The Constitution Speaks Only Of The
Principal Officers Of The Executive Departments.
"He" (the
President) "may require the opinion in writing of the principal
officer in each of the executive departments." But in practice he
has his cabinet, and the irresponsibility of that cabinet would
practically cease if the members of it were subjected to the
questionings of the two Houses.
With us the rule which prohibits
servants of the State from going into Parliament is, like many of
our constitutional rules, hard to be defined, and yet perfectly
understood. It may perhaps be said, with the nearest approach to a
correct definition, that permanent servants of the State may not go
into Parliament, and that those may do so whose services are
political, depending for the duration of their term on the duration
of the existing ministry. But even this would not be exact, seeing
that the Master of the Rolls and the officers of the army and navy
can sit in Parliament. The absence of the President's ministers
from Congress certainly occasions much confusion, or rather
prohibits a more thorough political understanding between the
executive and the legislature than now exists. In speaking of the
government of the United States in the next chapter, I shall be
constrained to allude again to this subject.*
* It will be alleged by Americans that the introduction into
Congress of the President's ministers would alter all the existing
relations of the President and of Congress, and would at once
produce that parliamentary form of government which England
possesses, and which the States have chosen to avoid.
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