DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT should be his own and not another's. To that his constituents are entitled. The Executive recommends; the Congress legis lates. A prevailing impression seems to ignore this relation as illustrated by the following quotation from the press: "Ac cording to most trustworthy accounts the President will begin the fight for his pet subjects of legislation with more or less advantage over his opponents." That is, the legislation accomplished by the Execu tive will be limited only by the degree in which he is able to overcome the opposition of any branch that can legislate, in this particular instance, the Senate. He is placed in the position of vigorously fighting, not to say lobbying, for legislation. I do not understand that the President desires to be placed in or that he undertakes to assume this stand-and-deliver attitude. Some of his friends would put him in a position of usurpation, and the Senate in the humiliating position of being driven into registering an executive decree. It is no reflection upon the President that other men differ with him in opinion. If it is assumed that it is legitimate for a President to coerce legislation by a "fight" for it, a failure might discredit him. His oath is to "faithfully execute the law," not to make it, and no true friend of the President will attempt to place him in the position of invading the province of a coor dinate branch. The abuses inherent in such a course are too obvious for specifica tion and discussion. A paper evincing much research, learn ing, and ability, read before this Associ ation last year, took, as it seems to me, rather extreme ground as to the executive power. It has the unique distinction of ascertaining the extent of those powers without once quoting, referring as a whole to, or relying upon the provisions of the Constitution defining them. When consti tutional provisions are in the main clear and unambiguous as here, the value of results from research and reasoning aliunde the
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Constitution is not apparent, as the ripened fruit of the argument, to which brief refer ence will be made, will, I think, abundantly show. As the culmination of the argument this proposition is laid down: "If Southern States abridge the privileges or immunities of Federal negro citizens, the President on his own initiative can and should prohibit such action, whether Congress legislates or not." This abridging could be done only by legislation, and that is already prohibited by the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. Such legislation would be absolutely void. If the President should also "prohibit such action," it would still be void and only void. Federal legislation would add noth ing, much less a President's proclamation. Whenever such action was invoked to infringe the rights of a "Federal Negro citizen," or any other citizen, it would simply fall to the ground, and the Presi dent could not make the fall any greater or more signal by any effort of his to "prohibit" it. This appears to be a generalization that does not materialize. Another proposition is, " If Southern States deny the right of suffrage to Fed eral negro citizens on the ground of race or color, the President, without waiting for penalizing statutes, can and should use every means, civil, military, or both, to stop it." Apprehending that this remedy is some what indefinite Andrew Jackson is invoked as to how this can be done, and it is said he "threatened to hang Calhoun and every other traitorous nullifier, and South Caro lina's nullification went down under the mailed hand of a patriotic and dominating President." The inference, if I understand it, is that Roosevelt should call in the reporters, not confidentially but for publica tion, and d la Jackson, threaten to hang, draw, and quarter, without benefit of clergy, Vardaman, and every other recalcitrant, if they did not "stop it." The smile that would be evoked by such an inflammatory
