Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Francis Lieber to Judge Thayer, March 23, 1864

New York, March 23, 1864.

. . . If you will pardon a purely conversational letter, I would take the liberty of asking you whether there is any truth in the statement that the question whether our Cabinet ministers ought to have a right to sit in either house, as the French ministers had under Louis Philippe, is assuming a somewhat practical character? I believe that a truly representative government requires that ministers should be on the spot, to be questioned and to defend the cabinet. You will remember the state of things at one period under General Jackson. Indeed, I think that in our system, in which the President is for four years as unassailable as a hereditary monarch, the presence of ministers in Congress is imperatively necessary. The English, who can change the administration by a vote of the Commons, are in this respect more republican. Mr. Clay, with whom I corresponded on the subject, was in favor of ministers having a seat. The topic ought to be gravely considered, and a thorough report should be made. Are you aware that Napoleon III., who has always pronounced himself strongly and officially against the responsibility of ministers as an impediment to good ruling (he means, of course, centralism), pointed on one occasion to the United States, where “the ministers are entirely amenable to the President and simply his servants, and where, nevertheless, a republic exists.” A Bonaparte inherently hates representative liberty.

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 344

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