The Danger of an Autocracy in the United States
By L. A. S.
The government of the United States is, in theory and outward form at least, a republic, and doubtless few of its citizens are prepared to believe that in reality, as its powers are actually exercised to-day, it comes nearer to being an autocracy than do some European nations represented by crowned heads; yet just this is affirmed by no less an authority on the subject than Senator Bacon, of Georgia, one of the ablest constitutional lawyers in this country. The following quotations are from an article contributed by Senator Bacon to the Independent (New York), in which he sets forth the proof that there has been for years a steady encroachment by the chief executive upon the province of the legislative branch of the federal government, which has reached a point to-day where the functions of the national legislature are very largely usurped by the chief executive, so that in one person there is combined not only all the great powers properly pertaining to the chief executive's office, but also a large proportion of the sovereign powers vested by the Constitution in the national lawmaking body. Thus there is at the head of this nation a single individual who not only executes the laws, but to a large extent controls the making of the laws,—a condition wholly foreign to the spirit and letter of the Constitution, and contrary to every principle of republican government. Senator Bacon says:— We have passed, by more than two hundred years, the period in the history of our race when one man could assume and exercise the power to determine, independently of the legislative department, what should be, even in part, the laws of the government. The framers of the Constitution stood nearer by a hundred years than we do to the time when a king sought to dictate what laws should be enacted by Parliament. The great and wise men who framed our fundamental law stood in the century next removed from that which had witnessed the culmination of that great struggle from the events of which they gathered the lesson that the power to make laws for the government of a people is safest when not controlled by one man, but when lodged exclusively with their elected representatives. Yet the nation seems to be forgetting this plain lesson of history, and is moving in a backward, not a forward, course, in this respect. Says Mr. Bacon:— It is a remarkable fact that in England, a monarchy, not only has the king abandoned all pretense of any control over legislation, but he has practically surrendered the exercise of executive power. The constant progress has there been toward restraint of executive power in the crown, and the enlargement of the power of the legislative branch of the government, until now practically all political power, both legislative and executive, is in the control of the elected representatives of the English people. It is a fact still more remarkable that in the United States, a nation born of a rebellion against a monarchy, and designed distinctively as a representative republic, the president has not only retained all original executive power and greatly enlarged it, but there has been a no less steady progress in the direction of the absorption of legislative power by the executive, and of its practical surrender in large degree by Congress. Setting forth existing facts which justify this statement, the senator says:— The time was when one who desired legislation by Congress came to Congress and endeavored to secure its enactment. How is it to-day? Who is it that wants legislation who now comes to the House of Representatives or to the Senate for the purpose of securing it? We see every day in the newspapers accounts of pilgrimages to the White House for the purpose of securing legislation; we see every day in the newspapers forecasts as to whether or not such legislation can be passed, according as it may be announced that it will receive the active support or the active opposition of the executive. Within the recent past . . . statements have repeatedly appeared in the public press telling that members of Congress, senators and representatives, had gone to the White House to solicit the aid of the president to secure the passage of certain desired legislation; and other statements are almost daily appearing in the newspapers that in the varying fortunes of the legislative battle senators and representatives hurry to the White House6to secure the aid of the president to regain a position lost or to advance still farther a line pressing on to victory. There is still some evidence of a remnant of independence in Congress of the executive will in legislation, but, nevertheless, it is notorious right now that most important subjects of legislation of great public interest are receiving no attention, and the question whether Congress will or will not legislate on them, and what particular enactment will be made when there is legislation, depends solely on whether such subjects will or will not be made “administration measures.” That is openly and undisguisedly now recognized and asserted with almost daily reiteration in the public press, with specifications of the subjects of legislation which will immediately be pressed for action in Congress as soon as they are made “administration measures,” and upon which, with equal definiteness it is also asserted, Congress will not legislate until the executive will is made known in regard thereto. What will be the outcome of this process of destroying the balance of power established in the three co-ordinate branches of the government? On this point Senator Bacon says:— The time will come in the not distant future when, if this practise continues and increases, the question of the attitude of senators and representatives with reference to any proposed legislation will not be an important matter, and when it will be well understood that such and such legislation is to be enacted or defeated, as the case may be, according to the will of the president, and regardless of the personal views of senators and representatives. It is a popular practise to criticize speech making in Congress, but it will be a sad spectacle to contemplate when members of each House will cease to discuss measures actively favored or opposed by the president because of the absolute uselessness of such a discussion. Only “administration measures,” or those concerning which the executive is indifferent, will be enacted, and none others will be attempted from very hopelessness. Senator Bacon concludes his article with the following observation:— There can be no condition more dangerous to the maintenance of free government than is found in the concentration in the hands of one man at the same time of both the executive power and practically the power to make the laws he is to execute. Whatever may be the form of government, when these two powers are thus concentrated in the hands of one man, the government is an autocracy pure and simple. It makes no difference in practical effect whether that one man himself decrees the laws, or whether they are enacted in obedience to his dictation. It is not from any failure of the Constitution to clearly separate between the functions of the chief executive's office and those of the national legislature, or expressly to define and limit the powers of each, that this departure from republicanism is taking place in the government. It is being done in open disregard of plain constitutional provisions. As seen in the vision of the prophet John, this government “had two horns like a lamb,” but “spake as a dragon.” Rev. 13:11. It was not when this power was seen “coming up out of the earth” that it spoke with a dragon voice and persecuted the saints. It did this only after a great change had come over it which perverted its nature and subverted the principles upon which it was established. Such a change we see now in process of accomplishment. L. A. S.