The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1848-12-04


II mi ght, indeed, be sad that this revolutionary
house also acted without a head, as iity suits
sovereign TO do, and that there was no President
| or Executive Yet II had the best kind of Execu-
tive, competent person, appointed by itselfto
cute It's will, the will of the people, and obey its
orders, the orders of the people, and that person
was Washington, appointed by Congress General
n-Chief of its Armies, subordinate to Congress in
all his acts, and removable at its pleasure. 1t
really appears that this is, in fact, all the
and all the necessity OF an Executive, viz: that he
should be an officer, and nothing more-an Execu-
tive, perform and execute generally the will of
the people, expressed and defined by their repre-
sentatives that he should be appointed by them,
paid by them, be subordinate to them. and remova-
BILE by them their pleasure, just the as their
other more Inferior officers, such as their clerk,
sergeant al arms, doorkeeper. Virtually, is
in the principle-(we admit that it Is not so theo-
reucally)-in our own constitution. The Elk
ecutive with us, virtually, and to all ntents
and purposes, Is the creature and the appolntee
of the ruling party. He follows their wishes,
he prosecutes their measures, he is their Off
Ger, ipso facto and President among us inc
vitality loses all power, influence and respect, If
it IS not so with him. and If he has not the predo
minant party to sustain and support HIM. This,
we opine. is further argument in support of our
positop, that two great leading parties form, like
the two opposite poles of the magnet, the two
great elements and powers OF a popular govern
ment, swallowing up all other powers In their own
vortices. To set up man in republic, simply
with the idea of his being a check upon the
popular ruling party, Is mere fiction-we might
say a British fiction He cannot be check but
he must be an instrument, and the mere officer OF
one or other of the two parties. He is no con.
trolling balance but, of two things, one must
happen-either he will get the upper hand over
them both, and then 1t is despotism, or he must
be the officer, and an instrument OF the pre-
ponderating party, and then it Is a republic.
II may even be said that to set up an officer in
republic possessed OF powers and honors conflicting
with the power and m aJesty of the people, and for
the purpose of a check or balance over them, Is
altogether too monarchical, too much In imitation
again of the British system--that idle theory of
three opposite GRANTEES counterbalancing each
other, under the name of King, Lords and Com
mons, and followed by us too Imitatvely under
the name of President, Senate, and House. OF
three things, one in such case, either the people
must be virtually the sovereign, the individual
must be, olgarchy of the arlstocracy; that
is,eIher the President, or the Senate, or the House,
must eventually, one other of them, sngly pre-
ponderate and swallow up the other two; and till
this is the case, all is strife, anarchy, confusion.
Now, who proper to preponderate as the peo-
pie! Why not, therefore, let them do so at once,
as they do IN the end-as they did without any
controlling balances, IN the long Parliament
as they did in the first National Convention, and as
they did in the old and first Congress! All which
bodies acted alone as sovereigns, as the sovereign
people, and without the drag-chalns and checks Of
any other balancing powers, which, as we have
shown, either become, in the end, absorbed by and
subordinate to the popular power; or else the po-
pular power succumbs to despotsm, or the whole
system falls into ruins-destroyedb by its own com.
pllcatons, becoming unwleldy, impotent, and con-
temptible, by its own excess of machinery.
The apparatus of Senatorial or arlstocratic
body, and quasi regal head or President, does
not, therefore, form, we consclentiously believe,
any portion Of the necessary or natural elements OF
popular government. Those elements manifest
themselves by the natura! organization Of two abb
sorblng antagonlstic parties. The convention
which framed our constitution, which organized
our govemment-ln short, every popular body-has
always developed these elements. And, in fact,
though a system may be formed, consisting
of the British trio of three powers, yet
the struggle will not ultimately be among these
three theoretical powers, and the three bodies
which represent this theory; but the real struggle
will arise between the two great elements which
we have already described as ever being the ef-
fectve powers IN action In every popular govern
ment These two elements of popular govern
ment early exhibited themselves, both in the
States Convention, which passed upon the consti-
luton, and IN the Congress which succeeded it,
The two parties which were then developed-the
two antagonistic forces which will ever be actI-
witty until one or the other succumbs-were the
old federal party, which leaned towards the British
government and lauded to the skies the practical
working of King, Lords, and Commons, and the de-
mocratic party which went of in an opposite d.
rection, and ccntended for simple republican
government, to be carried on by nation of men,
one and Indivisble, all free and all equal. The
government was earned on, and ably too, through
two great wars, under the countervaling action of
these two parties. When one of them became
efiete and decrepid, 1t disappeared, and was lost
among the common elements, IN the time of Presi-
dent Monroe; after which, another formation again
took place. when the old party was revived, the peo-
pie were united, and the result appeared in the
tory of Gen. Jackson. These elements were called
the democratic and wing parties, the latter embo-
dying the leading elements of the old federal party,
and having a tendency to embrace and encourage
foreign ideas, instead of those new ones naturally
spr1nglng up in new country, from state Of
men and things.
We might follow the history of the democratic
party through the times Of General Jackson to those
of Martin Van Buren,, when at length 1t became
weak and efiete, and lost strength from success
SION of bad leaders, beginning with Mr. Van Buren,
and his friends, and succeeded by his followers,
Tyler and Polk. To such decrepltude had the
party arrived, that If the wing leaders had only
adanted themselves more pliantly TO lts prnciples