Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1864-12-07
Executive Power.

Executive Power.
The following extracts from the great speech Of
DANIEL WEBSTER, delivered in the Senate Of the
United States, May 1884. on the Presidents Pro-
test should be printed in letters of gold and hung
up in every house in the land Liberty is 10 no dam
ger from the people themselves, or from their State
Legislatures, from the Courts; but It is in dan.
ger from constantly increasing EreeStiee pover.-
Let the people take warning ere it be too late. =,
"Mr. President the contest for sges has been
to rescue Liberty from the grasp executive power
Whoever has engaged in her sacred cause, from the
days of the downfall Of those great aristocrsces,
which had stood between the king and the people,
to the time Of our own independence las struggled
the long list of the champions of human freedom,
there Is not one name dmmed by the reproach of
advocating the extension of executive authority:
on the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of
all such champions has been to limit and restrain it.
To this end the spirit of liberty, growing more and
more enlightened, and more and more vigorous from
age to age has been baterng, for centuries, against
the solid butments of the fsudal system. TO this
end, all that could be gained from the imprudence
snatched from the weakness, or wrung from the
necessities, of crowned heads has been carefully
gathered up secured, dhd boarded the rich treas
ures the very jewels of liberty To this end, pop.
uIar and representative right hiss kept up its war
fare against prerogative, with various success
sometimes writing the history of whole age in
blood; sometimes witnessing the martyrdom Of
Sidneys and Russells, often battied and repulsed,
but still gaining, on the whole, and holding what it
gained with grasp which nothing but the complete
extinction of its own being could compel it to re-
}inquish. At length, the great conquest over exec
utlve power, in the leading western States Of Eu-
rope, has been accomplished. The feudal system,
like other stupendous fabrics of past ages is known
only by the rubbish which it has left behind it
Crowned heads have been compelled to submit to
the restraints of Law, and the PEOPLE, with that in
telligence and that spirit which make their voice re.
sistless have been able to say to prerogatlVe THUS
far shalt thou come, and no farther" 1 need hard
" say sir, that into the full enjoyment Of all which
Europe has reached only through such slow and
painful steps, we sprapg at once, by the declaration
Of independence, aud by the establishment of free
representative governments; governments borrowing
more or less from the models Of other free tates bht
strengthened secured, impr,ved IN their symmetry,
and deepened in their foundation, by Those great
men of our own country whose names will be as
familiar to future times they were written on the
arch of the sky. Who is he that beliesthe blood
and bels the fame of his own ancestors by declaring
that they with solemity Of form, and force of man.
ner have invoked the executive power to come to
the protection of libery' Who is be that thus
charges them with the insanity, or the recklessness
of putting the lamb beneath the lions paw? No,
sir No, sir. Our security is in our watchfulness
of executive power 1t was the constitution of this
department which was infinitely the most difficult
part in the great work of creating our present gov.
eminent To give to the Executive department
such power as should make it useful, and yet not
such as Should render it dangerous; to make it ef.
6cien independent, and strong, and yet to prevent
it from sweeping away every thing by its union of
military and civil authority. by the influence of pa
tronaee, and office, and avor;-thi~, indeed, was
difficult. They who had the work to do, saw the
difficulty, and we see it; and if we would maintain
ursystem, We shall act wisely to that end, by pre-
serving every restraint and every guard which the
Constitution has provided. And when We, and
those who come after u.s. have done all that we car
do and all that they do it will be we'll for Ut
and for them, if some popular Executive by thu
power of patronage and party, and the power, too
Of that very popularity, shall! not hereafter Prov
an overmatch for all other branches of the govern
nent"