The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-01-26
WEBSTER'S WARNING.
The Great Expounder of the Constitution
ON the Dangers of Executive En-
croachmeuts Upon Liberty.

when the peoples representatives
prefer patronage to power and party
servitude to conscience-when they
obey their party chief instead of as
serting their own authority--congress
has failed as a check upon the execu-
tive and is no longer the guardian of
popular liberty. The genius of republi-
can institutions requires that congress
shall direct, guide, control the executive.
But today the president directs, guides,
controls congress. ss."-Joseph Pulitzer in
North American Review.
LFrom the speech of Daniel Webster, in
the senate, May 7, 1s34.]
The first object of free people is
the preservation Of their liberty, and
liberty is only to be preserved by main
tanning constitutional restraints and
just divisions of political power.
The spirit of liberty is indeed a bold
and fearless spirit, but it is also a sharp
sighted spirit; it is a cautious sagacious
discriminating, far-seeing intelligence;
of power, jealous of man. 1t demands
checks, it seeks for guards; it insists on
securities it intrenches itself behind
strong defenses, and fortifies with all
possible care against the assaults of
ambition and passion. 1t does not trust
the amiable weaknesses of human ma
ture, and therefore it viii not permit
power to overstep it's prescribed limits,
though benevolence, good intent and
patriotic purpose come along with it.
If we will abolish the distinction of
branches, and have but one branch; if
we will abolish jury trials, and leave all
to the Judge; if we will then ordain that
the legislator shall himself be that
judge, and if we will place the executive
power in the same hands. we may
readily simplify government. We may
easily bring it to the simplest of all
possible forms-a pure despotism. But
a separation of departments, so far as
practicable, and the preservation of
clear lines of division between them, is
the fundamental idea in the creation
of all our constitutions, and doubtless
the continuance of regulated liberty de-
pends on maintaining these boundaries.
Mr.. President, the contest for ages has
been to rescue liberty from the grasp
of executive power. Whoever has engag-
ed in her sacred cause, from the days of
the downfall of those great aristocracies
which had stood between the king and
the people to the time of our indepen-
dence, has struggled for the accomplish
ment of that single object. On the long
list of the champions of human freedom
there is not one name dimmed 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.
Through all this history of the con-
test for liberty executive power has
been regarded as lion which must
be Gagged. SO far from being the object
of enlightened popular trust, so far from
being considered the natural protector
of popular right it has been dreaded,
uniformaly, always dreaded, as the
great source of it's danger.
Our security is in our watchfulness
of executive power. 1t was the consti- !
tuition of this department which was
infinitely the most difficult part in the |
nrly nf ft,rr
government. 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 efficient |
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 patronage
and office and favor-this indeed was
difficult. They who had the work to do |
saw the difficulty, and we see it; and |
If we would maintain our system we
shall act wisely to that end by preserv-
ing every restraint and every guard |
which the constitution has provided. |
And when we and those who come after |
us have done all that we can do and |
all that they can do it will be we'll for
us and for them if some popular execu-
tive by the power Of patronage and
party, and the power too of that very
popularity, shall not hereafter prove an
overmatch for all other branches of the
government.
do not wish, sir, to impair the power
of the president as it stands written
down in the constitution and as great
and good men have hitherto exercised
1t. In this as in other respects 1 am for
the constitution as it is But will not
acquiesce in the reversal of all just
ideas of government; will not degrade
the character of popular representa-