The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-07-28
OUTSIDE THE CONSTITUTION.
Steady Expansion of the Hamilton Idea
 of a Centralized Government.

plains that while the state prohibits a judge from being a candidate for political office there is no necessity for Judge Parker to resign from the court
 of appeals, inasmuch as, while he is a
 candidate for the presidency, no votes will actually be cast for him. This re- fers to the fact that the people do not
 vote directly for president, but for
 presidential electors. who in turn elect
 him. This statement serves to call at
 tention to the wide departure that has
 been made from the constitution of the
 United States in many important par
 ticulars.
 In the matter of selecting a president
 there has been most extraordinary departure. It is true that the forms
 of the constitution are adhered to, but l its spirit is absolutely violated. The
 constitution contemplates no election 6 president by the people, but provides
 for the election by the different states,
 either directly by the people or indi-
 rectly by their representatives in the
 legislature, of body of electors who shall meet end select a man to serve
 as president. As a matter of fact, the l presidential electors exercise no inde- ] pendent choice whatever, but merely
 register the will of the people who
 elected them. They serve in no higher i capacity than do the newly invented
 voting machines which have been intro- I duced into certain parts of this state.
 The constitution never contemplated ] the choice of candidate by great nation- al conventions. and yet the two con- ventions which have recently been held
 have performed a more important work outside os the constitution than the
 college os electors will perform acting l within the constitution.
 As a matter of fact, there has been
 developed within this country an un- I written law which is just as powerful
 as the written. Each generation, more over, insists upon interpreting the con- stitution and using it's forms in a way best suited to it's own purposes. Thus
 not alone in the machinery of electing l presidents, but in many matters of na- tional politics, the constitution has been interpreted as time has gone on in
 a way that has in some essential par l ticlars changed the spirit of our gov ernment One os the most remarkable of these changes has been the steady
 development toward centralization of
 power in the federal government, so
 that instead of being a mere federation
 of states. this country has become a great nation, with the power more and
 more centralized at Washington. The I one hundredth anniversary of the death
 Of Alexander Hamilton this week
 serves to direct attention anew to the steady expansion of his idea of a cen-
 tralized government.
 But there has always been, and there
 still Is, q large body of citizens, un-.
 der strong and able leaders. who hold
 of the constitution. They demand
 steady obedience to the letter of law
 and oppose every liberal interpretation of 1t. In the campaign of this year the opposing parties will be divided upon l this question of constitutional interpre- I tation. Speaking broadly, the republi-
 can party stands for liberal. and the. democratic party for a strict construc- ltion of that document. This matter is ] of special importance in relation to the 1 question of the government in the Phil
 ippines. The policy of the republican administration is to govern our Asiat-
 ic possessions as a colony until they are I prepared to take upon themselves the Hull responsibility of self government. But this, in a large measure. is govern Ement without the consent of the gov l erned, and is held to be & violation of l the spirit of the constitution. Thus, Former Secretary of State Olney, in a
 recent address asked what place des-
 potism had in our American political I system" and where, by searching, tcould 1t be found out" He declared that 1t was impossible to find in the na- tional constitution any authority in the ,I government to maintain colonies in the
 Philippines or to tax the masses of this
 country for the benefit of the inhabi-
 tants of those tropical islands.
 Yet it is probable that each general tion will continue to interpret the con- stitutioi1 and use 1t as best suits it's
 ideas of right at the moment The | growth of a constitution outside of a. I constitution may be slower under one party than another, but it will continue to grow nevertheless. This is because I the country is growing and the condi-
 tions which prevail in one century diff lI fer So far from the conditions in am
 other century that it is impossible to Efranne a document which, strictly ad- hered to in letter, can be broad enough to permit national development with out some change.
 There is, of course, danger in thus using the constitution, the danger be-. ing that in departing in the least de-. I gree from the letter of the document, l however benevolent that departure may be, we may open the door for
 great abuses. As Elihu Root said in a
 recent address before Yale university.
 There Is one general characteristic of our system of government which is
 essential and which it is the special
 duty of lawyers to guard with care that is, the observance of limitations
 of official power. There is a constant = tendency to ignore such limitations and condone the transgressions of them by #I public officers, provided the thing done is done with good motives from de- sire to serve the public. "-Wall Street Journal.