What does this excerpt mean in relation to the Gilded age? If he is indeed the executive, he must act almost entirely by delegation, and is in the hands of his colleagues. He is likely to be praised if things go well, and blamed if they go wrong;
He is the representative of no constituency, but of the whole people… It is for this reason that it will often prefer to choose a man rather than a party. A president whom it trusts can not only lead it, but form it to his own views.
It is the extraordinary isolation imposed upon the president by our system that makes the character and opportunity of his office so extraordinary. In him are centered both opinion and party…
The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit; and if Congress be overborne by him, it will be no fault of the makers of the Constitution,- it will be from no lack of constitutional powers on its part, but only because the President has the nation behind him and Congress has not. He has no means of compelling Congress except through public opinion…