people who read more than any people who ever lived, who read so many newspapers—­should have such bad newspapers.  The papers are not so good as the English, because they have not the same motive to be good as the English papers.  At a political “crisis,” as we say—­that is, when the fate of an administration is unfixed, when it depends on a few votes yet unsettled, upon a wavering and veering opinion—­effective articles in great journals become of essential moment.  The Times has made many ministries.  When, as of late, there has been a long continuance of divided Parliaments, of Governments which were without “brute voting power,” and which depended on intellectual strength, the support of the most influential organ of English opinion has been of critical moment.  If a Washington newspaper could have turned out Mr. Lincoln, there would have been good writing and fine argument in the Washington newspapers.  But the Washington newspapers can no more remove a President during his term of place than the Times can remove a lord mayor during his year of office.  Nobody cares for a debate in Congress which “comes to nothing,” and no one reads long articles which have no influence on events.  The Americans glance at the heads of news, and through the paper.  They do not enter upon a discussion.  They do not think of entering upon a discussion which would be useless.

After saying that the division of the legislature and the executive in Presidential governments weakens the legislative power, it may seem a contradiction to say that it also weakens the executive power.  But it is not a contradiction.  The division weakens the whole aggregate force of Government—­the entire imperial power; and therefore it weakens both its halves.  The executive is weakened in a very plain way.  In England a strong Cabinet can obtain the concurrence of the legislature in all acts which facilitate its administration; it is itself, so to say, the legislature.  But a President may be hampered by the Parliament, and is likely to be hampered.  The natural tendency of the members of every legislature is to make themselves conspicuous.  They wish to gratify an ambition laudable or blamable; they wish to promote the measures they think best for the public welfare; they wish to make their will felt in great affairs.  All these mixed motives urge them to oppose the executive.  They are embodying the purposes of others if they aid; they are advancing their own opinions if they defeat:  they are first if they vanquish; they are auxiliaries if they support.  The weakness of the American executive used to be the great theme of all critics before the Confederate rebellion.  Congress and committees of Congress of course impeded the executive when there was no coercive public sentiment to check and rule them.