cognized
rule of organization in all governmental and business affairs?
Why provide educated and trained experts for all subordinate
positions, and none for the head or chief, vastly the most important
of all?

In the first place, it is important to observe that the matter
rests absolutely in the hands of the President. Congress has no
power in the matter. To create by law a military head for the army
would be a violation of the essential provision of the Constitution
which makes the President commander-in-chief.

GENERAL GRANT'S SPECIAL POWERS

In the case of General Grant, Congress fully recognized this fact,
saying: "Under the direction and during the pleasure of the
President" he "may" command the armies of the United States. Even
this, if intended as conveying authority to the President, was
superfluous, and if intended as more than that would have been
unconstitutional. In fact, it was only a suggestion, intended to
be entirely within the limits of constitutional propriety, of what
was the general opinion of the people and of Congress, that after
three years of failure the President ought to select a soldier and
put him in actual command of all the armies. The President then
went far beyond the suggestion of Congress, and even to the extreme
limit of military abdication. He not only gave General Grant
absolute, independent command, placing at his disposal all the
military resources of the country, but he even denied to himself
any knowledge whatever of the general's plans. In this patriotic
act of extreme self-abnegation President Lincoln undoubtedly acted
in exact accord with what he believed to be the expressed popular
opinion, and probably in accord with his own judgment and inclination;
for no one could have been more painfully aware than he had by
that time become of the absolute necessity of having a military
man actually in control of all the armies, or more desirous than
he of relief from a responsibility to which he and his advisers
had proved so unequal. But it must be admitted that in this
President Lincoln went beyond the limit fixed by his constitutional
obligation as commander-in-chief. He would have more exactly
fulfilled that obligation if he had endeavored faithfully to
comprehend and adopt as his own all the plans proposed by his chosen
and trusted general-in-chief, guarding the latter against all
possible interference, theretofore so pe