But not the less is the position of the President very dominant in the eyes of us Englishmen by reason of the authority with which he is endowed. It is not that the scope of his power is great, but that he is so nearly irresponsible in the exercise of that power.
We know that he can be impeached by the Representatives and expelled from his office by the verdict of the Senate; but this in fact does not amount to much. Responsibility of this nature is doubtless very necessary, and prevents ebullitions of tyranny such as those in which a sultan or an emperor may indulge; but it is not that responsibility which especially recommends itself to the minds of free men. So much of responsibility they take as a matter of course, as they do the air which they breathe. It would be nothing to us to know that Lord Palmerston could be impeached for robbing the treasury, or Lord Russell punished for selling us to Austria.
It is well that such laws should exist, but we do not in the least suspect those noble lords of such treachery. We are anxious to know, not in what way they may be impeached and beheaded for great crimes, but by what method they may be kept constantly straight in small matters. That they are true and honest is a matter of course.
But they must be obedient also, discreet, capable, and, above all things, of one mind with the public. Let them be that; or if not they, then with as little delay as may be, some others in their place. That with us is the meaning of ministerial responsibility.
To that responsibility all the cabinet is subject. But in the government of the United States there is no such responsibility.
The President is placed at the head of the executive for four years, and while he there remains no man can question him. It is not that the scope of his power is great. Our own Prime Minister is doubtless more powerful--has a wider authority. But it is that within the scope of his power the President is free from all check.
There are no reins, constitutional or unconstitutional, by which he can be restrained. He can absolutely repudiate a majority of both Houses, and refuse the passage of any act of Congress even though supported by those majorities. He can retain the services of ministers distasteful to the whole country. He can place his own myrmidons at the head of the army and navy, or can himself take the command immediately on his own shoulders. All this he can do, and there is no one that can question him.
It is hardly necessary that I should point out the fundamental difference between our king or queen, and the President of the United States. Our sovereign, we all know, is not responsible.
Such is the nature of our constitution. But there is not on that account any analogy between the irresponsibility of the Queen and that of the President. The Queen can do no wrong; but therefore, in all matters of policy and governance, she must be ruled by advice.
For that advice her ministers are responsible; and no act of policy or governance can be done in England as to which responsibility does not immediately settle on the shoulders appointed to bear it. But this is not so in the States. The President is nominally responsible. But from that every-day working responsibility, which is to us so invaluable, the President is in fact free.
I will give an instance of this. Now, at this very moment of my writing, news has reached us that President Lincoln has relieved General McClellan from the command of the whole army, that he has given separate commands to two other generals--to General Halleck, namely, and, alas! to General Fremont, and that he has altogether altered the whole organization of the military command as it previously existed. This he did not only during war, but with reference to a special battle, for the special fighting of which he, as ex-officio commander-in-chief of the forces, had given orders. Ido not hereby intend to criticise this act of the President's, or to point out that that has been done which had better have been left undone. The President, in a strategetical point of view, may have been, very probably has been, quite right. I, at any rate, cannot say that he has been wrong. But then neither can anybody else say so with any power of ****** himself heard. Of this action of the President's, so terribly great in its importance to the nation, no one has the power of expressing any opinion to which the President is bound to listen. For four years he has this sway, and at the end of four years he becomes so powerless that it is not then worth the while of any demagogue in a fourth-rate town to occupy his voice with that President's name. The anger of the country as to the things done both by Pierce and Buchanan is very bitter. But who wastes a thought upon either of these men? A past President in the United States is of less consideration than a past mayor in an English borough. Whatever evil he may have done during his office, when out of office he is not worth the powder which would be expended in an attack.
But the President has his ministers as our Queen has hers. In one sense he has such ministers. He has high State servants who under him take the control of the various departments, and exercise among them a certain degree of patronage and executive power. But they are the President's ministers, and not the ministers of the people.