about matters of administration as it desires by means of questions addressed to the ministers. It is evident, therefore, that the supervision which the legislature exercises over the details of administration is limited only by the temper of the legislature itself, or, in fact, by the intelligence, energy, and strength of the opposition. The legislature has complete power of control over all matters, both legislative and executive,, but so long as the cabinet retains the support of the legislature, all the powers of government are virtually entrusted to its care. In the words of Bagehot, the cabinet "is a board of control chosen by the legislature, out of persons whom it trusts and knows, to rule the nation;" and this, in the opinion of John Stuart Mill, is the most perfect form of government.

Let us suppose such a system to be introduced into the United States, and let us try to discover what effect it would produce upon our institutions. I shall, however, confine the inquiry to the federal government, for the results in the States would be the same.

The first matter to be considered is the position the President would occupy if an amendment to the Constitution were to provide that the executive officers should be responsible to Congress; and let us suppose, to begin with, that the President himself is given a seat in

one of the houses. If, in such a case, the President were a man of sufficient ability and force of character, he might become the leader of Congress, and he would then occupy a position essentially the same as that of the premier in England. He would be his own prime minister. This was the situation of M. Thiers when President of the French Republic, for he refused to allow his advisers to become a ministry in the parliamentary sense, and held himself personally responsible for the acts of his government. But no matter how great a leader the President might be, such a state of things could last only so long as Congress continued to be of his own party. The moment a Congress of the opposite party was elected, he would be obliged either to resign, or to give up all exercise of power, and surrender the government into the hands of some one who could obtain the support of Congress; because, by the very definition of a responsible ministry, no one can continue at the head of the administration whose policy has been condemned by the legislature. Experience shows us how rarely it would happen that a President elected by the people would be capable of leading Congress. If he were not able to do this, the real leader of Congress and head of the government would be some other member of the administration;

and in that case the President would have no more actual power than if he had no seat in Congress, and were not a part of the ministry at all.

But, in fact, no one proposes that the President shall be a responsible prime minister, or have a seat in Congress. The advocates of a parliamentary government go no further than to suggest that the advisers of the President shall sit in Congress, and that they alone shall be responsible to it for their actions. Under such a system the President would remain in office for the four years of his term in any event, while the cabinet officers would retain their places only so long as Congress was willing to allow them to do so.. The President would then be obliged to select his cabinet from among the leaders of Congress, for otherwise the administration would be without strength, and in danger of being upset whenever the men who really commanded Congress should conclude that they wanted cabinet positions for themselves. But it is evident that cabinet officers, who knew that they could not be dismissed without the consent of Congress, and who were at the same time the leaders of Congress and able to control its actions, would find it very easy to carry out their own policy of administration without much regard to the

wishes of the President. They would be called upon, moreover, to explain and defend before Congress the policy of the government, and they could not do this unless that policy were really their own. They would make but a sorry piece of work in defending the acts of the President unless they really approved of those acts, and were willing to assume complete responsibility for them. They clearly could not shield themselves by pleading the orders of the President, because his orders would not be binding on Congress, and such a defence would not prevent Congress from turning the cabinet out, and insisting on a ministry which would fulfill its wishes. Of course the responsibility of the cabinet to Congress would not make the President a figurehead at once. George III. exercised an immense influence over the House of Commons long after the principle of a responsible ministry had become a part of the British Constitution, and in a less degree we should see the same thing here. The tradition of the President's authority would probably enable him to influence politics for a long time; but as Congress became more and more conscious of its power, it would control more and more completely the acts of the administration. It would gradually force the cabinet officers to be strictly responsible to itself, and it would

finally concentrate all powers, both legislative and executive, in its own hands. So long as Congress and the President were of the same political party the process would probably go on slowly; but it is clear that if a Congress of a party hostile to the President were elected, he would rapidly lose all control of the administration, which would pass into the hands of his political opponents. Mr. Bagehot, while discussing the separation of the legislative and executive powers in this country, and the exclusion of our cabinet officers from seats in Congress, remarks, "And, to the effectual maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the President's ministers from the legislature is essential. If they are not excluded they become the executive; they eclipse the President himself. A legislative chamber is greedy and covetous; it acquires as much, it concedes as little as possible. The passions of its members are its rulers; the law-making faculty, the most comprehensive of the imperial faculties, is its instrument; it will take the administration, if it can take it. Tried by their own aims, the founders of the United States were wise in excluding the ministers from Congress." In those countries in which a parliamentary government has been introduced, the nominal head of the administration, whether hereditary as in