State of the Union AddressesHarding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel)
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State of the Union Addresses
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
I am very sure we shall have no conflict of opinion about constitutional
duties or authority. During the anxieties of war, when necessity seemed
compelling there were excessive grants of authority and all extraordinary
concentration of powers in the Chief Executive. The repeal of war-time
legislation and the automatic expirations which attended the peace
proclamations have put an end to these emergency excesses but I have the
wish to go further than that. I want to join you ill restoring-, ill the
most cordial way, the spirit of coordination and cooperation, and that
mutuality of confidence and respect which is necessary ill representative
popular government.
Encroachment upon the functions of Congress or attempted dictation of its
policy are not to be thought of, much less attempted, but there is all
insistent call for harmony of purpose and concord of action to speed the
solution of the difficult problems confronting both the legislative and
executive branches of the Government.
It is worth while to make allusion here to the character of our Clove
Government, mindful as one must be that an address to you is no less it
message to all our people, for whom you speak most intimately. Ours is it
popular Government through political parties. We divide along political
lines, and I would ever have it so. I do not mean that partisan preferences
should hinder any public servant in the performance of a conscientious and
patriotic official duty. We saw partisan lines utterly obliterated when war
imperiled, and our faith in the Republic was riveted anew. We ought not to
find these partisan lines obstructing the expeditious solution of the
urgent problems of peace.
Granting that we are fundamentally a representative popular Government,
with political parties the governing agencies, I believe the political
party in power should assume responsibility, determine upon policies ill
the conference which supplements conventions and election campaigns, and
then strive for achievement through adherence to the accepted policy.
There is vastly greater security, immensely more of the national
viewpoint, much larger and prompter accomplishment where our divisions are
along party lines, in the broader and loftier sense, than to divide
geographically, or according to pursuits, or personal following. For a
century and a third, parties have been charged with responsibility and held
to strict accounting. When they fail, they are relieved of authority; and
the system has brought its to a national eminence no less than a world
example.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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