BAD EFFECTS OF THIS EXCLUSION,

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this the high functionaries in the United States are scrupulously protected. The oracles of an American minister are issued only from the shrine of his bureau. He is too delicate a flower for the rough handling of a public assembly, and of course may disregard attack, where the constitution has so wisely precluded the possibility of defence.

It is no answer to all this to say, that every public officer in the United States is liable to impeachment, in case of individual malversation in office. No doubt he is so; but violation of trust in a minister of state, so flagrant as to warrant impeachment, is an offence of rare occurrence, and one for which the disgrace of public exposure is generally a sufficient punishment. What is chiefly to be guarded against are the jobs, the trickeries, the petty impurities of office, which the necessity of braving personal examination in a public assembly would probably prevent. The Americans, therefore, in excluding their executive officers from all place in their representative bodies, have gratuitously discarded a powerful and efficient security for the honest and upright administration of their affairs,

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STANDING COMMITTEES OF CONGRESS.

The knowledge that every political measure will be subjected to a rigid and unsparing scrutiny, and must be defended to the satisfaction of honourable men in open discussion, is perhaps the most powerful safeguard devised by human ingenuity to secure the integrity of public men.

When we look, however, somewhat more minutely into the details of this republican government, it is soon perceived that the members of the cabinet are, in truth, nothing better than superintending clerks in the departments over which they nominally preside. At the commencement of every Congress, the practice is to appoint standing committees, who, in fact, manage the whole business of the executive departments. The process is as follows:-The President, in his message, invites the attention of Congress to such subjects as may appear of national importance. Permanent committees are appointed by both Houses, and to these the consideration of the various interests of the country is referred. Thus, whatever relates to finance falls within the department of the "committee of ways and means," while that on foreign affairs assumes cognizance of every

UNKNOWN TO THE CONSTITUTION.

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thing connected with the external relations of the government. These committees have separate apartments, in which the real business of the country is carried on, and from which the heads of the executive departments are rigidly excluded. The whole power of the government is thus absolutely and literally absorbed by the people, for no bill connected with any branch of public affairs could be brought into Congress with the smallest prospect of success, which had not previously received the initiative approbation of these committees.

It should be remembered that the power thus assumed by the people is wholly unknown to the Constitution. It is one of those important, but silent encroachments which are progressively affecting the forms, as they have long done the spirit of the government. It is still, however, the fashion to say, if not to believe, that the Constitution remains unchanged, and it is scarcely worth while to argue the point, with men who are evidently deficient either in sincerity or penetration. But if any man of sense and sagacity, who can be considered unbiassed by the prejudices of habit and education, will declare, after

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GRADUAL CHANGES.

a deliberate examination of the working of this government, that its whole important functions are not practically engrossed by the House of Representatives, I shall be ready to give up those opinions which I now offer to the world, as embodying the result of my own observations in the United States.

AMERICAN Eloquence.

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CHAPTER III.

WASHINGTON.

THOUGH the soil of the United States may be considered ungenial for the growth of philosophy and literature, it would certainly appear to be very happily adapted for the cultivation of eloquence. It is one effect of free institutions, that in multiplying the depositories of political power, they render the faculty of persuasion a necessary element on which successful ambition must rest for support. Under a despotic government there is "ample room and verge enough" for no eloquence but that of the pulpit. There exists little community of sentiment between the governors and the governed, and habits of passive obedience are incompatible with that buoyancy of thought and feeling with which true