NO FOUNTAIN OF HONOUR'

195

of recognizing them. There have been other instances in which an American has deserved well of the nation by services of such a kind that in England they would naturally be rewarded by a Privy Councillorship or a baronetcy, or at least a knighthood. But in the United States the irresistible popular demand that he should be publicly honoured in some way could be gratified only by his appointment or election to some public office, for which he might happen to be quite unfitted. He has undertaken the task imposed upon him, and his career in office has not enhanced his reputation.

XI

CHANGES IN CONSTITUTIONAL

USAGE

WHILE the content of the Law of the Constitution -whether Fundamental Law, Statute Law, or Common Law can be exactly determined, there can obviously be no equally precise statement of its usages. In the nature of the case there can be no authority, judicial or otherwise, qualified to make an ex cathedra pronouncement on what is, and is not, to be regarded as coming under this category. What Dr. A. L. Lowell, the President of Harvard, has said of the usages of the English Constitution, in the introduction to his book on The Government of England, applies no less to those of the American Constitution also:

'It is impossible to make a precise list of the conventions of the Constitution, for they are constantly changing by a natural process of growth and decay, and while some of them are universally accepted, others are in a state of uncertainty.'

The present writer has had an inconvenient reminder of the risk that current events may modify the binding force of a usage that has long been accepted without question. His chapter on 'Appointment and Removal' had been completed and was ready to go

to the printer when the rejection by the Senate of the nomination of Mr. Warren as Attorney-General compelled the rewriting of the whole of that section of the chapter which relates to the confirmation of Cabinet appointments.

Some treatises on American government include in the so-called 'unwritten Constitution' certain well-established practices which the present writer has ignored because they do not seem to him clearly entitled to be counted among constitutional usages. There is, for instance, the organization of the standing committees of Congress. The growth of the committee method of legislation, never anticipated by the founders of the Republic, is without doubt one of the most important developments of the American political system. It has had farreaching effects on the course of events. But, after all, this method is nothing more than a particular form of parliamentary procedure a matter of the internal arrangements of the legislative body itself. It has nothing to do with the powers of Congress or with its relation to the other branches of the government or to the nation at large, and accordingly it can no more claim a place among the usages of the Constitution than any scheme for the distribution of duties among the Judges of the Supreme Court or the executive staff at the White House. The same remark applies to the development of the Speakership of the House of Representatives into an office of party leadership instead of a neutral chairmanship as in the House of Commons.

These things are distinctive features of the American system of government, but they do not appropriately demand attention in a survey of the usages of the American Constitution.

The usages considered in this book are those which are actually in force at the time of writing. Just as a new statute may be enacted or an old one repealed, so the body of usage may be enlarged or diminished. A discussion of the subject twenty years ago would have had to take into account two usages, at least, which have since then disappeared from the list. According to the Fundamental Law, the President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.' George Washington and his immediate successor, John Adams, communicated their 'messages' to Congress by word of mouth.

6

'But Jefferson,' to quote from the early editions of Bryce's American Commonwealth, when his turn came in 1801, whether from republican simplicity, or because he was a poor speaker, as his critics said, began the practice of sending communications in writing; and this has been followed ever since.'

As late as the publication of the 1910 edition of the work quoted this was a correct statement of the invariable practice, and no one at that time would have questioned the inclusion, among constitutional usages, of the requirement that all presidential messages to Congress should be communicated in

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

199

writing and should be read to that body not by the President himself but by one of its own officials. The usual spectacle on the occasion of the reception of such a message—a clerk droning out a long address to a listless assembly in a half-empty chamber-was not one that would impress a stranger with the dignity of either President or Congress. But although the tradition had come to be generally recognized as an unfortunate one, it did not occur to any President, until Mr. Wilson took office, that he had the power to break away from it. In one of his treatises on the American political system Mr. Wilson himself had described the fashion of written messages

firmly established,'1 and up to the time of his own election to the Presidency he had not departed from that opinion. The idea of reverting to the original practice came to him, we are told, from a suggestion offered him by a newspaper reporter, Mr. Oliver P. Newman, in an interview shortly before he actually entered upon his office. On April 8, 1913, a century-old usage of the American Constitution vanished into limbo when President Wilson appeared at the Capitol and read his first message to a joint assembly of both Houses. A tactful introduction happily disposed of any prejudice that might have arisen in the minds of conservatives who were reluctant to see any departure from the beaten paths.

1 W. Wilson, The State, ed. 1904, p. 546.

2 See David Lawrence, The True Story of Woodrow Wilson, ed. 1924,