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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT] (see ante, § 15). The most important measures are those dealing with the revenues and appropriations; and the procedure on these matters is slightly different from that on other bills. The secretary of the treasury sends annually to Congress a report containing a statement of the national income and expenditure and of the condition of the public debt, together with remarks on the system of taxation and suggestions for its improvement. He also sends what is called his annual letter, enclosing the estimates, framed by the various departments, of the sums needed for the public service of the United States during the coming year. With this the action of the executive ceases, and the matter passes into the hands of Congress.

Revenue bills for imposing or continuing the various customs duties and internal taxes are prepared by the House committee on ways and means, whose chairman is always a leading man in the majority party. The report presented by the secretary of the treasury has been referred to this committee, but the latter does not necessarily in any way regard that report. Neither does it proceed on estimates of the sums needed to maintain the public service, for, in the first place, it does not know what appropriations will be proposed by the spending committees; and in the second place, a primary object of the customs duties has been for many years past, not the raising of revenue, but the protection of American industries by subjecting foreign imports to a very high tariff. Regular appropriation bills down to 1883 were all passed by the House committee on appropriations, but in that year a new committee—on rivers and harbours—received a large field of expenditure; and in 1886 certain other supply bills were referred to sundry standing committees. These various appropriation committees start from, but are not restricted by and do not in fact adopt, the estimates of the secretary of the treasury. Large changes are made both by way of increasing and reducing his estimates.

The financial bills are discussed, as fully as the pressure of work permits, in committee of the whole House. Fresh items of appropriations are often added, and changes are made in revenue bills in the interest of particular purposes or localities. If the Senate is controlled by the same party as the House, it is likely to secure the acceptance of many of its amendments. The majorities in the two houses then labour together to satisfy what they believe to be the wishes of their party. Important legislation is almost impossible when one of the houses is controlled by one party and the other house by the other.

When finally adopted by the House, the bills go to the Senate and are forthwith referred to the committee on finance or to that on appropriations. The Senate committees amend freely both classes of bills, and further changes may be made by the Senate itself. When the bills go back to the House that body usually rejects the amendments: the Senate declines to recede, and a conference committee is appointed by which a compromise is arranged, usually hastily and in secret, often including entirely new items, and this compromise is accepted with little or no discussion, generally at the end of the session.

Thus it comes that comparatively slight use is made of the experience of the permanent financial officials in the framing of revenue-raising and appropriation bills. There is little relation between the amounts proposed to be spent in any one year and the amounts proposed to be raised, and there is a strong tendency to deplete the public treasury through special grants secured by individual members. These defects have long been felt, but Congress is not disposed either to admit officials to attend its sittings or to modify the methods to which it has grown accustomed. A tariff commission was, however, created by statute in 1909, the reports of which may have some influence on the framing of tariffs in future.

§ 23. The executive power of the nation is vested in a president of the United States of America, who holds office

during the term of four years. He, together with the vice-president, is nominally chosen by a system of double election through an electoral college, but in practice this system operates merely as a roundabout way of getting the judgment of the people, voting by states.

The Constitution directs each state to choose a number of “presidential electors equal to the number of its representatives in Congress”

(both senators and members of the House of Representatives). Members of Congress and holders of Federal offices are ineligible as electors. These electors (in 1908, 483) meet in each state on the second Monday in January, and give their votes in writing for the president and vice-president. The votes are transmitted to Washington, and there opened by the president of the Senate, in the presence of both houses of Congress, and counted. A majority of the whole number of electors is necessary to elect. If no person have such majority, the president is chosen by the House of Representatives voting by states, and the vice-president is chosen by the Senate. This plan of creating an electoral college to select the president was expected to secure the choice by the best citizens of each state, in a tranquil and deliberate way, of the man whom they in their unfettered discretion should deem fittest to be the chief magistrate of the Union. In fact, however, the electors exercise no discretion, and are chosen under a pledge to vote for a particular candidate. Each party during the summer preceding a presidential election holds a huge party meeting, called a national convention, which nominates candidates for president and vice-president. (See post, § 33.) Candidates for the office of elector are also nominated by party conventions, and the persons who are in each state chosen to be electors—they are chosen by a strict party vote—are expected to vote, and do in point of fact vote, for the presidential candidates named by their respective parties at the national conventions. The Constitution leaves the method of choosing electors to each state, but by universal custom they are now everywhere elected by popular vote, and all the electors for each state are voted for on a “general ticket.” In the early days the electors were chosen in many states by the legislatures, but by 1832 South Carolina was the only state retaining this method, and in 1868 she also dropped it. Some states also, for a time, chose electors by districts, but by 1832 all had adopted the “general ticket” system. Michigan, however, in the election of 1892 reverted to the “district” system, thereby dividing its electoral vote. Thus the election is virtually an election by states, and the struggle concentrates itself in the large states, where the great parties are often nearly equally divided, e.g. the party which carries New York by even a small majority gains all the 39 electoral votes of that state. The polling for electors takes place early in November on the same day over the whole union, and when the result is known the contest is over, because the subsequent meeting and voting of the electors is a mere matter of form. Nevertheless, the system here described, being an election by states, is not the same thing as a general popular vote over the union, for it sometimes happens that a person is chosen president who has received a minority of the popular vote cast.

The Constitution requires the president to be a native-born citizen of the United States, not under thirty-five years of age, and for fourteen years resident in the United States. There is no legal limitation to his re-eligibility any number of times; but tradition, dating from the refusal of George Washington to be nominated for a third term, has virtually established the rule that no person shall be president for more than two continuous terms. If the president dies, the vice-president steps into his place; and if the latter also dies in office, the succession passes to the secretary of state. The president receives a salary of $75,000 a year, besides $25,000 a year for travelling expenses, and has an official residence called the Executive Mansion, or more familiarly the White House.

Functions of the President.—These may be grouped into three classes: those which (1) relate to foreign affairs; (2) concern legislation; (3) relate to domestic administration.

The president appoints ambassadors and ministers to foreign countries, and receives those sent by foreign countries to the United States. He has, through his secretary of state, immediate direction of all negotiations with such countries, and an unfettered initiative in all foreign affairs. He does not, however, enjoy a free hand in finally determining the foreign policy of the government. Treaties require the approval of two-thirds of the Senate, and the foreign affairs committee of that body is usually kept informed of the negotiations which are being conducted by the executive. The power to declare war formally belongs to Congress; but the executive may, without an act of Congress, virtually engage in hostilities and thus bring about a state of war, as happened in 1845-46, when war broke out with Mexico.

As respects legislation, the position of the president is in marked contrast to that of the British crown. While nearly all important measures are brought into parliament by the ministers of the sovereign, and nominally under his instructions, the American president cannot introduce bills either directly or through his