By the first section the second Monday in the January succeeding their appointment is fixed for the meeting of the electors and the giving of their votes. The postponement from the date formerly in force, namely, the first Wednesday in December, is to give the States full opportunity to determine any questions that may arise with reference to the appointment of their respective electors.

The second section of the act declares: "If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for the final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determinations shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determinations made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to the said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned."

The effect of this section is, it will be seen, not to delegate to the States the counting of the electoral votes, but to determine what the two Houses of Congress, acting concurrently, will, under certain circumstances, consider conclusive evidence as to the regularity of the selection. of the electors whose votes they are to count.

The act goes on in § 3 to provide that the executive of each State shall, under the seal of the State, transmit to the Secretary of State of the United States a certificate showing what electors have been appointed, the votes cast for them, and, where there has been a controversy or contest, the manner in which settled. These certificates the Secretary of State is to publish in some news

paper, and at their first meeting send copies thereof to the two Houses of Congress. Each elector is also to be supplied with the same certificate, in triplicate, under the seal of the State. As determined by a previous law, one of these copies is to be sent by messenger to the President of the United States Senate at Washington, D. C., one to be forwarded to him by mail, and the third delivered to the judge of the district in which the electors assemble to cast their vote.

Sections 4, 5 and 6 of the law regulate the counting by Congress of the electoral votes as reported by the State.

The final section (7) provides that the joint meeting of the two Houses "shall not be dissolved until the count of electoral votes shall be completed, and the result declared; and no recess shall be taken unless a question shall have arisen in regard to counting any such votes, or otherwise under this act, in which case it shall be competent for either House, acting separately, in the manner hereinbefore provided, to direct a recess of each House, not beyond the next calendar day, Sunday excepted, at the hour of ten o'clock in the forenoon. But if the counting of the electoral votes and the declaration of the result shall have not been completed before the fifth calendar day next after such meeting of the two Houses, no further or other recess shall be taken by either House."

Presidential succession

The Constitution provides that: "In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as

President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected."

Act of 1792

The Act of March 1, 1792, relative to the election of the President and Vice-President also fixed the succession in case of the death, removal, resignation, or disability of these officers. It declared: "In case of removal, death, resignation or disability both of the President and VicePresident of the United States, the President of the Senate pro tempore, and in case there shall be no President of the Senate, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives for the time being shall act as President of the United States until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected."

These sections of the act of 1792, though open to both constitutional and political objections, remained in force until 1886. By an act passed that year the President pro tempore of the Senate or the Speaker of the House no longer appear in the line of succession, their places being taken by heads of the executive departments in a stated order.

The Constitution provides that the President and VicePresident shall hold office for the term of four years. The proper length of time and the propriety of forbidding reelection, were discussed in the Convention and the fouryear period with eligibility to re-election finally agreed upon. Nothing is said in the Constitution as to the number of times the same person may be re-elected President, but, as is well known, the propriety of restricting to two the number of successive terms has become firmly rooted in the American mind.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE PRESIDENT

By I of Art. II, it is declared that "The executive power shall be vested" in the President. By § III it is required that "he shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed." In ultimate resort, then, all Federal executive authority is in the President, and upon him lies the responsibility for seeing that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed, that is to say, that the armed and other forces of the Nation are, if necessary, employed to maintain in efficient operation the government of the United States over such districts as are under its sovereignty, and everywhere and under all circumstances to protect its officers in the performance of their duties.

In fulfilment of the responsibility thus constitutionally imposed, the President has, by necessary implication, the power to use all the specific powers conferred by the Constitution upon him. Chief of these is, of course, his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval forces of the Nation. He has also authority in many directions given him by statutes of Congress, with reference, for example, to the use of the militia, and to giving orders to subordinate executive officials.

Aside from these express powers, and those necessarily implied in them, the President has no authority to act.1

1 But see In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1; 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 658; 34 L. ed. 55. In this case the court comes perilously near to holding, if in

That is to say, the obligation to take care that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed, is an obligation but confers in itself no powers. It is an obligation which is to be fulfilled by the exercise of those powers which the Constitution and Congress have seen fit to confer. At the time of the threatened resistance of the people of the Southern States to Federal law in 1860, President Buchanan, under the advice of his AttorneyGeneral, held himself practically powerless because of the lack of statutory authority to take the necessary steps. President Lincoln, upon his assuming office, gave a broader interpretation to existing laws conferring authority upon him, and Congress soon by statute further increased his

powers.

The president as administrative chief

The functions of a chief executive of a sovereign State are, generally speaking, of two kinds-political and administrative. In different countries, with different governmental forms, the emphasis laid respectively upon each of these functions varies. In some, the powers and influence of the executive head are almost wholly political. In others, as for example Switzerland, the political duties of the executive are so fully under legislative control that the chief importance is upon the administrative side.

In the United States it was undoubtedly intended that the President should be little more than a political chief; that is to say, one whose functions should, in the main, consist in the performance of those political duties which are not subject to judicial control. It is quite clear that

fact it did not actually hold, that the President has inherent executive power; that is, powers inherent in him as chief executive, and not as expressly given him by the Constitution, or implied from the powers expressly given, or constitutionally granted to him by Congress,