At the time of the American Revolution the executive office in the British Isles was held in a way quite unlike the Teuton ideal, and local self-government had, owing to economic changes, sunk to a low level. The king and a few of the landed gentry controlled Parliament and the election of a large proportion of its members.[114-1] When, therefore, the Americans framed their system of government, they had before them an executive example on which they wished to improve. They accordingly created a king who could not initiate or prevent legislation; who was automatically recalled every four years; and who, in common with all other citizens, held no title that could be inherited. Most of the state governments, affected by the same ideas, have gone further. They have even taken from the executive the appointment of judges, making them also elective, though a few states and the national government continue the system of appointing the judiciary through the executive. Further checks to the president's power were devised in making his appointments to the executive and judicial services as well as his negotiations of treaties subject to confirmation by the Senate. Thus the American president is a modified eighteenth-century British king.

After America had become independent and had {115} framed its federal government, the British Isles electorate gradually reasserted its power, and took back into the keeping of its elected representatives the control of executive affairs.[115-1] That return to earlier ideas has produced a spokesman who is elected for five years but may be, and usually is, recalled before the expiration of this term,—by the shifting opinion of the voters manifested in the votes of their representatives in Parliament. This spokesman is no longer called a king but a prime minister. "The imperial sovereignty which is exercised in the name of the King actually resides in the British Prime Minister, a gentleman who holds his office at the pleasure of the majority of the British House of Commons."[115-2] He and his associates, chosen from the members of Parliament, constitute a ministry, of which a portion is called the cabinet. It is this cabinet, this managing committee, that both executes the laws of the British Isles and takes charge of the legislation desired, supposedly, by a majority of the British voters. As the voters elect the members of Parliament and the latter elect the ministry, and as the ministry cannot continue in office in the face of an opposing majority in Parliament, this cabinet executive control is called a "responsible government," i.e. responsible directly to the people.

{116}

In re-attaining the ideal of the Teuton spokesman, America has made slight progress in theory, however much the American president has stood ready to take such position and however much he may have tried, despite the conservative form of constitution he works under, to perform the duties of such an office. Consequently, the American executive stands apart from the legislative power as the British executive stands near, and is part of, the legislative power. To the American executive and his cabinet, chosen not from Congress but from the country at large, is the explicit duty of administering, not of making, laws, except in so far as the veto power gives the president some share in checking legislation. But the instinct of the race still calls on the president, as though he were the spokesman of his nation, to assist the other representatives in making as well as executing the laws. Signs are not wanting that this same insistence of the voters may bring the American executive back to the executive-legislative functions of the race's early spokesmen. At present the president can interpret the manner in which laws shall be administered, but if his interpretation conflicts with the wishes of Congress, it can pass new enactments not susceptible to such interpretation. Hence, practically the president can influence legislation only by his personal force working on Congress, or by his use of the patronage to induce congressmen to take action in accord with his opinion of the national will. There results a possibility of the use of patronage disastrous to the administrative efficiency of the nation. To meet this disastrous use of the patronage, American {117} public opinion has demanded the "merit system" of appointment of all administrative officials of less station than those political agents who must be in sympathy with the political ideas from time to time in the ascendant, as expressed by political parties. Recognizing this need for efficiency in administrative subordinates, American presidents find it difficult to utilize the merit system of appointment and at the same time forward desired legislation. The personal power of the president backed by popular opinion is, however, still a force to be reckoned with by Congress. Through this power he is able to carry out in part at least the demand made by these political descendants of the Teutons that their spokesman, and all other representatives, shall carry out the legislation the voters require.

Although Alexander Hamilton was unable to obtain a realization of his desires to see the cabinet officers entitled to seats in Congress, the president is called on by the written Constitution to report to Congress on "the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."[117-1] In reality he does more, and in accordance with the working Constitution actually furthers the legislative programme called for by his party's majority. He may, if the instincts of American public opinion demand it, easily evolve into a responsible spokesman with other administrative officers about him, much after the similitude of a British responsible cabinet ministry. How this may occur by change in either the working or the written Constitution, {118} or both, it is unnecessary here to elaborate. Enough to show that this present difference in the American and British executives is a result of historical conditions working in both branches of the race.

The representatives who carry out the political will of a Pan-Angle nation are called in America the Administration and in the other six nations the Government. This diversity of terminology may produce misunderstanding, as in the case of "constitution"—the more so as "government" has another meaning common to all Pan-Angles, viz. control of peoples.[118-1] A proverbial Irishman landed in America is asked with which party he sympathizes, and retorts that he is "against the Government." He means probably that he is opposed to the ministry of the day in the British Isles—in short, sympathizes with some Opposition ideas. The American hearer, unaccustomed to the word in this specialized sense, may be astonished at what seems an outburst of anarchy. Later our Irishman, become an American, would reply to the same question about his politics, that he was, or was not, in favour of the Administration. But whichever term is used, Administration or Government, it refers alike to those elected representatives who, by the use of their own discretion, or following the instruction of their voters, or by a combination {119} of both methods, conduct the executive business of their nation.

Because the seven Pan-Angle nations are similar in their forms of government they are in a position to establish a common government. All take for granted the same theories and practically the same procedures. Because these theories and procedures work successfully as they are applied to the government of each nation, Pan-Angles will be predisposed to believe that they will work when applied to a government of the whole race.

[94-1] Ency. Brit., vol. vii. p. 15.

[95-1] Quoted in Woodrow Wilson, Mere Literature, Boston, 1900, p. 105.

[95-2] Ency. Brit., vol. vii. p. 15: "The ideas associated with constitution and constitutionalism are thus, it will be seen, mainly of modern and European origin. They are wholly inapplicable to the primitive and simple societies of the present or of the former times. The discussion of forms of government occupies a large space in the writings of the Greek philosophers,—a fact which is to be explained by the existence among the Greeks of many independent political communities, variously organized, and more or less democratic in character. Between the political problems of the smaller societies and those of the great European nations there is no useful parallel to be drawn, although the predominance of classical learning made it the fashion for a long time to apply Greek speculations on the nature of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy to public questions in modern Europe. Representation . . . the characteristic principle of European constitutions, has, of course, no place in societies which were not too large to admit of every free citizen participating personally in the business of government. Nor is there much in the politics or the political literature of the Romans to compare with the constitutions of modern states. Their political system, almost from the beginning of the empire, was ruled absolutely by a small assembly or by one man."