ite. The
American Republic is the last mediaeval monarchy. It is intended that
the President shall rule, and take all the risks of ruling. If the hair
is cut he is the haircutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in
vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and Roosevelt,
have acted as democratic despots, but emphatically not as
constitutional monarchs. In short, the names have become curiously
interchanged; and as a historical reality it is the President who ought
to be called a King.

But it is not only true that the President could correctly be called a
King. It is also true that the King might correctly be called a
President. We could hardly find a more exact description of him than to
call him a President. What is expected in modern times of a modern
constitutional monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect
him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the chair. The
chairman does not move the motion or resolution, far less vote it; he is
not supposed even to favour it. He is expected to please everybody by
favouring nobody. The primary essentials of a President or Chairman are
that he should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be
popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his opinions, and that
he should actually be a link between all the other persons by being
different from all of them. This is exactly what is demanded of the
constitutional monarch in modern times. It is exactly the opposite to
the American position; in which the President does not preside at all.
He moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; for the
national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is called a message;
and might often actually be called a menace. Thus we may truly say that
the King presides and the President reigns. Some would prefer to say
that the President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress
would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt that he moves;
he does not take the chair or even the stool, but rather the stump.

Some people seem to suppose that the fall of President Wilson was a
denial of this almost despotic ideal in America. As a matter of fact it
was the strongest possible assertion of it. The idea is that the
President shall take responsibility and risk; and responsibility means
being blamed, and risk means the risk of being blamed. The theory is
that things are done by the President; and if things go wrong, or