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executive (and this is no inapt description of a congress under a presidential constitution) is not an object to stir a noble ambition, and is a position to encourage idleness. The members of a parliament excluded from office can never be comparable, much less equal, to those of a parliament not excluded from office. The presidential government by its nature divides political life into two halves, an executive half and a legislative half, and by so dividing it, makes neither half worth a man's having-worth his making it a continuous career— worthy to absorb, as cabinet government absorbs, his whole soul. The statesmen from whom a nation chooses under a presidential system are much inferior to those from whom it chooses under a cabinet system, while the selecting apparatus is also far less discerning."

An American writer, Prof. Denslow,' does not hesitate to express the opinion very emphatically that “as it is, in no country do the people feel such an overwhelming sense of the littleness of the men in charge of public affairs" as in the United States. And in another place he dwells on the fact that "responsible government educates office-holders into a high and honourable sense of their accountability to the people," and makes "statesmanship a permanent pursuit followed by a skilled class of men.” Prof. Woodrow Wilson says that, so far from men

1 In the International Review, March, 1877.

"Congressional Government," p. 94.

PROFESSOR BRYCE'S OPINION

being trained to legislation by congressional government, "independence and ability are repressed under the tyranny of the rules, and practically the favour of the popular branch of congress is concentrated in the speaker and a few-very few-expert parliamentarians." Elsewhere he shows that "responsibility is spread thin, and no vote or debate can gather it." As a matter of fact and experience, he comes to the conclusion "the more power is divided the more irresponsible it becomes and the petty character of the leadership of each committee contributes towards making its despotism sure by making its duties interesting."

Professor James Bryce, it will be admitted, is one of the fairest of critics in his review of the institutions of the United States; but he, too, comes to the conclusion that the system of congressional government destroys the unity of the House (of representatives) as a legislative body; prevents the capacity of the best members from being brought to bear upon any one piece of legislation, however important; cramps debate; lessens the cohesion and harmony of legislation; gives facilities for the exercise of underhand and even corrupt influence; reduces responsibility; lowers the interest of the nation in the proceedings of congress.

In another place, after considering the relations between the executive and the legislature, he ex1"The American Commonwealth," I., 210 et seq.

Ibid., pp. 304, 305.

presses his opinion that the framers of the constitution have "so narrowed the sphere of the executive as to prevent it from leading the country, or even its own party in the country." They endeavoured "to make members of congress independent, but in doing so they deprived them of some of the means which European legislators enjoy of learning how to administer, of learning even how to legislate in administrative topics. They condemned them to be architects without science, critics without experience, censors without responsibility."

And further on, when discussing the faults of democratic government in the United States-and Professor Bryce, we must remember, is on the whole most hopeful of its future-he detects as amongst its characteristics "a certain commonness of mind and tone, a want of dignity and elevation in and about the conduct of public affairs, and insensibility to the nobler aspects and finer responsibilities of national life." Then he goes on to say1 that representative and parliamentary system provides the means of mitigating the evils to be feared from ignorance or haste, for it vests the actual conduct of affairs in a body of specially chosen and presumably qualified men, who may themselves intrust such of their functions as need peculiar knowledge or skill to a smaller governing body or bodies selected in respect of their more 1 Ibid., Chap. 95, vol. III.

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THE AMERICAN SYSTEM

eminent fitness. By this method the defects of democracy are remedied while its strength is retained." The members of American legislatures, being disjoined from the administrative offices, "are not chosen for their ability or experience; they are not much respected or trusted, and finding nothing exceptional expected from them, they behave as ordinary men.'

"If corruption," wrote Judge Story, that astute political student, "ever silently eats its way into the vitals of this Republic, it will be because the people are unable to bring responsibility home to the executive through his chosen ministers."

As I have already stated in the first pages of this chapter, long before the inherent weaknesses of the American system were pointed out by the eminent authorities just quoted, Lord Elgin was able, with that intuitive sagacity which he applied to the study of political institutions, to see the unsatisfactory working of the clumsy, irresponsible mechanism of our republican neighbours.

"Mr. Fillmore," he is writing in November, 1850, "stands to his congress very much in the same relation in which I stood to my assembly in Jamaica. There is the same absence of effective responsibility in the conduct of legislation, the same want of concurrent action between the parts of the political machine. The whole business of legislation in the American congress, as well as in the state legisla1"Commentaries," sec. 869.

presses his opinion that the framers of the constitution have "so narrowed the sphere of the executive as to prevent it from leading the country, or even its own party in the country." They endeavoured "to make members of congress independent, but in doing so they deprived them of some of the means which European legislators enjoy of learning how to administer, of learning even how to legislate in administrative topics. They condemned them to be architects without science, critics without experience, censors without responsibility."

And further on, when discussing the faults of democratic government in the United States-and Professor Bryce, we must remember, is on the whole most hopeful of its future-he detects as amongst its characteristics "a certain commonness of mind and tone, a want of dignity and elevation in and about the conduct of public affairs, and insensibility to the nobler aspects and finer responsibilities of national life." Then he goes on to say1 that representative and parliamentary system "provides the means of mitigating the evils to be feared from ignorance or haste, for it vests the actual conduct of affairs in a body of specially chosen and presumably qualified men, who may themselves intrust such of their functions as need peculiar knowledge or skill to a smaller governing body or bodies selected in respect of their more 1Ibid., Chap. 95, vol. III.

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