The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-01-28
TEN Denny TO A PAR!;AaENTARY GJv-
ERNMEET.

bold out much fairer prospect If IL promised
| only to land the country, where Great Britain
has long been, under the qualified dominion
| of parliamentary assembly. A few North
ern journals suggest, with some degree of
complacency, the idea that the triumph OF
Congress, in its war on the President and the
Supreme Court, may at length, with the tacit
acquiescence of the people, peacefully estab-
| lsh parliamentary government in the United
| States. The New York Times, for example,
says:
As we have already said, 1t may be that the
| time has come when this momentous change in
| our system of republican government has become
desirable. IL may be that the checks and basn-
ces of that intricate system longer required.
| IL may be that the popular viii has been too much
restrsined-tbat it needs freer scope and means
| TO make itself more instantly effective, and that
Congress, as its organ, must be raised to p)-
| siiion more nearly like the omnipOtence OF the
| British Parliament than that which the Constitu-
ton expressly assigns it, and which il has hitherto
| been content to I'LL. Ii this is the deliberate
| conviction and Judgment Of the peOple-f they
| are satisfied, upon deliberate inquiry, that the
stability OF our government-the freedom Of our
| peope-tbe interests and well-being Of the
ton through all time TO come, require and demand
| such = change in the fundamental basis Of our
republican government and in the machinery OF IT'S
! practical working, they have the power and the
4
conformity with the Constitution thst the change
should be made by amending its provisions. But
If Congress makes II, and the people give it their
! sanction. it will be put practically beyond the
| reach OF Judicial or other intervention.
That the revolutionary leaders in Congress
do not believe that the people call for sys-
tenn in which Congress would be omnipotent,
is evident from the fact that they have re-
fused to submit to popular vote the question
of making this or any other fundamental
change in government; from the fact that
they continue to proceed, as they from the
first proceeded, to effect their purposes by
measures Of fragrant usurpation obviously con-
demned by the public opinion of the country
at large; from the fact that, with all their au-
dacity, they have not been so audacious as to
avow that they aimed at the complete and
permanent annulment of the present distribu.
ton of governmental authority; and from the
fact that they have been laboriDg, and still
labor, TO enlist the military power in their
conspiracy against the two other coordinate
departments of thegovernment aud against the
constitutional rights of the States and the peo-
pie. Ii they succeed, then, in subjecting the
country to congressional omnipotence, their
success will not be the work Of peaceful states
manship, but the work of violence, whether
the people shall vainly revolt against the
change, or shall, rather than appeal to the for
tunes of civil war, reluctantly aequiesce in it
But, in any event, this is certain, that no
triumph of Congress over the present Consti-
tuition, or over popular opposition, can give
to the United States a government cores
ponding to the parliamentary system of Eng
land, and yet government in which the
legislative power shall be absolute If Con-
gress is working for such o result, the project
is only another item in the list of impossible
ties undertaken by congressional policy. The
supremacy of the English Parliament is not
absolute. And even if it were desired to set
up similar government in the United States,
the practicAbility Of such a scheme would be
doubtful in the extreme, because of the wide
difference between the conditions OF society
and habits of thought in this country and in
England. There is nothing to show the pos
sibility Of separating parliamentary govern
ment in England from a hereditary nobility
and hereditary monarch; but much to sug-
gest that these two institutions are necessary
concomitants of its existence. In England
the crown has in theory an absolute veto on
the Legislation of Parliament In England
the executive authority, vested practically
in the ministry can always, when at irrec IN
cilable variance with the majority in Parlia-
ment, dissolve that body and take an appeal
ponding to these enter into the
calculations of those who are endeavoring to
make Congress supreme They are will
ing to tolerate no executive which may
either interpose veto against legislation, or
take an appeal to the people themselves when
ever it should be thought that Congress, in
stead of representing the people, were bent
ON imposing upon the country the will of
faction or caucus. They would, in short,
sweep away all tribunary and all judicial
checks and resolve government into the SIM
pie despotism of the existing Congress.
This would be the introduction OF parliament
taTy government to be sure; but nothing like
the parliamentary government of England.
And, unless revolutionary Legislators can re-
peal the truths of history, as we'll as annul
constitutions, the new rule would be doomed
to speedy confusion and failure. All attempts
to maintain pure parliamentary government,
like all attempts to maintain pure democracy,
have proved abortive. 1t was tried oncs in
England, and the experiment ended in Crom-
well 1t was tried in the first stage of the
French revolution Of 1889, and the re-
suit was Robespierre; and, repeated in
the second stage of the same revolution, it
produced Bonaparte. Again, the attempt
was made after the French revolution of 1913,
and introduced to supreme power Louis Ma
poieon who, if in some respects one Of the
mildest, is in all respects one of the most
absolute of monarehs. The reason of all this
is not at all obscure. A legislative assembly
is inherently incapable of welding executive
power 1t can do no more in that direction
than to simulate absolute supremacy in the