178 Reviews of Books trian account, based on the printed American materials and, after 1816, on an extensive use of the manuscript materials in the archives of the Department of State. Patiently summarizing each dispatch and conver- sation, the author is able from this source to cast some new light on the relations of Russia to Spanish America and on the negotiations for the treaty of 1824, with which the treatise ends. Lcs Droits Lcgislatifs du. President des Etats-Unis d'Ainerique. Par Henri Bosc, Avocat, Docteur en Droit, Licencie es Lettres. (Paris, Arthur Rousseau, 1906, pp. viii, 286.) This monograph professes to be a study of the influence exercised by the President of the United States over legislation by means of the message and the veto. (Other means of influence exercised by the President over legislation are, however, dis- cussed at length.) The President, M. Bosc contends, does not consti- tutionally possess the right of initiative in legislation, because the exclu- sion of members of his cabinet from the floors of Congress prevents him from forcing Congress to consider the measures proposed in his mes- sages. The President can, however, get his political friends to intro- duce measures which have been prepared in the executive departments. If the President's part in legislation stopped here, our author continues, his powers would not be very great, but the real work of preparing legis- lation is done not in the House and Senate, but in committees, and the committees are in the habit of calling members of the cabinet and other executive officials before them to give oral information, so that in this way the President has the opportunity of having his views presented and of making his influence felt. In addition to this, the President in- vites senators and representatives sitting on various committees to confer with him and thus he has the chance to modify their views. When a measure comes to the vote, there are various ways in which the Presi- dent can influence the result. He can secure certain votes through the promise of patronage, or, in an emergency, he can do as McKinley did at the special session of 1897, when he refused to send in the general , list of nominations until a vote had been taken on the tariff bill. M. Hose's conclusions as to the permanent effect on the executive power of President Roosevelt's personal interference in legislation would prob- ably be considered by most Americans as somewhat premature. In discussing the veto our author contends that this power is, in its nature, legislative and not executive, and that the President constitutes in a sense a third branch of the legislature; that in giving the President the veto power the framers of the Constitution departed to that extent from the principle of the separation of powers. He objects to the use of the term veto, which he reminds us does not occur in the Constitution, and prefers the term sanction. The monograph is a careful, interesting and lucid discussion, and the author seems to be thoroughly familiar with tiie theoretical aspects of the question. For the practical workings of the American system he
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