is preserved. In the
degree in which it is neglected, or frustrated, there is suspicion,
irritation, discontent. And as it is always the Executive which tends
naturally, where it does not intrigue deliberately, to upset that order,
by gathering all power into its hands, obviously the provisions respecting
the formation and maintenance of Executive Power are the most critical
part of every Constitution.

It was a wise man, and an experienced, who said that it did not matter to
him who had the making of laws, so long as he had the administration of
them. "For forms of government let fools contest," said the poet; "That
which is best administered is best." And as the administration of a State
is reposed in the care of the Executive Power, for the most part beyond
the sight of the Law-making Assembly of the people, it is essential that
the Constitution should provide that the Executive should at all times,
and with the utmost flexibility, lie in the control of the Legislature.
Otherwise, whatever safeguards may be provided that laws carry the consent
of the people, the people will in the end find themselves baffled, unable
to track into the thicket of secret decisions the will that they have
elsewhere endeavoured plainly to express.

It is therefore the plain duty of every Constitution to keep the Executive
simple and flexible, responsive always to the will of the Legislature, as
the Legislature should always be responsive to the will of the people.
Crises will arise in the history of every nation when the powers of the
Executive require to be strengthened; and at such times those powers will
be readily conceded. But it is the Legislature and the people which must
decide; and the Constitution must leave them free to do so. It is no part
of the duty of a Constitution to provide for a time of crisis, and to make
that provision fixed and rigid for all later times, when circumstances
will have completely changed.

All that it is the absolute duty of a Constitution to do is to state how
the Executive shall be formed, and to define its responsibility to the
Legislature. The rest may be left to the practice of the future. Certainly
to indulge in experiments in a Constitution respecting so vital a part of
it as the Executive (experiments unlike anything yet attempted in any
Constitution in the world) is an extremely hazardous proceeding. Nor are
such experiments necessary in a Constitution, since they may be tried in
the course