but certain rulers have found it practicable. The Guelphs of England, the Hohenzollerns of Germany, owe their present positions as hereditary executives of democratic states to their wisdom in these respects, their substantial fulfilment of these requirements. It is probable that when the democratic state reaches a higher stage of perfection in England and in Germany, the hereditary tenure of the executive will be swept away. It certainly will be swept away if those who hold by it forget the conditions of their existence. Until this period shall arrive, however, there are advantages, manifest even to one surrounded by the prejudices of the new world, in the retention of the hereditary executive in both of these great states, and in all other states in which corresponding conditions exist. Among these advantages I would mention, first of all, a respect for government and a readiness to obey the law, which can in no other way be attained until the political society shall have reached a degree of perfection far beyond anything which, at present, exists anywhere in the world. As Bagehot somewhere says, the mass of men at the present time have not much reverence for a thing which they assist every half-dozen years to create. Another very important advantage is the ease with which the hereditary executive maintains a stable and an efficient civil service.

I will not pursue this reflection any further. My object at this point is to call attention to the fact that, while the elective executive is the more natural form in the democratic state, the hereditary executive, in its present constitution in England and Germany, is not inconsistent with the existence of the democratic state either in fact or in principle; that, in the four systems which I am comparing, the hereditary and elective principles are only two methods of determining the tenure of the executive office and do not constitute a distinction as to the forms of state; and that these differences are, therefore, less fundamental than is usually supposed. The hereditary executive of a democratic state with a constitu

tional government is a very different institution from the hereditary sovereign in a monarchic state. It is only a presidency with an unlimited term.

2. The difference between the English and German law of succession, on the other hand, is more significant than appears at first glance. It is not merely a question of the admission of women to the succession, or of their exclusion from it. The English law may result in frequent changes of the royal house. Furthermore, since it does not require princely marriage for the princesses, it may result in the infiltration of much unroyal blood. Both of these possibilities, if realized, will have a strong tendency to weaken the mystical influence of royalty over the minds of the masses. But this is not all; the Queen regnant is far more likely to yield to advisers than the King. She will be far more likely to introduce the reign of favorites, if her ministry be of her own independent choice, or to yield to the encroachments of the legislature upon the royal prerogative, in case her ministry should be imposed upon her by the legislature. I doubt very much if the English system would present exactly its present relations if, instead of the good Queen, a strong man had worn the crown during the last fifty years. The German law is undoubtedly the better law, if the wearer of the crown is to be anything more than a figure-head. The modern executive, whether hereditary or elective, must be something more than a figure-head, else this utilitarian age will sooner or later sweep it aside.

3. In the two systems which present an elective executive, the differences in the character of the electoral body, and in the law of election, produce important results. Here again the differences are more significant than they appear at first view.

The election in both cases is indirect; but while in the one case it proceeds from a number of bodies each independent of the others, and all independent of the legislature with which the executive is connected, in the other it proceeds from a

single body, identical in personnel with the membership of the legislature with which the executive is connected. As results, we have, in the one case, a permanently independent executive; in the other, an executive tending to become completely subordinate to the legislature. The reason why the framers of the present French constitution vested the election of the President in the legislature was, of course, their fear of a President proceeding from the people and responsible to the people. They had had experience with such a President in the constitution of 1848. They feared that such a President might again rout the legislature by the help of the popular favor and upon the principle of a direct responsibility to the people. They have certainly guarded well against this danger, but they have certainly created a very weak executive. There is little danger that the executive will overthrow the legislature, but there is a good deal of danger that a factious legislature without a strong executive may make the state a prey to some ambitious adventurer outside of the government. An elected figure-head is a far more useless organ than an hereditary figure-head, for it lacks that influence which royalty exercises over the masses and which royalty lends to its ministers. It seems to me that the time has come for an amendment of the French constitution in this respect. I do not see why the formation of electoral colleges in the départements and the election of the President by such colleges under a general law of election would not sufficiently avoid the dangers of a direct election by the people, and at the same time give the President a more natural position over against the legislature, especially against the rapacious Chamber of Deputies. It would at least make it impossible for the legislature to force the resignation of one President for the sake of electing another.

II. The four systems are in much closer accord than is generally supposed as regards the personal responsibility, or rather irresponsibility, of the executive.

It is the common idea that the quality of personal irresponsibility attaches only to the royal executive. From the analysis, in the preceding chapters, of the powers of the executive in the United States and in France, I think it is manifest that entire personal irresponsibility, while in office, is the necessary character of the elective executive also. The only important difference is this: The elective executive may, upon certain charges defined in the constitution, be removed from office by the legislative chambers, while the hereditary executive cannot. We have seen, however, that the Prussian King, and therefore the German Emperor, may be removed by agreement between the Crown Prince, the Prussian Ministry and the Prussian legislature. This fact still further lessens the actual difference between the royal and elective executives in regard to personal responsibility. Of the four executives under comparison, only the wearer of the English crown is entirely exempt from removal by the legislative branch of the government. An act of the state would be necessary for the removal of the English King against his own will.

What appears to me the most important conclusion is this: that the personal irresponsibility of the executive head is not a unique quality of the hereditary executive, but a necessary principle under all forms of government; that all attempts to make the executive head in any system of government personally responsible, while in office, will be abortive; and that any process provided by a constitution, for the removal of the elective executive from office by some other branch of the government, is far more likely to result in failure or in abuse than in any profit to the state. A law of succession providing for the devolution of the executive office, in case of the permanent physical or mental incapacity of the temporary incumbent, is always a most valuable part of a constitution; but we shall deliver ourselves from much delusion and avoid many dangers if we frankly attribute to the elective executive

head, in the supreme governmental system of the state, personal irresponsibility during the term for which he shall have been chosen, unless physical or mental incapacity shall have caused the transfer of the office before the regular expiration of the term. As I have said, this will be the inevitable result in practice, and it is better political science and better public law to generalize theory from necessary practice than to cling to a fiction derived from a confused prejudice.

Of course, the reasons for making the executive head irresponsible do not hold in the case of the ministerial chiefs. of the executive departments. There is no reason why they should be inviolable. If they commit crime or misdemeanor, they are and should be responsible both to the legislature and to the courts. There is no difficulty in executing a process against them, and no interregnum would result from their arrest and confinement. The ministers of the hereditary executive need not have and, in the systems we are studying, do not, as a fact, have any more sacred character than the ministers of the elective executive.

On the other hand, the political responsibility of the ministers to the legislature is not required by any general principle of right or of political science; nor, on the other hand, is their irresponsibility a scientific necessity. What the relation shall be, is a question of high policy, dependent for its proper solution upon the general character of the particular legislature and of the electors of that legislature. Responsibility or irresponsibility of the ministry to the legislature leads to very essential differences, however, in the working of government. Ministerial responsibility will inevitably bring party government and the subordination of the executive to the popular branch of the legislature. Party government may occur when the ministers are irresponsible; but it is not, as in the other case, inevitable; and where the ministers are not responsible to the legislature, the independence of the executive may be far more easily preserved. There