No Man's Position Is More Assured To Him.
But The Bounds Of That Position Are Written In No Book, Are
Defined
by no law, have settled themselves not in accordance with the
recorded wisdom of any great men, but as
Expediency and the fitness
of political things in Great Britain have seemed from time to time
to require. This drifting of great matters into their proper places
is not as closely in accordance with the idiosyncrasies of the
American people as it is with our own. They would prefer to define
by words, as the French do, what shall be the exact position of
every public servant connected with their government; or rather of
every public servant with whom the people shall be held as having
any concern. But nevertheless, I think it will come to pass that a
cabinet will gradually form itself at Washington as it has done at
London, and that of that cabinet there will be some recognized and
ostensible chief.
But a Prime Minister in the United States can never take the place
there which is taken here by our Premier. Over our Premier there is
no one politically superior. The highest political responsibility
of the nation rests on him. In the States this must always rest on
the President, and any minister, whatever may be his name or assumed
position, can only be responsible through the President. And it is
here especially that the working of the United States system of
government seems to me deficient - appears as though it wanted
something to make it perfect and round at all points. Our ministers
retire from their offices as do the Presidents; and indeed the
ministerial term of office with us, though of course not fixed, is
in truth much shorter than the presidential term of four years. But
our ministers do not in fact ever go out. At one time they take one
position, with pay, patronage, and power; and at another time
another position, without these good things; but in either position
they are acting as public men, and are in truth responsible for what
they say and do. But the President, on whom it is presumed that the
whole of the responsibility of the United States government rests,
goes out at a certain day, and of him no more is heard. There is no
future before him to urge him on to constancy; no hope of other
things beyond, of greater honors and a wider fame, to keep him
wakeful in his country's cause. He has already enrolled his name on
the list of his country's rulers, and received what reward his
country can give him. Conscience, duty, patriotism may make him
true to his place. True to his place, in a certain degree, they
will make him. But ambition and hope of things still to come are
the moving motives of the minds of most men. Few men can allow
their energies to expand to their fullest extent in the cold
atmosphere of duty alone. The President of the States must feel
that he has reached the top of the ladder, and that he soon will
have done with life. As he goes out he is a dead man. And what can
be expected from one who is counting the last lingering hours of his
existence? "It will not be in my time," Mr. Buchanan is reported to
have said, when a friend spoke to him with warning voice of the
coming rebellion. "It will not be in my time." In the old days,
before democracy had prevailed in upsetting that system of
presidential election which the Constitution had intended to fix as
permanent, the Presidents were generally re-elected for a second
term. Of the first seven Presidents five were sent back to the
White House for a second period of four years. But this has never
been done since the days of General Jackson; nor will it be done,
unless a stronger conservative reaction takes place than the country
even as yet seems to promise. As things have lately ordered
themselves, it may almost be said that no man in the Union would be
so improbable a candidate for the Presidency as the outgoing
President. And it has been only natural that it should be so.
Looking at the men themselves who have lately been chosen, the fault
has not consisted in their non-re-election, but in their original
selection. There has been no desire for great men; no search after
a man of such a nature that, when tried, the people should be
anxious to keep him. "It will not be in my time," says the expiring
President. And so, without dismay, he sees the empire of his
country slide away from him.
A President, with the possibility of re-election before him, would
be as a minister who goes out knowing that he may possibly come in
again before the session is over, and, perhaps, believing that the
chances of his doing so are in his favor. Under the existing
political phase of things in the United States, no President has any
such prospect; but the ministers of the President have that chance.
It is no uncommon thing at present for a minister under one
President to reappear as a minister under another; but a statesman
has no assurance that he will do so because he has shown ministerial
capacity. 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.
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