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OCR
ISSUES AND EVENTS
WOULD FAVOR CABINET AFTER BRITISH
PATTERN.
English Institutions have enjoyed an incomparable
flexibility and freedom of development because they
have not been subject to this law of theoretical con-
sistency, but have been put together piece by piece
as practical conditions and new needs have de-
manded. They have been put together by the forces
of national development, not in accordance with the
suggestions of any abstract logic of political theory.”
:1: =l= >l<
Woodrow Wilson is NO Constitutionalist. As far
back as 1884, Woodrow Wolson was an ADVOCATE
of the British System of Cabinet Government, and he
urged its adoption in this country. In the Overland
Monthly of January, 1884, in an article on “Committee
or Cabinet Government,” Woodrow Wilson wrote:
“Let there be set apart from the party in power
certain representatives who, leading their party and
representing its policy, may be made to suffer a
punishment 'which shall be at once personal and vi-
carious, when their party goes astray, or their policy
either misleads or miscarries. This can be done by
making the Leaders of the dominant party in Con-
gress the executive officers of the legislative will;
by making them also members of the President’s
Cabinet’ and thus at once the executive chiefs of the
Departments of State and the leaders of their party
on the floor of Congress; in word by having done
with the Standing Committees and constituting the
Cabinet advisers both of the President and of Con-
gress. THIS WOULD BE CABINET GOVERN-
MENT. .
“Cabinet Government is government by means of
an executive ministry chosen by the chief magistrate
of the nation from the ranks of the legislative ma-
jority-a minister sitting in the legislature and act-
ing as its executive committee; directing its busi-
ness and leading its debates; representing the same
party and the same principles ‘bound together by a
sense of responsibility and loyalty to the party to
which it belongs,’ and subject to removal whenever
it forfeits the contidences and loses the support of
the body it represents. Its establishment in the
United States would involve, of course, several con-
siderable changes in our present system. It would
necessitate, in the first place, one or two alterations
in the Constitution. The second clause of Section
VI, Article 1, of the Constitution runs thus: “No
Senator or Representative shall, during the term for
which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office
under the authority of the United States, which
shall have been created or the emoluments thereof,
shall have beenlincreased during such time; and no
person holding any otiilce under the United States
shall be a member of either House during his con-
tinuance in oihce.” Let the latter part of this clause ,
read: “And no person holding any other than a
Cabinet office under the United States shall be a
member of either House during his continuance in
oflice,’ and the addition of four words will have re-
moved the chief constitutional-obstacle to the erec-
tion of Cabinet Government ‘in this country. The
way will have been cleared in great part at least,
for the development of a constitutional practice,
which founded uponfhe Small Charter we already
possess, might grow into a governmental system at
once strong. stable and fltfxgble. These four words
being added to the Constitution, the President might
be authorized and directed to choose for his Cabinet
the leaders of the ruling f‘33J0T1tY in Congress; that
Cabinet might. 0!! Ccmdmon of acknowledging its
,tenure of ohice depend on the favor of the House, be
allowed to assume those Privileges of initiative in
277
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2 l
‘ ISSUES and ’ EVENTS
legislation and leadership in debate which are now
given, by an almost equal distribution, to the Stand-
ing Committees; and Cabinet Government would
have been instituted.”
And he actually went so far as to urge the Con-
stitution be amended to model the American form
of government after that of Great Britain. In the
same article, he writes:
“Cabinet Government has in it everything to
recommend it. Especially to Americans should it
commend itself. It is, first-of all, the simplest and
most straightforward system of party government.
It gives explicit authority to that party majority
which in any even will exercise its implicit powers
to the top of its bent; which will snatch control
if control he not given it.”
as an
ENGLISH PRECEDENT MUST BE FOLLOWED.
“Committee Government is too clumsy and too
clandestine a system to last. Other methods of
Government must sooner or later be sought and a
different economy established. First or last, Con-
gress must be ‘organized in. conformity with what is
now the prevailing legislative practice of the world.
ENGLISH PRECEDENT AND THE WORLD'S
FASHION MUST BE FOLLOWED IN THE IN-
STITUTION OF CABINET GOVERNMENT IN
THE UNITED STATES.”
at as at
In the Atlantic Monthly of April, 1888, Woodrow
Wilson declares that.while a change to the British
form of Government involved “important changes in
our constitutional system,” the price was NOT too
great to pay for the “advantages secured by us by
such a govemment."“ Here is exactly what he said
in the article entitled Responsible Government Under
the Constitution:"
. “The establishment in the United States of what
is known as MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY’
viilould unquestionably ' involve some important
‘3 snges in our constitutional system, as I have else-
w ere fully admitted. I am strongly of the opinion
(Continued on page 280.)