Readings In American National Government PDF Download

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE There has recently been much discussion of the proper extent of the executive powers, especially in the national government, where there has taken place a great expansion of executive functions. By many men this tendency has been attacked as dangerous, while others see in it only that growth of governmental power which would naturally accompany the increase in national wealth and population. The speeches of Senator Rayner and Representative Towne, directing themselves against the expansion of the executive power, will serve to bring out clearly the matter in controversy. Allowance being made in all Congressional speeches for partisan bias, the attacks of the opposition will often bring out most clearly new political developments. Senator Rayner's speech was made in the debate upon the President's action with respect to San Domingo. Mr. Towne was speaking on party politics during the discussion of the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill. For a good general treatment of this subject see Ford, Rise and Growth of Am. Politics, 275.] FROM A SPEECH OF SENATOR RAYNER1 Now let us look for a moment at the result of the President's construction of his prerogative. A new sect of political scribes have commenced to edit a revised edition of the Constitution. They call it the unwritten Constitution. They are framing an apocryphal collection of epistles and are promulgating their heresy from academic chairs and lecture platforms. The President is the prophet of this new creed and the Messiah of this strange hallucination. They do not propose to add any additional chapters to the original manuscript, but they insist that under the general-welfare clause, which is simply a repetition of the phrase that was used in the Articles of Confederation, th...