As soon as any attempt is made to devise a system which does concentrate responsibility and power, serious difficulties are encountered.  Concentration of responsibility can be brought about in one of two ways—­either by subordinating the legislature to the executive or the executive to the legislature.  There are precedents both here and abroad in favor of each of these methods, and their comparative advantages must be briefly sketched.

The subordination of the executive to the legislature would conform to the early American political tradition.  We have usually associated executive authority with arbitrary and despotic political methods, and we have tended to assume that a legislative body was much more representative of popular opinion.  During or immediately succeeding the Revolutionary War, the legislatures of the several states were endowed with almost complete control—­a control which was subject only to the constitutional bills of rights; and it has been seriously and frequently proposed to revive this complete legislative responsibility.  Under such a system, the legislature would elect the chief executive, if not the judicial officials; and it would become like the British Parliament exclusively and comprehensively responsible for the work of government—­both in its legislative and administrative branches.

The foregoing type of organization has so many theoretical advantages that one would like to see it tried in some American states.  But for the present it is not likely to be tried.  The responsibility of the legislature could not be exercised without the creation of some institution corresponding to the British Cabinet:  and the whole tendency of American political development has been away from any approach to the English Parliamentary system.  Whatever the theoretical advantages of legislative omnipotence, it would constitute in this country a dangerous and dubious method of concentrating local governmental responsibility and power.  It might succeed, in case it were accompanied by the adoption of some effective measures for improving the quality of the representation—­such, for instance, as the abandonment of all existing traditions necessitating the residence of the representative in the district he represents.  This American political practice always has and always will tend to give mediocrity to the American popular representation, but it corresponds to one of the most fundamental of American political prejudices, and for the present its abandonment is out of the question.  The work of improving the quality of the average American representative from a small district appears to be hopeless, because as a matter of fact such small districts and the work imposed on their representatives can hardly prove tempting to able men; and unless the American legislator is really capable of becoming exceptionally representative, the fastening of exclusive responsibility upon the state legislatures could hardly result in immediate success.  Its intrinsic merits might carry it to ultimate success, but not until it had transformed many American political practices and traditions.