in twenty-nine states. No previous candidate for the presidency ever attempted such a feat as this. Day after day this speechmaking has gone on much of it from the rear platforms of railway trains, while the telegraph and the daily newspaper have carried the speaker's utterances everywhere. Here again must be considered the matchless service of the press, without which the orator's words could reach but a limited number. McKinley home. But for Mr. McKinley too, this has been a speechmaking cam- Mr. paign. He has remained at his home in Canton, but auditors speaks at have come to him from far and near. There is a precision, a fixed adherence to schedule, in the arrangements for receiving and addressing delegates at Canton which is wholly lacking in the Bryan "steeple chasing" programme. Mr. McKinley's speeches have been prepared with care and fully reported by the press. Powers CHAPTER X THE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT 71. Constitutional Provisions THE following brief clauses of the federal Constitution sum up the powers and duties of the chief magistrate: 1 1. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States; he may 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; and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next session. He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of 1 The general executive power is also vested in the President; see above, p. 154. President. the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such Duties of the measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or either of them; and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.1 72. The President as Head of the National Administration* The relation of the great executive departments to the President on one hand, and to Congress on the other, has never been nicely defined, and indeed it cannot be, from the very nature of the case. Congress, having power to create the departments and prescribe their duties, may obviously narrowly restrict the head officer. This seems entirely necessary and proper, but it is also obvious that, while the main outlines of the movements of the executive may be marked out, "there are numberless things which cannot be anticipated and defined, and are essential to useful and healthy action of government." 2 The whole problem is discussed in an opinion by Attorney General Cushing in 1855, from which a few extracts are given here: tional provisions for of executive Now, by the explicit and emphatic language of the Constitution, Constituthe executive power is vested in the President of the United States. In the perception, however, of the fact that the actual adminis- subdivision tration of all executive power cannot be performed personally functions. by one man, that this would be physically impossible, and that if it were attempted by the President, the utmost ability of that one man would be consumed in official details instead of being left free to the duty of general direction and supervision, in the perception, I say, of this fact, the Constitution provides for the subdivision of the executive powers, vested in the President, among administrative departments, using that term now in its narrower 1 For his veto power, see below, p. 217. 2 This question is considered in Fairlie, National Administration of the United States, pp. 16 sqq. N The creation of the first and ordinary sense. What those "executive departments" shall be, either in number or functions, the Constitution does not say, any further than to determine that certain appointments may be made by their "heads," respectively, and that the President may require in writing the advice of any such "head" or "principal officer in each of the Executive Departments," for which reason those officers are sometimes characterized, and not improperly, as "constitutional advisers" of the President. Meanwhile, the great constitutional fact remains, that the "executive power" is vested in the President, subject only, in the respect of appointments and treaties, to the advice and consent of the Senate. To constitute the "executive departments," through the instrudepartments. mentality of which, in part, the President was to administer government, became one of the earliest objects of the first constitutional Congress; and we must look to its acts for knowledge of the administrative system, which, in its great outlines, the statesmen of the constitutional era established as it exists at this day. They commenced with the erection of a Department of Foreign Affairs, (soon afterwards changed to the Department of State). A few days afterwards the Department of War was created, with "a principal officer," the "Secretary for the Department of War." Next came the Treasury Department, with "a Secretary of the Treasury, to be deemed the head of the Department." Following this act is that establishing "the Post Office," with "a Postmaster General, to be subject to the direction of the President of the United States in performing the duties of his office, and in forming contracts for the transportation of mail." Finally, came the act providing that "there shall also be appointed a meet person, learned in the law, to act as Attorney General for the United States." Executive departments are under the Presi Such were the great departments of administration, with which the business of the Government of the United States commenced. Changes in detail were made by Congress, or by order of the dent's direc- President, from time to time, by the addition of new functions to this or that department, by change in the distribution of their tion. respective duties, and at length, by the creation of new departments. But, amid all these successive changes in detail, the original theory of departmental administration continued unchanged, namely, executive departments, with heads thereof discharging their administrative duties in such manner as the President should direct, and being in fact the executors of the will of the President. All the statutes of departmental organization, except one, expressly recognize the direction of the President, and in that one, the Interior, it is implied, because the duties assigned to it are not new ones, but such as had previously been exercised by other departments. It could not, as a general rule, be otherwise, because in the President is the executive power vested by the Constitution, and also because the Constitution commands that He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed; thus making him not only the depository of the executive power, but the responsible executive minister of the United States. Acts to be performed But, if the direction of the President to the executive departments be assumed generally, or at least, in the general statutes of by the organization, may there not still be cases of distinction in which, President. by the Constitution or by statute, specific things must be done by the President himself or by Heads of Departments? Such cases do undoubtedly exist, and any view of the subject which omits to consider them, must be partial, defective, imperfect. We begin with examples of acts performable by the President, as prescribed by the Constitution. Thus it may be assumed that he, the man discharging the presidential office, and he alone, grants reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, not another man, the Attorney General or anybody else, by delegation of the President. So he, and he alone, is the supreme commanderin-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States. That is a power constitutionally inherent in the person of the President. No act of Congress, no act even of the President himself, can, by constitutional possibility, authorize or create any military officer not subordinate to the President. |