of executive power.

To this end, all that

could be gained from the imprudence, snatched from the weakness, or wrung from the necessities of crowned heads, has been carefully gathered up, secured and hoarded, as the rich treasures, the very jewels of liberty." 1 The executive, he urged, has always been regarded "as a lion which must be caged." The executive power is not the defender of liberty; but "our very security depends upon our watchfulness of it." The President, he denounced as "a Briareus (who) sits in the centre of our system, and with his hundred hands touches everything, moves everything, controls everything." Clay was equally vigorous in his attacks on the executive. The power of the President, he said, "is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast republic. By means of principles which he has introduced and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the State. In one hand he holds the purse, and in the other brandishes the sword of the country. Myriads of dependants and partisans, scattered over the land, are ever ready to sing hosannas to him, and to laud to the skies whatever he does. He has swept over the government during the last eight years like a tropical tornado. Every department exhibits traces of the

1 Congressional Debates, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 1681 (1834).

ravages of the storm."1

To the leaders of the

Whigs, indeed, it seemed that, as in the seventeenth century in England, the people were threatened by the power of the executive, and should find their natural ally in the legislature. This was clearly expressed by Calhoun when he said, that he considered Congress "the great central point where all power must receive its sanction and direction;" and that the large amount of discretionary authority which must under every government be lodged somewhere, should be placed in the hands of the legislature. Still more radically this theory was stated at times. For example, it was said on the floor of the Senate: "The executive power which represents the common force of society is, in every just theory, and in the nature of things, inferior to the legislative power, which is the representative of the common intelligence and the common will, and that, too, precisely in the degree to which brute force is inferior to reason.' The essence of the Whig doctrine was that the legislature is naturally the closest representative of the people, and that the executive should be an object of constant suspicion and 'distrust. 3

1 Ibid. XIII, Pt. I, p. 438 (1837). Cf. X, Pt. I, p. 1314, on the Whigs as opponents of executive prerogative.

2 Ibid. Vol. XIII, Pt. I, 469.

8 A very rhetorical statement of the anti-prerogative men was that made by Mr. Sprague in the Senate, January 29, 1834. “I may be deemed an alarmist. There is cause for alarm. When one

The legislature, however, had reached the climax of its power in the days of the Revolution, and there was now a pronounced reaction against that department. This was one of the most significant points in Andrew Jackson's administration. He announced himself as the representative of the people in as true a sense as the Congress, and declared his independence of, or better, his right to an equal rank with, the other two departments. The executive, since the time of the Revolution shorn of power, again found strength to assert himself in the affairs of state. It may fairly be said that one of the first fruits of the new democratic régime was a decisive victory for the executive, representing the people, over the congressional aristocracy inherited from the Revolution.

the old story over again, of a strong executive supported by the masses of the people against a wellintrenched aristocracy; and the victory rested with the executive. Jackson undoubtedly believed that he was the representative of the people against the legislative aristocracy; the people apparently

man, encroaching upon Congress, the Senate, and the judiciary, arrests and rolls back the course of legislation; interprets laws, treaties, and constitutions; assumes the sole power of appointment, -holding at the same time absolute control over the army, the navy, the post-office, an affiliated press, and the whole swarm of executive officers, and now superadded to all this, tremendous money power, the fiscal agency ingrafted upon banking capital, – can liberty be safe? Safe when a boa-constrictor is closing around her his crawling and crushing folds?"

regarded him as their champion in the conflict, and were willing to trust him with great powers in order to insure the victory.

2

A similar expansion of the executive power is noticeable in the individual states. In fact, the movement began there, and not in the national government. The selection of the governor was taken away from the legislature and submitted to the direct vote of the people;1 the term of office was materially lengthened; the great weapon for the defence of the executive prerogative, the veto, was in general vested in the governor, and also a larger share of the appointing power. At the same time, the former high property qualifications were removed, and the position was made accessible to all citizens so far as wealth was concerned. In short, there arose a new idea in regard to the executive and his place in the scheme of government. This was well expressed by one of the delegates to the New York Convention of 1821. "An erroneous idea," said he, "seems to have prevailed in relation to the powers and origin of the governor. Who is he? and by whom is he appointed? Does he derive his authority from the king of Great Britain ? Is he an usurper ? If so, let us unite to

1 Penn., 1790; Del., 1792; Ga., 1824; N.C., 1835; Md., 1837; N.J. 1844; Va., 1850.

2 Penn., 1790; Ga., 1789; Va., 1830; Del., 1831; N.C., 1835; Md., 1837; N.J., 1844.

3 Ga., 1789; Penn., 1790; N.H., 1792; Conn., 1818; N.J., 1844

depose him. But, sir, he is the man of the people -elected by their suffrages and identified with their interests. He is a watchful sentinel to guard us from evil and a zealous friend to admonish us of error."

It is evident, then, that one pronounced feature of the democratic movement in the first half of the century was the elevation of the executive and the degradation of the legislative power. The early distrust of the executive, which once took the form of a fear that monarchy might return, had disappeared, and also the early confidence in the legislature. Popular suspicion seemed to be directed, not so much against a tyrannical monarchy, as against "encroaching aristocracy." The public was willing to intrust large powers to one man, but was jealous of the authority of a legislative coterie, or a "banking aristocracy," or aristocracy in any shape or form. As has often been the case, the instrument by which the aristocracy was overthrown, in this instance also, was a powerful executive. In the national field this change centres around the career of Andrew Jackson; in the states the same tendency was at work, readjusting the balance between the legislative and the executive power.

Another point in national administration was carried for the radical democracy, when the principle of rotation in office and the "spoils system" obtained recognition. This was primarily a victory