constitution.

The theory of choosing the President and Vice-President by electors is excellent; but it does not work well. This theory is, that the people in the several States should choose their wisest men, and that the electors so chosen should choose the men for these high offices who, in their judgment, were best fitted for them. But in point of fact the electors exercise no judgment whatever. They are simply the instruments of the party which chooses them, and are chosen to vote for the candidate of the party, and always do so. As soon as the electors are chosen and known to the country, it is certainly known who will be President and Vice-President, the vote by electors having become a mere formality. These officers are, in fact, chosen by a popular vote. But the machinery of electors chosen by States may put the choice of President and VicePresident into the hands of a minority of the people, because each State has as many electors as it has representatives and senators; and a small majority in a large number of the smaller States might constitute a majority of the electors, while the minority of the electors were chosen by and represented a majority of the people. There have been, on this and other grounds, many attempts to avoid these mischiefs by a direct popular vote. a direct popular vote. As yet, however, they have not succeeded.

For the powers of the President, we refer to the second article of the constitution. We must, however, look to the seventh section of the first article for a most important power given to the President; it is what is commonly called the veto power.

Every bill which has passed the House and the Senate is presented to the President. If he approves and signs it, it becomes a law. If he does not approve it, he may return it to the House in which it originated, with his objections. It then becomes a law if it be passed by two-thirds of each House. He must return it within

ten days (Sundays excepted) after it is presented to him, or it becomes a law without his signature. But if it does not receive his signature, and before the ten days expire Congress adjourns, so that the President has not the ten days to keep it and then return it, it is not a law.

This veto power was probably copied from the British system, and seems to give the President some portion of monarchical power. But in the British system it has become wholly obsolete. The phrase, “King, Lords, and Commons," as designating the legislative power, is meaningless; the lords and commons having the whole power of legislation, and no king has ventured to interpose his negative since 1692. This negative of the king would be final, for in theory it is absolute. But if a British sovereign should undertake at this day to resist the power of the lords and commons by refusing his assent to a law which had passed both Houses, it would cause a revolution; while our Presidents have used this power, and sometimes quite freely. It might seem, therefore, that we, republican as we are, have more of a king than Great Britain has. But this is not the right way of looking at this matter. The negative of the President amounts to just this. If he disapproves a bill, he can require a reconsideration of it by the Senate and House of Representatives, with any light which he may throw upon the objections to the bill, and then a vote of two-thirds. This is all. It is a wise precaution against bills which might be passed inconsiderately, or under the influence of personal or party passion, by a bare majority. This is a power properly placed in the hands of the chief magistrate; and whenever a President believes that a bill is so objectionable or so questionable as to call for reconsideration and a larger majority, it is his duty to require this by withholding his

assent.

As to his preventing a bill from becoming a law by "pocketing it," as is the phrase, Congress, which is the master of its own adjournments, can avoid that by continuing their session. It is, however, not the right way. Congress should not be compelled to remain in session, and, if it is the close of the political year for which the representatives are chosen, cannot remain in session. The constitution cannot intend that the President in such case should prevent a bill from becoming a law by merely keeping it from Congress.

THE VICE-PRESIDENT.

By the first section of the second article of the constitution it is provided that in case of the removal of the President from office, or

his death or inability to discharge the duties of the office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President; and Congress may provide by law for the case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as President. Accordingly Congress has provided by law that, in such case, the President of the Senate pro tempore, and in case there shall be no President of the Senate, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives for the time being, shall act as President until the disability be removed or a President be elected.

The Vice-President is President of the Senate, but has no vote, unless they be equally divided. This constitutes a difference between the Senate and the House. The people choose the President of the Senate when they choose the Vice-President of the nation. The House of Representatives chooses its own Speaker. The Senate also chooses a President pro tempore, who takes the place of the Vice-President when he is absent.

The second article of the constitution provides that no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution, shall be eligible as President. The twelfth article of amendment provides that no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President.

SECTION V.

THE LEGISLATIVE POWER.

There can be no doubt that our fathers profited by the experience of Great Britain in vesting the legislative functions in two bodies. There it grew up by what we call accident; and, indeed, the early history of the English Parliament is somewhat uncertain. Now, however, the Parliament is composed of the House of Lords, of which the members sit by hereditary tenure (excepting the Scotch and Irish lords, who are elected from the peers of each country, and are called representative peers), and the House of Commons, which consists of members chosen by the votes of those who possess the elective franchise.

We have no lords, and no hereditary tenure of office or piace, and, it may be hoped, are not likely to have them. And the resemblance of a Senate to a House of Lords, however remote, caused a prejudice against this division of the legislative functions between two Houses. There was, indeed, great opposition to this; and some wise men doubted its expediency and safety. But better counsei

prevailed. By the Articles of Confederation Congress had consisted of only one body; and a part of the feebleness and inadequacy of that confederation was attributed to that fact. It was, moreover, seen that the requirement of the consent of two distinct bodies supplied a useful and necessary protection against hasty and passionate legislation, not only by the delay it caused, but by the twofold consideration of a proposed measure. Not only so, but by providing that one of the Houses should be chosen in a different way and by a different body from the other, any measure would be looked at under a different aspect, and a decision be governed by somewhat different influences.

In a republican government, acting under a constitution carefully discriminating between the different functions of government and placing them in different hands, there is always danger that one of these functionaries will strive to enlarge its own power by absorbing the functions of another. The executive must be guarded from the temptation and the opportunity of encroaching upon the legislature or the judiciary. The legislature must be guarded from the temptation and the opportunity of encroaching upon the executive or the judiciary. At different times we have heard the cry of "Cesarism" raised, which means that there are some among the people who suspect the President of aiming at more than republican, at imperial power. At other times, watchful men have thought they saw a mischievous increase in the pretensions of the House of Representatives, and perhaps in the power they assumed and exercised. Whether these suspicions were well or ill founded, nothing can be better founded than the fear that a body possessing legislative powers will always be exposed to the temptation of increasing that power, and making themselves sovereign in fact, however another name and appearance may be preserved. History proves this. The Long Parliament in England voted itself perpetual, and for a time was supreme. Holland was formerly governed by one representative body, annually elected. They afterwards voted themselves from an annually to a septennially elected body; then for life; and finally exercised the power of filling up all vacant offices and thus the government became an oligarchy and a tyranny, although retaining the name of a republic. Think of it as we may, this danger will always exist. And there can be no more efficient barrier against it than the division of the legislative function, and conferring it upon two bodies, each of which will watch the other, and detect, expose, and resist any attempted encroachment.

Then, also, greater stability is given in this way to the course of legislation, by obstructing hasty and inconsiderate change, and increasing the probability that all actual objections to the proposed