seemed open to objection as entrusting to him a range of discretionary power which might easily have been abused, On the other hand, to confide it to any council would have made negotiations much more difficult, and probably have impeded prompt action in cases where promptitude was needed, ‘The result was the plan of entrusting the initiative to the executive and the power of sanction to the Senate, which was intended, being a small body at the time the constitution was made, to be, although elective, something resembling the older forms of the English Privy Council. It was thought that a comparatively large body like the House of Representatives was not well fitted to join in the exercise of such functions.
'The capital difference between the United States system and our own lies in the fact that here the President holds office for a fixed period by direct commission from the people, irrespective of the Legislature, while in Great Britain the Ministry is dependent on the confidence and support of the House of Commons. Had the people of the United States left the control of foreign affairs and the treaty-making power entirely in the hands of the executive, they would have given to it a power greater, because unchecked by the Legislature, than a Cabinet enjoys in England. Ifa President had resolved to follow a course deemed dangerous by the Legislature, there would have been no means of stopping him in that course until the end of his term, except, indeed, by the extreme method of impeachment—a tedious method and one hard to apply in practice, It was therefore deemed necessary to associate the Senate with the President in this important function. In Great Britain the practice has been to allow the Cabinet to use the ancient powers of the Crown with comparatively little interference by Parliament, because the House of Commons has, by its practice of interrogating Ministers, the means of knowing what course in foreign affairs they are following, and, if it disapproves that course, of indicating its disapproval. Each country can therefore advance solid reasons on behalf of its own system.'—Ibid., p. 26; and see, further, pp. 26–33.
[In the discussions that led to the framing of the Constitu-
