ness has little to do with the question. The candidates are talked about very much as men speak of matching horses for a race.* While the politicians are plotting to put forward some local favorite-generally because he has served in the army, or been a party manager in some State,-the people have visions of the coming struggle, and wonder why it should take place at all. In the meantime the economical, commercial and industrial issues of the country must suffer. Is there any statistician who can estimate the cost of the coming senseless and foolish contest? †

The growth and prosperity of this country is saddled with a system which constitutes an elective monarchy, or something very like one. As long as that Government continues, a President must be elected. In exercising our duties as citizens we must do the best we may. We cannot remove, at once, the Presidency from our laws. As a concrete proposi

"We have here," says an Englishman, writing from Washington, " persons who tell you that the republican experiment ✶ ✶ ✶ ✶ is a failure; that prejudice, ignorance, or fraud determine the result; and they are ready to give you reasons why the whole system should be discarded. But even if they could by possibility prove all they allege, there is something too exciting and attractive in the choice of a President for the Americans ever to give up that great national sport. It is to them what the Derby is to you over the water-a great race, in which now one, and now the other competitor seems to be ahead."-[Republican Superstitions, 114.] If this foreigner had been in the city of New York during the last Presidential campaign and visited the pool rooms, usually devoted to the race track, and had seen the machinery of the French combination pools, as well as the bookmakers and all other known gambling systems in full operation, selling the chances of the candidates and their majorities, he would have had an additional evidence to substantiate his statement. These immense pool rooms were crowded with every manner of men, from the welsher of the race track to the prominent local politician. It is an admitted fact that Americans have a great penchant for betting in the Presidential campaign.

*

*

"There is now noticeable, I think, in the public mind a growing terror of presidential elections. The presidential elections throws an artificial and injurious excitement athwart all the industrial and other permanent interests of the country. This must be more and more the case as time goes on, and as our society is bound together, by the finer fibres which only grow as a nation gets older and more settled."-Prof. William G. Sumner, in Princeton Review, January, 1881.

tion we are forced to advocate the election of some one whom we believe will honestly execute the laws of the land. As an abstract problem we ask for the abolition of the system. Jules Grevy, the present President of France, advocated the abolition of the Presidency in that country. That was before personal government there had been so thoroughly overthrown. It would be entirely consistent for President Grevy still to advocate the abolition of the very office he fills. So let us Americans, while urging the abolition of the system. which we believe to be wrong and harmful, at the same time temporarily turn the present law to the best interest of the liberties of the people.

The theory that a person once elected to office might gov ern for a fixed period of time without regard to his competency or honesty, is only equalled in absurdity by the assertion that such officer should not be allowed to serve the nation longer than such term, however wisely and ably he had admin. istered the law.

CHAPTER V.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

THE Constitution of the United States provides that the President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States. This is truly a kingly power. It is difficult to conceive of a greater one. The right of naming the commander-in-chief, was not conferred upon Congress. The Constitution designates the officer who shall exercise this prerogative. He may be inimical to Congress; he may be a traitor; still he is at the head of the army and navy. Impeachment is too cumbersome a method to be effectual in staying the hand of a President who might destroy the usefulness of the army and navy. In the event of a civil war he could employ the army to assist his adherents at home, and scatter the navy "in distant seas, leaving but a very small part of it within the immediate reach of the Government."

At the time the Constitution of the United States was before the States for ratification, the opposition press claimed. that it provided for standing armies in time of peace, and that it "vested in the Executive the whole power of levying trocps, without subjecting his discretion, in any shape, to the control of the Legislature." This assertion is not based upon sound grounds. However, it shows the feeling that existed against giving such large powers to the Executive. General Hamilton also thought it of enough importance to reply in the 24th

number of the Federalist. The opposition returned to the attack, declaring that the "provision which limits the appropriation of money for the support of an army to the period of two years would be unavailing (against the President if he desired to keep up a standing army), because the Executive when once possessed of a force large enough to awe the people into submission, would find resources in that very force. sufficient to enable him to dispense with supplies from the acts of the Legislature." General Hamilton answers this in this wise: "Few persons will be so visionary as seriously to contend that military forces ought not to be raised to quell a rebellion or resist an invasion, and if the defense of the community, under such circumstances, should make it necessary to have an army so numerous as to hazard its liberties, this is one of those calamities for which there is neither preventive nor cure." The idea was that an assumption of military power could not be guarded against. This is undoubtedly true, but the idea of having the army commanded by a responsible War Minister, completely amenable to the Legislature, does not seem to have been entertained. The question may be propounded: "Why could not a War Minister become an usurper?" Very true, he could, but not nearly so easily as a President, who is placed at the very head of the nation, endowed with many of the attributes of absolutism. The exist ence of the War Minister under the present form of the British Constitution is that of responsibility to, and dependence upon, the House of Commons; but the President of the United States is Sovereign within his constitutional limits. It is only a step from the Presidency to Monarchy, while it would be rank treason for a minister to assume powers not specifically conferred. After the close of the great rebellion in 1865, President Johnson was seriously advised to march the immense army, over which he found himself the commander, into Mexico, to make conquest and annex territory. It was thought that it would be a good means of healing the animos

ities of the war. We verily believe that if the President had invaded the domains of that neighboring country, that the American people being so inured to the exercise of extraordinary power by our President, would have quietly submitted.

Although in the carly councils of the nation there were those who favored giving the extraordinary power to the President to command in person the army, navy and militia of the country, yet there was a strong minority who opposed such a course in the Federal Convention.

Mr. George Mason animadverted upon the magnitude of the powers of the President, and was alarmed at the additional power of commanding the army in person.

Mr. Patterson was opposed to a single Executive having the command over the army, and submitted a plan for a number of persons to be the Executive, with power to direct all military operations, provided that none of the persons composing the Federal Executive shall on any occasion take command of any troops, so as personally to conduct, troops, as a general, or in other capacity.

Notwithstanding strenuous objection, the power was actu ally conferred upon the President, and is now universally acknowledged.

It was clearly and almost unanimously admitted in a debate which occurred in the House in the first session, forty-sixth Congress, that the President had the undoubted right to send or order the troops of the United States from any one section to another. This would give him the power, in case of another civil war, to send arms and ammunition to the section with which he might be friendly, and to order detached bodies of troops into positions where they could easily be captured. Mr. Robeson said (the question being the repeal of the law directing the President to use the army to preserve peace at the polls): "You cannot take from the President the power to send the army even to put down domestic violence at the polls." Mr. Haskell asked " whether, in spite of this proposed