As Regards The Senate, The Recovery Of Its Old Dignity And Former
Position Is Within Its Own Power.
No amendment of the Constitution
is needed here, nor has the weakness come from any insufficiency of
the Constitution.
The Senate can assume to itself to-morrow its own
glories, and can, by doing so, become the saviour of the honor and
glory of the nation. It is to the Senate that we must look for that
conservative element which may protect the United States from the
violence of demagogues on one side, and from the despotism of
military power on the other. The Senate, and the Senate only, can
keep the President in check. The Senate also has a power over the
Lower House with reference to the disposal of money, which deprives
the House of Representatives of that exclusive authority which
belongs to our House of Commons. It is not simply that the House of
Representatives cannot do what is done by the House of Commons.
There is more than this. To the Senate, in the minds of all
Americans, belongs that superior prestige, that acknowledged
possession of the greater power and fuller scope for action, which
is with us as clearly the possession of the House of Commons. The
United States Senate can be conservative, and can be so by virtue of
the Constitution. The love of the Constitution in the hearts of all
Americans is so strong that the exercise of such power by the Senate
would strengthen rather than endanger its position. I could wish
that the Senators would abandon their money payments, but I do not
imagine that that will be done exactly in these days.
I have now endeavored to describe the strength of the Constitution
of the United States, and to explain its weakness. The great
question is at this moment being solved, whether or no that
Constitution will still be found equal to its requirements. It has
hitherto been the main-spring in the government of the people. They
have trusted with almost childlike confidence to the wisdom of their
founders, and have said to their rulers - "There! in those words you
must find the extent and the limit of your powers. It is written
down for you, so that he who runs may read." That writing down, as
it were, at a single sitting, of a sufficient code of instructions
for the governors of a great nation, had not hitherto in the world's
history been found to answer. In this instance it has, at any rate,
answered better than in any other, probably because the words so
written contained in them less pretense of finality in political
wisdom than other written constitutions have assumed. A young tree
must bend, or the winds will certainly break it. For myself I can
honestly express my hope that no storm may destroy this tree.
CHAPTER X.
THE GOVERNMENT.
In speaking of the American Constitution I have said so much of the
American form of government that but little more is left to me to
say under that heading. Nevertheless, I should hardly go through
the work which I have laid out for myself if I did not endeavor to
explain more continuously, and perhaps more graphically, than I
found myself able to do in the last chapter, the system on which
public affairs are managed in the United States.
And here I must beg my readers again to bear in mind how moderate is
the amount of governing which has fallen to the lot of the
government of the United States; how moderate, as compared with the
amount which has to be done by the Queen's officers of state for
Great Britain, or by the Emperor, with such assistance as he may
please to accept from his officers of state, for France. That this
is so must be attributed to more than one cause; but the chief cause
is undoubtedly to be found in the very nature of a federal
government. The States are individually sovereign, and govern
themselves as to all internal matters. All the judges in England
are appointed by the Crown; but in the United States only a small
proportion of the judges are nominated by the President. The
greater number are servants of the different States. The execution
of the ordinary laws for the protection of men and property does not
fall on the government of the United States, but on the executives
of the individual States - unless in some special matters, which will
be defined in the next chapter. Trade, education, roads, religion,
the passing of new measures for the internal or domestic comfort of
the people, - all these things are more or less matters of care to
our government. In the States they are matters of care to the
governments of each individual State, but are not so to the central
government at Washington.
But there are other causes which operate in the same direction, and
which have hitherto enabled the Presidents of the United States,
with their ministers, to maintain their positions without much
knowledge of statecraft, or the necessity for that education in
state matters which is so essential to our public men. In the first
place, the United States have hitherto kept their hands out of
foreign politics. If they have not done so altogether, they have so
greatly abstained from meddling in them that none of that thorough
knowledge of the affairs of other nations has been necessary to them
which is so essential with us, and which seems to be regarded as the
one thing needed in the cabinets of other European nations. This
has been a great blessing to the United States, but it has not been
an unmixed blessing. It has been a blessing because the absence of
such care has saved the country from trouble and from expense. But
such a state of things was too good to last; and the blessing has
not been unmixed, seeing that now, when that absence of concern in
foreign matters has been no longer possible, the knowledge necessary
for taking a dignified part in foreign discussions has been found
wanting.
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