Abraham Lincoln Quotes
In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?
Lincoln, Abraham. "Speech in the United States House of Representatives on the Presidential Veto." 27 July 1848. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 1, Rutgers University Press, 1953, p. 504.
At the time the power and prestige of Congress relative to the Presidency , was much greater than it is today. It was McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, who began a 20th century trend which led to a reversal of the relationship between the Executive Branch and the Legislative.
In Dolgoff’s era, his argument was that the political parties were so powerful that it was they who controlled who held public office, not the voters. And the parties were controlled by a few party leaders. However, when the system was reformed in the latter part of the 20th century, the individual incumbent member of Congress in America was so hard to dislodge due to the role of money and the advantage of incumbency, that the class of professional politicians was still very powerful. Reform had reduced the control of political parties but not politicians.
This was his version of the governing body of a republican commonwealth. His assumption was that the ablest men would be the nobility, the educated and religious (Catholic) elite.
There was a belief among some anti-Federalists that the people lost their power by electing representatives and not having a direct democracy as in many New England communities. Ames gave the counter argument.
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
