good upon the President himself, but we think that with this term he should not be re-eligible. He will take the office with the knowledge that his term of six or seven years is secured to him, and that he cannot look for a second term. It is hardly possible to conceive of a position more likely to call out the best qualities of a man who has anything noble in his disposition, or who is even capable of growing up to an unwonted elevation of thought and motive. This tenure will relieve the President from that suspicion and distrust which always besets the last year of his first term of office, that he is manoeuvring for his own re-election. The objection made to the prohibition of his re-election is that the country may need him for further service. The country had to do without Washington, after eight years, and is not likely to be more severely tried again. But public opinion soon settled into the belief that it was better for the country, on the whole, to be trained in the knowledge that the term of the President's service, whoever he may be, is limited, and far better for that officer himself.

As the reader will see, we do not purpose to consider the forms or details of amendments, but only to point out the ends intended to be secured by the amendments.

The Ascertaining of the Vote.

It is quite possible that some provision may be made respecting the ascertaining the Presidential vote. The mere counting of acknowledged returns of votes, as an arithmetical process, requires only security against mistake or fraud. For that, surely, publicity, the general knowledge of results through the press, and the presence of the two houses of Congress, must be sufficient. The difficulty arises only where the question of accepting or rejecting votes depends upon some question of public law, or upon the ascertainment of the real vote of the people of the States and districts, when the votes are alleged to have been in fact different from the returns by which the electoral vote is to be counted.

Whatever provision may be made, we trust it will not be one in any way involving the Supreme Court of the United States. That Court stands in high respect. One reason of this, and the principal one, is the popular confidence that it is substantially separated from party politics. Its hold upon the public is purely moral. It is vital to our system that that hold should not be impaired. The

Supreme Court should remain what the Constitution has made it, simply a court, that is, a tribunal for the decision of actually litigated cases. Even in the decision of such cases, questions may be involved upon which political parties have divided. That is an accident which cannot be provided against. Even in such cases the strain upon the Court is perceptible through the country, and certainly furnishes a warning against compelling the Court to decide a question, not of legal litigation, but one which directly awards to one or the other of the great political parties of the country the sentence of defeat or success in the most heated of all controversies, a contest for the control of public policy and the possession of public patronage.

If the ascertaining of the vote is not given to the judicial department, it would seem that it must rest with Congress; for it is hardly supposable that any third tribunal can be organized which would be satisfactory. This brings up the great question how far the national government shall go in its investigations. Shall it have the unlimited powers which each house of Congress possesses, in case of contested seats, or shall the first steps taken within the States be settled by the States themselves? To the unlimited powers of inquiry by Congress, the practical objections are very great. Imagine to ourselves committees of Congress investigating the votes of individual citizens and the voting-lists in a dozen or more States of the Union, to decide upon the qualification of individual voters, the charges of local frauds or errors, to contradict the returns of the State officers! Picture to ourselves the majority and minority reports those committees will make, and the debates which will take place upon them in both branches of Congress! If it takes a single branch of Congress six months to determine the right of a single member to his seat, how long will it take both branches to make satisfactory inquiries into the qualifications of all the voters in the Union whose rights may be challenged, into all frauds charged, into all' errors or intimidations suggested, and into the proceedings of all State officials which are impeached, and how long to decide between the conflicting reports in which these inquiries will mostly result? When shall we have a President by these methods?

But a more serious question is, What confidence will the public place in the result at last? The inquiries into the right to seats

in Congress are notoriously decided, except in obvious cases, by party vote. If the virtue of Congressmen has not been found sufficient to adjudge the right to a single seat which may not affect the scale of power in the House, what confidence can be placed in their decision which will determine the possession of the national administration for four years? This is no time for complaisance. The people would not trust their decision, Congress would not trust it themselves. The exercise of these functions would increase the political electioneering power of Congress, demoralize it as a legislative assembly, and make it, more than it has ever yet been, an irresponsible electioneering tribunal from whose decision there can be no appeal. It would also greatly increase the central power, at the expense of State rights, and give new impetus to that centripetal force which is already alarmingly great.

In view of these dangers and objections, would it not be better to leave the earlier steps in the election to be taken upon the responsibility of the States themselves, and decided by their authority? It may be said that the State tribunals may be guilty of fraud, may make mistakes of law and fact, may be influenced by party spirit, and may permit and even encourage violence and intimidation upon the voters. Doubtless all this, or much of this, may be true. But we must remember that our safety consists in the distribution of all those powers among the States which it is not essential to have conferred upon the Republic. We must therefore accept the chances of the faults and failures of the States. And it may well be asked whether faults and failures distributed among forty States, counterbalancing one another, would be so great an evil as the failure of justice at the one central tribunal of last resort. And, speaking of frauds, accidents, and mistakes in the giving and counting of votes or in passing upon returns, shall we escape them by transferring the control and investigations from the State tribunals and people to Congressional committees of inquiry? When this great stake of the Presidency is played for, we must expect frauds and attempts at frauds, occasional sporadic violence and intimidation, and the unavoidable results of a suffrage embracing so much of ignorance and "debased moral sense. We do not attempt to define the line of demarcation, but we believe it is possible to establish a distinction sufficiently clear to govern Congress and the States in the exercise of

their respective functions, expecting perfection of neither, but trusting to the results of that distribution of powers and consequent lessening of the dangers of the abuse of powers, upon which our federative system rests.

The questions we have been considering relate to the votes of States assumed to have the right of voting. The far greater and deeper question, whether a State is in condition to exercise this function at all, is necessarily determined by the Republic. But the exclusion of a State should be passed upon by the Republic in its highest function of political legislation, by the combined action of both houses, approved by the President in his legislative capacity, with all the guaranties and solemnities that surround legislation, and not as a mere incident to the counting of votes and as part of that process.

Civil-Service Reform.

Passing from questions of constitutional changes, we will consider the most prominent matters of legislative and executive policy pending before the country. Of these, there is one which goes deeper into the political life of the nation than any other, and affects more seriously the character and destiny of the Republic, this is Civil-Service Reform. It has been talked about, written about, commended by legislative resolves and executive declarations, and adopted into the platforms of parties and the letters of candidates, but has been played with and evaded and misunderstood to quite an equal extent. By civil service reform is meant the change of the system upon which that service is administered. It means the abolition of the spoils system and its necessary consequences. It means the disengaging of our civil service from the baleful effects of that infamous maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils." Anything less than this is mere playing upon words, mere political trading upon phrases which the vilest demagogues and seekers and dividers of spoils may use without inconsistency. It does not mean the reforming in of one set of office-holders and the reforming out of another. We have had this kind of reform in constant operation since the inauguration of General Jackson, and the more there is of it the deeper become the ruts in which the great machine for the disposing of party plunder moves. It does not mean the putting out of unfit men and the putting in of fit men, at the

discretion of the party in power. That is something which never has been and never can be done, for the standard of fitness has been and always will be that which determines party preferment within the ranks of the party itself. The history of our civil service explains the needed reform. It is a familiar fact that Mr. Jefferson introduced the principle of party tenure, although he applied it to a small extent and in a very moderate degree. When he said that the majority of the people were Democrats, that he found nearly all of the executive offices held by Federalists (meaning the non-political and merely ministerial or clerical offices), that the Democrats ought to have a reasonable share of these offices, and that, as vacancies by death were few, by resignations none, he must remove some Federalists, as such, to make room for some Democrats, as such, he admitted the principle of the spoils system, that is, that the offices whose duties men of one party can discharge as well as men of the other party are personal gifts, to which party fidelity in the electioneering struggle gives a title, and from which the best officer may be ejected on the sole ground of difference in political opinion. The inevitable tendency of this doctrine, if allowed to have its way, was pointed out in the celebrated remonstrance of the citizens of New Haven, written, we believe, by the late Chief Justice Daggett, on the occasion of the removal of the postmaster of that place. Mr. Jefferson, without disclaiming the principle upon which the removal rested, offered assurances of his intention to exercise the power with all the fairness and justice of which it admitted. But it was something entirely beyond personal control. When once received into the system, it necessarily spread through it, became chronic, grew worse with time, and requires the most thorough treatment, with no less a purpose than its extirpation from the political system.

Until General Jackson's administration, there was no such change of parties as called for the exercise of this plan of proscription and reward; and his predecessor, Mr. Adams, who was thoroughly opposed to the spoils system, made but two removals during his four years, and both for cause, allowing opponents to his re-election to retain their offices without inquiry into their political opinions. General Jackson, with the thoroughgoing and imperious qualities of his nature, carried out to the full the system of proscription and reward, based solely upon party services. The inevitable results in VOL. CXXIV. NO. 254.

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