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peachment proceedings. Such officials, serving as President of the United States, are to complete the term in which the vacancy exists, but if Congress is not in session or will not be in session within twenty days, after the time they assume the Presidential duties, they must convene Congress, giving twenty days' notice of the date of assembling.

The administration of the executive duties imposed upon the President by the Constitution, and in the details of which he is to a considerable extent independent of the Congress, is nowhere defined or set down in any set of rules binding upon the Chief Executive. The general policies of the government are framed by Congress, and means are provided for carrying them out through the various appropriation bills. It is the duty of the President to direct the machinery by which these expenditures are made and these operations are checked by the Treasury Department, the Secretary of which reports directly to Congress. The President is provided with a board of assistants, one of whom is at the head of each department, and all of whom constitute the President's advisory cabinet in the general administration of affairs. With the exception of reports directed by Congress on public expenditures, the members of the cabinet are under the direction of the President as to duties which are not otherwise regulated by statute. The result of this centering of the responsibility of the conduct of the executive departments in the President, is to make him the final arbiter on all departmental matters. He is more or less, according to his disposition, the directive force in each department. It is in his discretion how far he shall leave the determination of matters relating to any particular department wholly to the Secretary of that Department, or how far he shall exercise personal direction and influence in such departmental affairs. He must inevitably exercise the deciding influence, not only in matters of general public policy, not regulated by Congress, but in affairs in which the interests of more than one department are concerned. Much of the President's participation in the affairs of any department, depends upon the strength and ability of the cabinet officer charged

with the particular administration of those affairs. Much also depends upon the personal interest of the Chief Executive in the work of any given department. It is the general practice for all directions regarding departmental business, which may come from the Executive to be transmitted through the Departmental Head. There is nothing in law, however, to prevent the President from giving personal directions to any official of any department, or to prevent him from taking personal charge of any detail of the governmental work.

Congress has at different times established commissions independent of the main executive departments, for the purpose of carrying on specific lines of work, such commissions as the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Service Commission, and the Panama Canal Commission, together with other commissions of less importance, having to do with more or less transitory duties, and being appointed by the President, are under his direction, sometimes by direct provision of statute, and sometimes by implication, and are at least subject to his advice and admonition, even when they are not susceptible of his individual direction.

The nomination of a candidate for President of the United States, occupies the Spring and Summer of the year in which the Presidential election takes place. It was the practice in the earlier years of the Republic, for each State to present the name of a candidate. It would, of course, appear that certain of the candidates promised to command the greater strength than the body of the nominees, and it was the practice to solicit for them the support of the States of the weaker candidates. But as political parties became well defined and especially in the last half of the century, machinery for procuring the nomination of a man representing the views of a given political party, has come into usage. The inception of such nomination is the mass assemblage of the party voters of the smallest subdivision of a municipality, that is to say, in the ward, or precinct, as the case may be. These voters elect certain delegates to a convention which represents the whole body of voters of their political faith in the State, and this conven

tion in turn elects a given number of delegates to the national convention, the number of delegates in each case being determined by the strength of the party vote cast in the State in the preceding election. At the national convention of the party, meeting in some great city in June of the Presidential year, the general sentiment of the party has so far crystallized that the choice of availability lies generally between three or four men, each representing some particular section, or some particular shade of the party tenets. If the current administration is of the political party then holding the convention, and if the President retains the confidence of his party, a renomination is made by acclamation. Should the convention be that of the opposition, or should the President in office be unavailable, ballots are taken by states, each state voting in a body for the choice of candidates respectively, for President and for Vice-President.

While national prominence is sought in a candidate it has been most generally the fact that the residence of an available man in a politically doubtful seçtion, which would be influenced by the selection of a resident of that section, has been the chief determining factor in the Presidential nominations of modern political history. The Vice-Presidential candidate has been largely selected either for advantage of location in a similar way, or for his influence in connection with campaign contributions. No Federal statute covers the selection of the candidates of a party, though in some States laws have been enacted prescribing the method of primary elections for the selection of lesser candidates and of delegates to conventions

The President of the United States is generally regarded as the head of the national organization of his political party. Upon the nomination of a Presidential candidate the choice is accorded him of the Chairman of the National Committee having charge of the conduct of the campaign. Upon the induction of a new President into office, he is expected in his annual message to Congress to lay stress upon the policies which have been advocated in the compaign of the election, and he is supposed to consider party affiliations in the selection of at least his cabinet, and

to a large extent in the nomination of officers for confirmation by the Senate. With the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the leader of his party membership in the Senate, he is supposed in a general way to shape legislation to conform to the promises of the party platform, subject to the expression of opinion made by the party members of Congress in caucuses held by Senators and Representatives respectively. When differences have arisen between the President and other prominent representatives of the party which nominated him, Presidents in the past have been accused of treachery in not carrying out the majority expression of party sentiment. The situation herein described is entirely traditional and has no basis in constitutional or statutory provision. Legally the sentiment of a political party has no binding force whatever upon the President, who has sworn to enforce the laws impartially, and without regard to affiliation with any section of his constituency.

The President may or may not be the directive power in the general management of the party which elected him, outside of matters of legislation. This will largely depend on the circumstances pertaining to current polities. It has sometimes been the fact that the President has been the actual power in his party, but it is more often that the real power is exercised by those who constitute the inner circle of the National Committee, an organization whose members are elected by the State Conventions and whose membership offers an opportunity for securing and wielding real power by a man skilled in making combinations. Such a man would be and has been able to utilize the Federal patronage for the advancement of his plans and can make the President subordinate in party affairs. Many political contests in the United States have grown out of the resistance of Presidents to party emulators of the great Warwick.

CHAPTER III.

THE CONGRESS-SENATORS OF THE UNITED STATES-MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The national legislature of the United States of America, which is the Congress of the representatives of the sovereign States, is, apparently, strictly limited as to its powers by the terms of the Constitution. It may be remarked, by the way, that although this body is usually spoken of as Congress, its proper title is "The Congress," and it is so termed in law except when through inadvertence a slip is made into the popular form. When an examination is made of the legislation effected by Congress and supported by the courts, it becomes apparent that the Congressional powers are by no means as limited as they would seem to be upon a first reading of the Constitution. As a matter of fact, the Congress, as it is today with respect to its powers, is almost as much a self-creation as it is a creation of the Constitution. The terms of the latter document, which are summarized at a further point in this chapter, delegate to the Congress certain powers inherent in sovereignty. Certain powers, also equally attributes of sovereignty, have been reserved to the independent States, but between the two there is a field of general power and of possibility for legislation which can be and which has been construed in favor of the Congress not only by the Congress itself, but by the judicial power of the United States culminating in the Supreme Court. Among the powers delegated to the Congress which have been given a wide latitude and which may be still further extended, is that which gives the Congress the power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. A strict construction would refer this to the matter of laying and collecting taxes only, yet propositions, in no way germane to the subject of taxation, have been argued out under this clause. The power to borrow money on the

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