Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-06-21
ExECUr1vE ENoaOACHmENTs.

Il
of their Executive officers and pre-
future transgressions of the
limits they had assigned to them.
They were fresh from their recent |
of the stupid despotism |
and logged perseverance in en-
croachment upon constitutional
rights which characterized the gov
eminent of George III, and how to
prevent these things in the future
Executive of the infant American
Government was the problem on
which above all others their pros
pective wisdom was expended.
Not to mention the innumerable
minor precautions adopted, the two
measures on which they most re-
lied were the rendering the office
elective, with frequent changes of
incumbency, and the distribution
to the Executive of the various
States all the administrative power
with which the Federal Executive
could dispense. Both these precau-
tions have signally failed. 1t Is
humiliatIng to our self-esteem as a
nation to admit this, but the man
who studies our history without
seeing it must either be wilfully
blind or Obtuse to the most striking
indications of the truth.
Be this as it may, truth it is.
From the meeting of the first Con-
gress till now there have always
been parties making incessant eff
forts to extend the prerOgative of
the President beyond the limits
assigned to it at the commencement.
In the days of Washington himself
the great Federal trio, Hamilton,
Chief Justice Marshall and the
elder Adams, never lost sight of
this purpose, and during Adams
presidency considerable advances
had been made towards regalizing
the Presidential office. The sixteen
years which cover the Presidential
terms of Jefferson and Madison put
. a temporary stop to these encroach-
ments, and the then called Repub-
lican principles became predomi-
nant, while the old Federal doc
trines incurred the greatest Odium,
while the term Federalist was too
unpopular to be retained by any
party, and was finally abandoned.
This fiux and refluX of aggrandize-
ment frequently followed, though
the Federal Executive always
gained more than it had lost. In
MonrOe's day, for instance, things
were stationary. In that of the
younger Adams ideas drifted back
to the standard of his fathers term,
and in Jackson's time the Execu-
tive powers were stretched far be
yond anything attempted by any
previous President. Strangely was
JacksOn's administration misnamed
Democratic. In his day the veto
power was used as arbitrarily al
most as in the days of Hayes; in
his day originated the cry which
was the death-knelI to Republican
institutions, "tO the victOTs belong
the spOils," and an army of depend
ent Office-holders became the janis
saries of the party to which they
looked for continuance in office. i
is not necessary to continue TIL;
series further than to mention tina
the late civil war was the occasion
of the greatest stretch of Executive
power since JacksOn's time; that i
met a check in the opposition o
Senate and House to Andrew John
son, but was enormously increased
under the unprincipled despotisn
of Grant. Let us, then, look bach
and try to discover why the TIVE
principles relied upon by our faith
ers to prevent these encroachment
have failed i'm accomplishing thei
purpose; how it is that in spite o
them the rights of Congress anC
those of the States at this momen
lie helpless before the feet of the
weakest President that ever Occu
pied the chair; why the laws giving
the Federal Executive almost un
limited powers of interfering will
elections have found their way t.
our statute-bOoks, and, when re
pealed by both Houses of a Demo
cratic Congress, are kept in force b.
the sole exercise of the Executiv,
retO. How is it? Here are rOya
prerOgatives at the thought O
which Jefferson or Madison WOul(
have stood aghast, which HamiltoI
and Adams would never hav
dreamed of claiming, which GeOrg
III. himself might have wished 70
but never possessed. How is it
How Is 1t that while the Englis
nation from which we revolted ha
ever since been placing limitation
and restrictions upon the EKeeutiv
power, we have ever since stood b,
helpIessIy, while our Executive ha
stretched its prerOgatives almost t
the point of monarchic despotism
Surely it is a question worth consid
ering.
Where then was the defect in tn
precautions of our first statesmen
What was the contingency whic
they did not foresee? When the,
made the chief Executive offic
elective, with short terms of incum
bency, they did not perceive tina
they were making the Office strOnge
rather than weaker by prOvidin
that the President should Away
have Il party at his back, and whe
she SpOHS doctrine was fully estat
lished, which was not the case I'll
Jackson's administration, it wa
seen that that party included vas
number of men whose very sHbsis
ence depended upon the keepin
the prasidant in mower and UDO