The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster / With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style

by Daniel Webster; Edwin Percy Whipple

Connected, Sir, with the idea of this airy and unreal responsibility to the public is another sentiment, which of late we hear frequently expressed; and that is, that the President is the direct representative of the American people. This is declared in the Protest in so many words. "The President," it says, "is the direct representative of the American people." Now, Sir, this is not the language of the Constitution. The Constitution nowhere calls him the representative of the American people; still less, their direct representative. It could not do so with the least propriety. He is not chosen directly by the people, but by a body of electors, some of whom are chosen by the people, and some of whom are appointed by the State legislatures. Where, then, is the authority for saying that the President is the direct representative of the people? The Constitution calls the members of the other house Representatives, and declares that they shall be chosen by the people; and there are no other direct or immediate representatives of the people in this government. The Constitution denominates the President simply the President of the United States; it points out the complex mode of electing him, defines his powers and duties, and imposes limits and restraints on his authority. With these powers and duties, and under these restraints, he becomes, when chosen, President of the United States. That is his character, and the denomination of his office. How is it, then, that, on this official character, thus cautiously created, limited, and defined, he is to engraft another and a very imposing character, namely, the character of the direct representative of the American people? I hold this, Sir, to be mere assumption, and dangerous assumption. If he is the representative of all the American people, he is the only representative which they all have. Nobody else presumes to represent all the people. And if he may be allowed to consider himself as the SOLE REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, and is to act under no other responsibility than such as I have already described, then I say, Sir, that the government (I will not say the people) has already a master. I deny the sentiment, therefore, and I protest against the language; neither the sentiment nor the language is to be found in the Constitution of the country; and whoever is not satisfied to describe the powers of the President in the language of the Constitution may be justly suspected of being as little satisfied with the powers themselves. The President is President. His office and his name of office are known, and both are fixed and described by law. Being commander of the army and navy, holding the power of nominating to office and removing from office, and being by these powers the fountain of all patronage and all favor, what does he not become if he be allowed to superadd to all this the character of single representative of the American people? Sir, he becomes what America has not been accustomed to see, what this Constitution has never created, and what I cannot contemplate but with profound alarm. He who may call himself the single representative of a nation may speak in the name of the nation, may undertake to wield the power of the nation; and who shall gainsay him in whatsoever he chooses to pronounce to be the nation's will?

I will now, Sir, ask leave to recapitulate the general doctrines of this
Protest, and to present them together. They are,—

That neither branch of the legislature can take up, or consider, for the purpose of censure, any official act of the President, without some view to legislation or impeachment;

That not only the passage, but the discussion, of the resolution of the Senate of the 28th of March, was unauthorized by the Constitution, and repugnant to its provisions;

That the custody of the public treasury always must be intrusted to the executive; that Congress cannot take it out of his hands, nor place it anywhere under such superintendents and keepers as are appointed by him, responsible to him, and removable at his will;

That the whole executive power is in the President, and that therefore the duty of defending the integrity of the Constitution results to him from the very nature of his office; and that the founders of our republic have attested their sense of the importance of this duty, and, by expressing it in his official oath, have given to it peculiar solemnity and force;

That, as he is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, he is thereby made responsible for the entire action of the executive department, with the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws;

That the power of removal from office, like that of appointment, is an original executive power, and is left in his hands unchecked by the Constitution, except in the case of judges; that, being responsible for the exercise of the whole executive power, he has a right to employ agents of his own choice to assist him in the performance of his duties, and to discharge them when he is no longer willing to be responsible for their acts;

That the Secretaries are his Secretaries, and all persons appointed to offices created by law, except the judges, his agents, responsible to him, and removable at his pleasure;

And, finally, that he is the direct representative of the American people.