Responsibility Of This Nature Is Doubtless Very
Necessary, And Prevents Ebullitions Of Tyranny Such As Those In
Which A Sultan Or An Emperor May Indulge; But It Is Not That
Responsibility Which Especially Recommends Itself To The Minds Of
Free Men.
So much of responsibility they take as a matter of
course, as they do the air which they breathe.
It would be nothing
to us to know that Lord Palmerston could be impeached for robbing
the treasury, or Lord Russell punished for selling us to Austria.
It is well that such laws should exist, but we do not in the least
suspect those noble lords of such treachery. We are anxious to
know, not in what way they may be impeached and beheaded for great
crimes, but by what method they may be kept constantly straight in
small matters. That they are true and honest is a matter of course.
But they must be obedient also, discreet, capable, and, above all
things, of one mind with the public. Let them be that; or if not
they, then with as little delay as may be, some others in their
place. That with us is the meaning of ministerial responsibility.
To that responsibility all the cabinet is subject. But in the
government of the United States there is no such responsibility.
The President is placed at the head of the executive for four years,
and while he there remains no man can question him. It is not that
the scope of his power is great.
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