HKB
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THAT OF A CONSTITUTIONAL KING OF FRANCE.
Executive Power in the United States as Limited and as Partial as the Supremacy which it Represents.--Executive Power in France as Universal as the Supremacy it Represents.--The King a Branch of the Legislature.--The President the mere Executor of the Law.--Other Differences resulting from the Duration of the two Powers.--The President checked in the Exercise of the executive Authority.--The King Independent in its Exercise.--Notwithstanding these Discrepancies, France is more akin to a Republic than the Union to a Monarchy.--Comparison of the Number of public Officers depending upon the executive Power in the two countries.
The executive power has so important an influence on the destinies of nations that I am inclined to pause for an instant at this portion of my subject, in order more clearly to explain the part it sustains in America. In order to form an accurate idea of the position of the president of the United States, it may not be irrelevant to compare it to that of one of the constitutional kings of Europe. In this comparison I shall pay but little attention to the external signs of power, which are more apt to deceive the eye of the observer than to guide his researches. When a monarchy is being gradually transformed into a republic, the executive power retains the titles, the honors, the etiquette, and even the funds of royalty, long after its authority has disappeared. The English, after having cut off the head of one king, and expelled another from his throne, were accustomed to accost the successors of those princes upon their knees. On the other hand, when a republic falls under the sway of a single individual, the demeanor of the sovereign is simple and unpretending, as if his authority was not yet paramount. When the emperors exercised an unlimited control over the fortunes and the lives of their fellow-citizens, it was customary to call them Caesar in conversation, and they were in the habit of supping without formality at their friends' houses. It is therefore necessary to look below the surface.
The sovereignty of the United States is shared between the Union and the states, while in France it is undivided and compact: hence arises the first and the most notable difference which exists between the president of the United States and the king of France. In the United States the executive power is as limited and partial as the sovereignty of the Union in whose name it acts; in France it is as universal as the authority of the state. The Americans have a federal, and the French a national government.