figures are used blanks are left in the slips for them; afterward they are secured at the Treasury Department, which is held responsible for their accuracy. Every figure or statement is verified. If it concerns the

Treasury, it is proved by Secretary Gage through his Secretary. If a mistake is made the Treasury Department is held to account. The Department of State prepares for the Message an accurate account of the conduct of foreign affairs for the year. It is not generally used in the exact form in which it comes. It may be too long, or some subject may require a more cautious or a more vigorous handling. Other departments furnish live matter and the President takes what he wants, but it is all rewritten and condensed. The President has been known to use just three short paragraphs out of a statement ten thousand words long, giving in detail the work of a department for a year, and even then Congress did not suffer from a lack of information. A President's message, at least a McKinley message, is not, then, a patchwork, but is a product of much labor and painstaking care.

The President dictates very rapidly. He has a splendid vocabulary, and is never at a loss for a word. This dictation, after being typewritten, is most carefully revised. The material is then rearranged, if necessary, and copied again. Then it goes to the printer, who, after it is set up, takes a proof on unusually wide paper, so that at the sides, at the top, and at the bottom, there is ample room for corrections. This revised proof is then corrected by the printer and another proof made with every revision there is a new proof. Sometimes portions of the message are revised ten times. It is hard, patience-trying work, but the President takes pains, weighs every word and studies every phrase with scrupulous care, correcting or rewriting his copy until he is perfectly satisfied with it. The greater part of the message stands, however, as at first prepared. Ordinarily the first and last paragraphs are not written until a day or two before the message goes to Congress, but when it is finished it is a complete document in which every word has a specific purpose. President McKinley's messages have varied from thirteen to twentytwo thousand words, depending upon what must be said; but the tendency is for messages to grow in length as more subjects must receive

treatment.

Considering the amount of work involved, ever-present and onerous responsibilities that cannot be shifted, importunities for place, unceasing demands upon his time and patience, difficult problems pressing for solution, unending routine, criticisms, misunderstandings, and frequent evidences of ingratitude, the President's salary is inadequate. This is more evident when it is recalled that out of it the expenses for entertaining, that custom requires, must be paid. And yet these drawbacks do not interfere with cultivation of the Presidential bee by every man in the country, who would, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as eligible.

II

POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE

[There has recently been much discussion of the proper extent of the executive powers, especially in the national government, where there has taken place a great expansion of executive functions. By many men this tendency has been attacked as dangerous, while others see in it only that growth of governmental power which would naturally accompany the increase in national wealth and population. The speeches of Senator Rayner and Representative Towne, directing themselves against the expansion of the executive power, will serve to bring out clearly the matter in controversy. Allowance being made in all Congressional speeches for partisan bias, the attacks of the opposition will often bring out most clearly new political developments. Senator Rayner's speech was made in the debate upon the President's action with respect to San Domingo. Mr. Towne was speaking on party politics during the discussion of the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill. For a good general treatment of this subject see Ford, "Rise and Growth of Am. Politics,” 275-]

FROM A SPEECH OF SENATOR RAYNER1

Now let us look for a moment at the result of the President's construction of his prerogative. A new sect of political scribes have commenced to edit a revised edition of the Constitution. They call it the unwritten Constitution. They are framing an apocryphal collection of epistles and are promulgating their heresy from academic chairs and lecture platforms The President is the prophet of this new creed and the Messiah of this strange hallucination. They do not propose to add any additional chapters to the original manuscript, but they insist that under the general welfare clause, which is simply a repetition of the phrase that was used in the Articles of Confederation, this Government has implad powers not enunciated in the charter. They seem to forget that Hamilton's proposition in the Constitutional Convention which provided that Congress was to have power to pass al laws whatsoever, subject to the Fucative resa, and the out" be that be communicated to Mr Madison that the legislatore of the United States shall have power to pass a lens which they shall noter turn to the common defense

and welfare of the Union, were not even referred to the committee, and that it was in the plan presented by Patterson and by Randolph and by Pinckney that there was finally evolved that immortal scheme that can never be recast under the plastic touch of political necromancers and enchanters.

When they approach the executive department the implication becomes unlimited, and under the distribution of Executive power the President can perform all functions not allotted to other branches of the Government.

I know that Congress has enacted a great many laws enabling the President to perform the duties confided to him by the Constitution. It has done this under Article I, section 8, subsection 18, of the Constitution, which provides that

Congress shall have power . . . to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Hamilton, in discussing this clause of the Constitution, said that

The declaration itself, though it may be chargeable with tautology or redundancy, is at least perfectly harmless.

There has been a considerable diversity of opinion upon this point. Chief Justice Marshall illumined the proposition in this manner.

said:

He

Should Congress in the execution of its powers adopt measures which are prohibited by the Constitution, or should Congress, under the pretext of executing its powers, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the Government, it would become the painful duty of this tribunal, should a case requiring such a decision come before it, to say that such an act was not the law of the land. But where the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the objects entrusted to the Government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground. This court disclaims all pretensions to such a power.

And there I stand. No one at this day would demand a literal construction of the Constitution which would deprive the President of performing functions necessary to carry out the powers that are granted to him; on the contrary, he has the broadest field of discretion within which to adopt and exercise whatever methods are proper for this purpose. What I insist upon and contend for is that he must never abuse his constitutional prerogative by invading the domain of other departments, and must never, under color of title, assume authority upon sub

jects that have no relation to his office, and do not in' the remotest degree appertain to the performance of his executive functions.

We know that every word of the Constitution is written. We know that there is not a line or letter that anyone has the right to insert. The Supreme Court may interpret, it may construe according to the spirit, but it can never add to the text. The Supreme Court may hold that a given act of the Executive is not an interference with legislative functions. It may broaden the right of the President to negotiate a treaty, but if it were ever to decide that the President had a right to conclude a treaty without the constitutional ratification its adjudication would lead either to impeachment or revolution. Every judgment, decree, and order that it renders must be under, and not above and beyond, the Constitution. It can set aside an act of Congress, but it can not abridge or extend the limits of the charter. What the Supreme Court can not do by expression the Executive ought not to be allowed to do by implication.

The President has the right to veto any enactment that we may pass. He has the right, if he chooses to do so, to advise with members in reference to legislation, and to make any suggestions that he may deem proper. This is not a constitutional prerogative, and its propriety has been questioned and assailed, but I am willing within proper bounds to regard it as an incident of his executive functions. One thing he has no right to do, and that is to use the vast public patronage at his disposal to compel obedience to his views. Another thing he has no right to do, and that is to make compacts with the Speaker of the House of Representatives or its committees, to accomplish the legislation that he desires, or prevent legislation. And still another thing he has no right to do, and that is beyond his messages, in which he is given the right at any time to suggest any measure he may deem proper or necessary, to interfere with legislation and to force Congress either to adopt his recommendations or if it rejects them to bring about a breach between the legislative and executive departments that is detrimental to the best interests of the country; that constitutes an assumption of dictatorial power which the people of this Republic, in the course of time, will not submit to, I care not how great the achievement or how much it may conduce to their progress and welfare, or what benefit, advantage, or prosperity we may derive from its accomplishment.

In order to show that I have not at all exaggerated the claims and pretensions of this new school of Executive construction, I want now to refer to some extracts from the address of an eminent lawyer,1 delivered before the New York State Bar Association, in which the doctrines of this creed are announced in such unmistakable and unambiguous terms that we are no longer left in any doubt or uncertainty as to the evolution and development that we are undergoing upon the cardinal 1 Chas. A. Gardiner, "The Constitutional Power of the President," 1905.

principles of republican government. If the propositions that he maintains reflect the sentiment of the people, then it is safe to say that the Constitution is a thing of shreds and patches, and the Government that it created is as much of a monarchical institution as the Government of Great Britain, or of any other government, with the exception perhaps of those of Russia and Turkey, upon the Continent of Europe. Listen now for a moment to some of the passages from this delightful dissertation upon the Executive prerogative.

I. The President is the chief invention of the Constitution, a personal magistrate for a republic. . . . The conversion of an abstract sovereignty into a concrete sovereign.

2. The executive and magisterial attributes of the Government being invested in the President, it follows inevitably that the President must possess the executive and magisterial attributes of the people, and that the people retain no undelegated attributes or passive sovereignties under the tenth amendment or otherwise.

3. If Southern States abridge the privileges and immunities of Federal negro citizens, the President, on his own initiative, can and should prohibit such action, whether Congress legislates on the subject or not. If Southern States deny the right of suffrage to Federal negro citizens on the ground of race or color, the President, without waiting for penalizing statutes, can and should use every means, civil, military, or both, to stop it.

4. To execute all his omnipotent functions the people have given the President absolute control of an irresistible physical force, the Army and Navy of 80,000,000 people.

5. Such are the powers of the President, express and implied. They are all plenary. The office and power to execute it are in unqualified language. The power to execute the Constitution is without limitation or restriction. The power to administer the executive sovereignties is complete, and the implied powers are coextensive with the express grants. Hence all the powers of the President are unqualified, plenary, and unlimited.

And now for some of the thrilling climaxes of this remarkable production.

Thus my ideal of the President coincides with the ideal of the people, a majestic constitutional figure uncontrolled by Congress, unrestrained by the courts, vested with plenary constitutional power and absolute constitutional discretion.

How, then, is it possible for the President to exceed his express constitutional authority? What Federal act can he perform that he may not claim is in execution of his office and its attributes, of the Constitution and the laws, or of his executive powers?.

Majesty is another attribute. It inheres in every sovereign, be he Czar or President. Imperium majestasque populi Romani.

The President is invested with an office and the whole of it.... Who hath fixed its bounds? Who hath said, Thus far and no farther? No one has determined its illimitable extent; no one can determine it so long as the Republic endures.