The really subordinate position of the presidency is hidden from view partly by that dignity which is imparted to the office by its conspicuous place at the front of a great government, and its security and definiteness of tenure; partly by the independence apparently secured to it by its erection into an entirely distinct and separate ‘branch’ of the government; and partly by those circumstances of our history which have thrust our Presidents forward, during one or two notable periods, as real originators of policy and leaders in affairs. The President has never been powerful, however, except at such times as he has had Congress at his back. While the new government was a-making--and principally because it was a-making--Washington and his secretaries were looked to by Congress for guidance; and during the presidencies of several of Washington’s immediate successors the continued prominence of questions of foreign policy and of financial management kept the officers of the government in a position of semi-leadership. Jackson was masterful with or without right. He entered upon his presidency as he entered upon his campaign in Florida, without asking too curiously for constitutional warrant for what he was to undertake. In the settlement of the southern question Congress went for a time on all-fours with the President. He was powerful because Congress was acquiescent. But such cases prove rather the usefulness than the strength of the presidency. Congress has, at several very grave crises in national affairs, been seasonably supplied with an energetic leader or agent in the person of the President. At other times, when Congress was in earnest in pushing views not shared by the President, our executives have either been overwhelmed, as Johnson was, or have had to decline upon much humbler services. Their negotiations with foreign governments are as likely to be disapproved as approved; their budgets are cut down like a younger son’s portion; their appointments are censured and their administrations criticised without chance for a counter-hearing. They create nothing. Their veto is neither revisory nor corrective. It is merely obstructive. It is, as I have said, a simple blunt negation, oftentimes necessarily spoken without discrimination against a good bill because of a single bad clause in it. In such a contest between origination and negation origination must always win, or government must stand still.