and, except by the cumbersome and almost impossible method of impeachment, he cannot be turned out until his term of office has expired. It is no exaggeration to say that he possesses powers greater for good or ill than those of any man living. He controls the economic life of the American people and the armed forces of the States that have proved to be a decisive factor in the struggle for the preservation of liberty; he is virtually the irresponsible and, if he desires, the unadvised dictator of American foreign policy; and the Entente Allies have shown their willingness to follow him in his expression of their aims. The prosecution of the war and the conclusion of peace have been in a large measure committed to him. The fact that President Wilson considers himself but the servant of the American people and the instrument for the expression of their desires makes this description of his powers not the less true but simply less alarming.

It was the intention of the framers of the American Constitution to parcel out authority and to create a system of checks and balances so that no one branch of the Government should become too powerful. Is there,' John Adams asked, 'a Constitution upon record more complicated with balances than ours?' The States and Territories were balanced against the national government; the federal legislature was bi-cameral; the chief of the executive acted as a third branch in that he could by his veto require a two-thirds vote, yet he was checked by the prerogative of the Senate to approve appointments, and by the exclusive control of Congress over the national purse. These were only some of the balances that Mr Adams enumerated; they were a 'complicated refinement,' he said, 'an invention of our own and peculiar to us.' So complicated, indeed, were they, that, if rigidly adhered to, the governmental system thus created would have been unworkable; and they have of necessity been modified in practice. Even so, the United States has suffered more than the apparently inevitable delays and dissensions incident to the mobilisation of a democracy for a great struggle. 'Division of authority and concealment of responsibility,' as Mr Wilson said while a professor of politics, are calculated

to subject the Government to a very distressing paralysis in moments of emergency.' The difficulty, he thought, 'is of a sort to be felt at all times, in seasons of tranquil rounds of business as well as at moments of sharp crisis; but in times of sudden emergency it might prove fatalfatal either in breaking down the system or in failing to meet the emergency."

Mr Wilson's prophecy is apparently nowhere near fulfilment; yet this would not be the case but for the fact that the most important development of the American Constitution has been the greatly increased authority of the Chief Executive. Such a change has not been effected without temporary setbacks when Presidents were weak men; yet, almost without exception, in every field of controversy between the President and Congress, the former has won. Congress had even to give in when it attempted to tie President Johnson's hands by the Tenure-of-Office Act, and to control his removal of his own appointees.

Early Presidents were concerned with foreign problems, and leadership was inevitable. Jackson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt all dominated Congress in various ways; but under Mr Wilson the tendency has been much more pronounced, largely because he has been an avowed advocate of the President's assuming the functions of a Prime Minister. The most convincing strictures on the checks and balances and the separation-of-powers theory of the American Constitution are to be found in the books and essays which Mr Wilson wrote before his entrance into public life. His criticism, made with a wealth of illustrative detail, and with a very evident debt to Mr Bagehot's studies, was that, separated from Congress, the President could exert no formal control; that the legislature regarded with jealous disfavour any increase of executive authority; and that the system of unrelated standing congressional committees in charge of proposed laws was absolutely irresponsible. These miniature legislative bodies negatived the principle of government by party, prevented praise or blame from being definitely meted out, and enabled a coterie of congressional leaders who had attained their position through length of service, and were often not representative of the dominant element of their party or not Vol. 231.-No. 458.

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in sympathy with the executive, to exert the only real guidance. Such haphazard methods of legislation made the product very imperfect and, owing to the lack of open discussion, failed to dissipate popular and party apathy.

This parcelling out of power and division of responsibility Mr Wilson called 'a radical defect in our federal system'; and he declared that, 'were it possible to call together again the members of that wonderful Convention [which framed the Constitution] to view the work of their hands in the light of the century that has tested it, they would be the first to admit that the only fruit of dividing power has been to make it irresponsible.' No one stood sponsor for the policy of the Government. If Congress refused to pass measures requested by the Administration and desired by the nation, the President had to acquiesce or use extra-constitutional methods of coercion; and, if he failed, there could be no appeal to the country until the time set for the next election. Mr Wilson urged that cabinet responsibility should be introduced under the Constitution, or that, as a desirable halfway expedient, presidential authority should be greatly increased. The President, he said, is the leader and spokesman of the nation;

'his is the only national voice in affairs. Let him once win the admiration and confidence of the country. and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him. . . . If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when its President is of such insight and calibre. Its instinct is for unified action, and it craves a single leader.' If the President does dominate Congress, it will be no fault of the makers of the Constitution, it will be from no lack of constitutional powers on its part, but only because the President has the nation behind him, and Congress has not.'

* These quotations are from a later work, 'Constitutional Government in the United States' (1908), pp. 68-70. In February 1913, just before his first inauguration, Mr Wilson wrote a letter explaining his lack of sympathy with the pledge of the Democratic Platform that the nominee of the party should serve for only one term. This letter contains a significant statement of Mr Wilson's conception of the office he was about to assume. The President, he said, 'is expected by the nation to be the leader of his

It has been a commonplace of recent American political history, as I have already said, that Mr Wilson, more than any of his predecessors, has exerted an almost absolute authority over Congress. The passage, during the first months of his administration, of the Tariff, Currency, and Trust Bills was due to his power of conciliatory but effective leadership. His addresses to Congress have been brief and have dealt with single subjects. The attempt has consciously been made to focus the attention of the country upon a single proposal at one time, and to arouse public opinion sufficiently to compel legislative action. When Congress has delayed, the President has threatened an appeal to the country; and/ in some cases he has actually made it-on the tariff and preparedness measures, for example. A closer but by no means completely effective cooperation between members of the Cabinet and committees of Congress; conferences at the White House between members of the legislature and the President; the drafting of administration measures; the use of the immense prestige of the presidential office, and frequent public expression of the desires of the executive-these expedients have been used in an attempt to introduce an extra-constitutional, but nevertheless, in the absence of great emergencies, a tolerably effective responsible government.

The war naturally gave the presidential office a prestige and a chance of leadership far greater than when only domestic issues were to the fore; and perhaps the greatest triumph that any American President has ever won in his relations with Congress was the passage of his Selective Draft Act, when, at the time of the declaration of war, there was a clear majority in each House in favour of adhering to the voluntary principle. This measure, however, was not enacted without showing very clearly that the United States has no real

party as well as the chief executive officer of the Government, and the country will take no excuses from him. He must play the part and play it successfully, or lose the country's confidence. He must be Prime Minister, as much concerned with the guidance of legislation as with the just and orderly execution of law; and he is the spokesman of the nation in everything, even the most momentous and most delicate dealings of the Govern ment with foreign nations.' (Italics are mine.)