nd the committees of
Congress, but this does not wholly secure speedy and efficient
co-operation between the two departments. As I speak, a movement is in
progress, with the sanction of President Harding, to permit members of
his Cabinet to appear in Congress and thus defend directly and in person
the policies of the Executive.

This separation of the two departments, which causes so much friction,
has been emphasized by one feature of the Constitution which again marks
its distrust of democracy, namely the fixed tenure of office. The
Constitution did not intend that public officials should rise or fall
with the fleeting caprices of a constituency. It preferred to give the
President and the members of Congress a fixed term of office, and,
however unpopular they might become temporarily, they should have the
right and the opportunity to proceed even with unpopular policies, and
thus challenge the final verdict of the people.

If a parliamentary form of government, immediately responsive to
current opinion as registered in elections, is the great desideratum,
then the fixed tenure of offices is the vulnerable Achilles-heel of our
form of government. In other countries the Executive cannot survive a
vote of want of confidence by the legislature. In America, the
President, who is merely the Executive of the legislative will,
continues for his prescribed term, though he may have wholly lost the
confidence of the representatives of the people in Congress. While this
makes for stability in administration and keeps the ship of state on an
even keel, yet it also leads to the fatalism of our democracy, and often
the "native hue" of its resolution is thus "sicklied o'er with the pale
cast of thought." Take a striking instance. I am confident that after
the sinking of the _Lusitania_, the United States would have entered the
world war, if President Wilson's tenure of power had then depended upon
a vote of confidence.

6.

_The sixth fundamental principle is the joint power of the Senate and
the Executive over the foreign relations of the Government_.

I need not dwell at length upon this unique feature of our
constitutional system, for since the Versailles Treaty, the world has
become well acquainted with our peculiar system under which treaties are
made and war is declared or terminated. Nothing, excepting the principle
of local rule, was of deeper concern to the framers of the Constitution.
When it was framed, it was