will even in an infinitesimal degree affect the essential courses of administration. There are so many cooks mixing their ingredients in the national broth that it seems hopeless, this thing of changing one cook at a time. * * * * * The charm of our constitutional ideal has now been long enough wound up to enable sober men who do not believe in political witchcraft to judge what it has accomplished, and is likely still to accomplish, without further winding. The Constitution is not honored by blind worship. The more open-eyed we become, as a nation, to its defects, and the prompter we grow in applying with the unhesitating courage of conviction all thoroughly-tested or well-considered expedients necessary to make self-government among us a straightforward thing of simple method, single, unstinted power, and clear responsibility, the nearer will we approach to the sound sense and practical genius of the great and honorable statesmen of 1787. And the first step towards emancipation from the timidity and false pride which have led us to seek to thrive despite the defects of our national system rather than seem to deny its perfection is a fearless criticism of that system. When we shall have examined all its parts without sentiment, and ganged all its functions by the standards of practical common sense, we shall have established anew our right to the claim of political sagacity; and it will remain only to act intelligently upon what our opened eyes have seen in order to prove again the justice of our claim to political genius. INDEX. Aberdeen. Lord, and civil service reform, 285. Accounts, British public, how audited, 144, how kept, 145; French public, how kept, 145; federal, how audited, 175-179; how kept formerly, 179. Adams, John, on the constitutional balances, 12, 13; influence of, as President, 41; claim of originality for the Constitution, 55, 249. Adams, Samuel, 209. "Address" of early Presidents to Senate, 239. Administration, talents for, not encouraged in U. S., 199, 200; questions of, now predominant, 203; divorced from legislation in U. S., 251-253; training necessary for, 255, 256; contrasted with legislation, 273, 274; not less important than legislation, 297; must be debated, 302; tendency towards widening sphere of national, 316, 317. Alabama claims, in Senate, 51. Alien and Sedition Laws, 21. Amendment, difficulty of constitutional, 242, 243; extra-constitutional, 243. "American system" of protective tariffs, 167. Appointing power of Speaker of House, 103; history of, of Speaker, 104; accustomed use of, for party ends, 108. Appropriation, bills, "general," 150; former methods of, 151; stinginess of Congress in, 152, 159; bills, reported at any time, 153; bills, specially debated, 78, 154, 155, 183, 184; bills, in the Senate, 155-158.