We Know Intimately The Names Of All Our Possible
Ministers - Too Intimately As Some Of Us Think - And Would Be Taken
Much By Surprise If A Gentleman Without An Official Reputation Were
Placed At The Head Of A High Office.
If something of this feeling
prevailed as to the President's cabinet, if there were some
assurance that competent statesmen would be appointed as Secretaries
of State, a certain amount of national responsibility would by
degrees attach itself to them, and the President's shoulders would,
to that amount, be lightened.
As it is, the President pretends to
bear a burden which, if really borne, would indicate the possession
of Herculean shoulders. But, in fact, the burden at present is
borne by no one. The government of the United States is not in
truth responsible either to the people or to Congress.
But these ministers, if it be desired that they shall have weight in
the country, should sit in Congress either as Senators or as
Representatives. That they cannot so sit without an amendment of
the Constitution, I have explained in the previous chapter; and any
such amendment cannot be very readily made. Without such seats they
cannot really share the responsibility of the President, or be in
any degree amenable to public opinion for the advice which they give
in their public functions. It will be said that the Constitution
has expressly intended that they should not be responsible, and
such, no doubt, has been the case. But the Constitution, good as it
is, cannot be taken as perfect.
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