is endangered, let us seek a remedy, and that remedy is found in the exercise of the elective franchise in conformity with statutory or organic law. I say here, taking the history of Kentucky as the evidence upon which we should base our judgment, sitting as a jury to decide this great case under the evidence given in the history of our State, we must unquestionably say that the appointing power has proved a failure, and that we must maintain our rights by securing to the people that sovereignty, that right, that power to which they are justly entitled. Now, I find a strong feeling in this Convention to give to the Governor of this Commonwealth vast and almost unlimited power, to make him a sort of autocrat here for four years. Some delegates are urging that he must appoint Judges of the Courts, that he should appoint all the State officers at this Capital. If that is right, why not take another step down? Let him appoint our County Court Judges, let him appoint our County Court and Circuit Court Clerks, let him appoint our magistrates; yes, let him become the mighty ruler in this great Commonwealth, clothed with that power which alone belongs to the people, and which every lover of liberty in America should cherish. Yes, give him one power, and soon he will step forward and ask for an increase of that power. I love our form of Government. I love it for its glory, its beauty and its grandeur. I love it for what it has accomplished; but while I love it, I loathe in the deepest recess of my heart any effort whatever that will go in the direction of taking from the people of Kentucky the right to choose their officers. I hold the taking of such a right from them is an innovation of the right which every man in this broad land should cherish. Let us, gentlemen of this Convention, maintain our rights. Let us stand up boldly and let no man rob us of a single right.

MR. BULLITT. This is simply a business question. I think all this gush about the rights of the people to control the matter has but little to do with it. It is a simple matter of business how we shall guard the money that has been gathered for the administration of the government of the State. The Committee thought that the

The danger

in increasing the govern

or's power.

Administra

tion a matter

of business.

Powers of

best way to guard our money was to make the treasurer ineligible to succeed himself. According to the information I get from the newspapers, the Treasurers of the States of Mississippi, Maryland and some other states, as well as the treasurer of the State of Kentucky, had adopted the habit of using the State money for the purpose of securing their succeeding election. Now, all must admit that this is an evil. . . . Master Commissioners have made use of moneys to secure the election of the judge who would appoint them, and the treasurer might use the same method to secure the election of a Governor. Therefore, the safest and best business plan was to make him ineligible for a second election, or to succeed himself; and by making him ineligible to succeed himself we withdraw from him every inducement to make use of the State money to re-elect himself.

174. The Growth of Executive Influence *

Mr. Gamaliel Bradford, an eminent publicist and careful observer of American institutions, thus describes what he regards as one of the marked tendencies of American political evolution in recent years:

Even contemporaries are able to note the beginnings of silent the executive innovation. Of all of its bearings, they may be but dimly aware, to legislation. yet they can see that a real change is slowly taking place. One

in relation

such lies upon the surface of English politics to-day, and is clearly discernible in our own. We mean the greatly heightened powers of the executive government, in what relates to legislation. In England, the initiative of private members of Parliament has almost entirely disappeared. All the important bills are now government measures, and the government is claiming and getting more and more of the time of the House of Commons. This is a profound change, and represents an entire dislocation of the literary theory of the British Constitution, a hundred and twenty years ago.

But a similar alteration of inherited practice is rapidly invading this country also. The Executive as Legislator is now a familiar

who assume

figure among us. President Roosevelt is not the only exemplar. Executives Governor after Governor has been making of himself the chief legislative fountain of legislation in his State. There is no more suggestive functions. sign of the times. East as well as West, the phenomenon presents itself. Governor La Follette in Wisconsin has been imitated by Governor Johnson of Minnesota and Governor Hoch of Kansas. To the initiative of Governor Hughes of New York comes an immediate response from Governor Woodruff of Connecticut and Governor Fort of New Jersey. All of them press critical matters upon their Legislatures. All of them tacitly assume that the Governor must intervene with prompting and public advocacy of important legislation, or else it will fail. Nor is this attitude much resented by Legislature or Congress. they accept it enthusiastically.

As for the people,

The

with old

practices.

Yet how deep a breach with the old ideas and historic practice A breach all this represents, every one must see who stops to think. jealous isolation of the Executive, in all that relates to law-making (except assent to new statutes) is one of the most vital traditions of Anglo-Saxon constitutional law. Contrast this with the constant appeal, nowadays, to the wishes of President or Governor; with the direct activity of Executives not only in recommending legislation but in sending for members of Congress or of the Legislature to urge them to vote for particular measures; and we begin to understand how long is the road we have travelled.

cance of the movement.

How does all this fit into the democratic theory? What does The signifiit signify in regard to representative institutions? It would be rash to attempt a full and satisfying answer to these questions. We are too near the political development, too much a part of it, to detach ourselves and pass judgment upon it conclusively. Partial answers, however, we may find in the very facts under discussion. It is clear, to begin with, that Congressmen and members of the Legislature are becoming more strictly local representatives. They cannot see beyond their districts. Few of them are nationally-minded or State-minded. In large affairs, affecting all the people, they have lost their initiative, because

The executive represents wider interests.

their time and strength are taken up with the petty interests of their immediate constituents. For them, they run errands, seek offices, work for local appropriations.

Somebody else has to take the broad view, to look after the nation or the State, while they are absorbed with Buncombe County or Podunk. And this somebody is getting to be more and more the directly elect of all the people. To a President, or Governor, thus chosen, all the people are coming to look increasingly, not merely for administration, but for impulse and driving power in legislation. They may be no wiser than the nominal legislators, but they have a wider outlook, and they feel mightier impulses from the whole citizenship pushing them on. Hence, it is no trouble for democracy to adjust itself to the new practice. Choosing the executive directly, it chooses him now to be the chief medium of progressive and reformatory law-making. If it gets its will done, it cares little about the instrument. If American Congresses and Legislatures are leaving off fighting the Executive, it is because the Executive has come best to represent the whole people.

The question

of the vote for repassage.

175. The Veto Power

During the debate in the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1890, over the question as to whether a two-thirds vote should be required in the legislature to pass a bill over the governor's veto, the question of the veto power in all of its bearings was discussed.

MR. CARROLL. Why should we not insert a provision that it shall require two-thirds of the General Assembly to pass a bill over the Governor's veto? Can any good reason be assigned against it? The Governor's veto is not absolute. The power vested in the Executive is simply a qualified one, and the main object of it is to direct the attention of the Legislature to any matter that may have escaped their attention, in order that they may have an opportunity to correct it; and if two-thirds of the members of any General Assembly cannot be found who are willing upon

a reconsideration to pass a bill over the Governor's veto, I insist that that bill must be in itself of questionable propriety, because any laudable measure, any measure beneficial to the best interests of the people of the State, could certainly obtain the vote of twothirds of the members elected to each branch of the General Assembly.

On the other hand, the Legislature, acting as they often do, hastily and unwisely; passing bills as they often do, without any consideration whatever, can, under the present law and under the report of the Committee as adopted, repass them over the Governor's veto without any difficulty whatever, if they see proper to do so. It is a well-known fact that one of the prime causes for the calling of this Convention was the abuses practiced by the Legislative Department of this State; and I venture the assertion that except for the vicious legislation and the local and special laws of all kinds and character passed by the Legislatures that have met in Kentucky for the past twenty years, that no proposition to call a Constitutional Convention could ever have received a majority of the votes of the people of Kentucky. The people of Kentucky are more in danger from abuses by the Legislative Department than they are from abuses of any other Department of the State Government.

Distrust of the legis

lature.

ernor as a conservative

MR. MACKOY. Government is a system of checks and balances, The govand that government it seems to me is the best in which the powers of government are so arranged as that neither may infringe upon force. the other, and that one or all combined may not affect the people. We know that the representatives, or the members of the General Assembly, represent more perfectly the will of the whole; that sometimes they come from the people in times of great political excitement, when the entire State may be moved by political questions that are of burning importance. It is upon these occasions that a majority of the Legislature might interfere with and trample upon the rights of the minority, and it is then that the Governor, whose term of office is longer than that branch of the Legislature which reflects most perfectly the will of the people, would