Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-06

ment, il was ordained that 'sno person
constitutionally ineligible to the Office of
president shall be eligible to that of vice.
president of the United States.
Neither the constitution nor its amend
ments. nor the statute OF 1892, provide
for filling a vacancy in the Office of vice.
president There is no lineal succession
Once vacant il remains so until the next
electoral college chooses q successor
The vice. president was thus placed in a
positiOn anomalous and undiguified :,
without definite functions, having no
duties at the seat of government, where
his presence might seem Irksome or often
sive, like a poor heir apparent waiting
for the death of his ancestor to come into
the estate. A weak, vain man might
like the title and the empty honor. A
bad man might aspire to the place for
the opportunities it would afford him to
conspire against the honor or the life of
the president, whose power he might in
herit By this criminal ambition. But
few men who were really qualified to
meet the intentions of those who created
the office would, under such conditions,
be willing to accept it. The only i'm
pOrtauce of the incumbent must rest
upon the death or degradation of his
CllHI. us u1usL uaV0 their TOOC
in the ruin OF the president. Potentially
important, actually ne must do nothing,
except in the occurrence of events that
would awake national sorrow or threaten
national disaster.
To partially remove these objections
to secure the services of competent men,
and retain them at the capitol, where
their contingent duties would require
their presence, it became necessary 10
assign the vice president to duty in some
branch of the general government, and
accordingly the constitution made him
president of the senate.
He might as well have been made
speaker OF the house of representatives,
or governor of the District of Columbia,
or secretary of the interior, or commits
sioneT Of Indian affairs, had those offices
existed. The senate, being a legislative
body would have been competent to
choose its own presiding officer from
among its own members, and there are
no reasons other than those indicated
why the president should have been
made the president of the senate.
This view is further sustained by the
fact that he is expressly dc prived of the
right to vote, except in the case of tie;
that he has no voice whatever III the or
ganiZation; that he cannot appoint the
committees of the body, nor participate
in its debates or deliberations He is
" it'll it, but not of it. He is a separate
officer of the government, placed in this
position for defined purpose. His desig-
nation is arbitrary and not necessary.
If he never assumes his functions, moth
ing suffers by his neglect. He may never
appear in his seat, never take the oath of
office, or even be in the country, and no
public interest suffers, and no public
business is delayed.
In the absence of the vice president
the senate chooses a president pro tenn
pore, who holds the Office until another
is chosen. The president pro tempore
was formerly in the line of presidential
succession, but is removed, together
with the speaker; from that category by
the law of 1887, so that IN case of the
the death of the president the descent is
now through the vice-president and the
members of the cabinet, the object be-
ing TO prevent the change of political adj
miuistration in the term for which the
executive was chosen. If the vice-pres-
ident dies, or fills the office of president
the president pro tempore receives an
addition to his salary, equal to the diff
terence between his compensation as a
senator and that of the vice-president,