Then, again, the same authority says that the perfection of this great idea is “by giving each division a power to defend itself by a negative.”[49] In other words, each is armed against invasion by the others. Accordingly, the Constitution of Virginia, in 1776, famous as an historical precedent, declared expressly: “The legislative, executive, and judiciary departments shall be separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other; nor shall any person exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time.”[50]
The Constitution of Massachusetts, dating from 1780, embodied the same principle in memorable words: “In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”[51]
A government of laws and not of men is the object of republican government; nay, more, it is the distinctive essence without which it becomes a tyranny. Therefore personal government in all its forms, and especially when it seeks to sway the action of any other branch or overturn its constitutional negative, is hostile to the first principles of republican institutions, and an unquestionable outrage. That our President has offended in this way is unhappily too apparent.
THE PRESIDENT AS A CIVILIAN.
To comprehend the personal government that has been installed over us we must know its author. His picture is the necessary frontispiece,—not as soldier, let it be borne in mind, but as civilian. The President is titular head of the Army and Navy of the United States, but his office is not military or naval. As if to exclude all question, he is classed by the Constitution among “civil officers.” Therefore as civilian is he to be seen. Then, perhaps, may we learn the secret of the policy so adverse to republicanism in which he perseveres.
To appreciate his peculiar character as a civilian it is important to know his triumphs as a soldier, for the one is the natural complement of the other. The successful soldier is rarely changed to the successful civilian. There seems an incompatibility between the two, modified by the extent to which one has been allowed to exclude the other. One always a soldier cannot late in life become a statesman; one always a civilian cannot late in life become a soldier. Education and experience are needed for each. Washington and Jackson were civilians as well as soldiers.
In the large training and experience of Antiquity the soldier and civilian were often united; but in modern times this has been seldom. The camp is peculiar in the influence it exercises; it is in itself an education; but it is not the education of the statesman. To suppose that we can change without preparation from the soldier to the statesman is to assume that training and experience are of less consequence for the one than the other,—that a man may be born a statesman, but can fit himself as a soldier only by four years at West Point, careful scientific study, the command of troops, and experience in the tented field. And is nothing required for the statesman? Is his duty so slight? His study is the nation and its welfare, turning always to history for example, to law for authority, and to the loftiest truth for rules of conduct. No knowledge, care, or virtue, disciplined by habit, can be too great. The pilot is not accepted in his trust until he knows the signs of the storm, the secrets of navigation, the rocks of the coast,—all of which are learned only by careful study with charts and soundings, by coasting the land and watching the crested wave. But can less be expected of that other pilot who is to steer the ship which contains us all?