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CHAP.

D. C. Roper, The United States Post Office (New York, 1917).
E. W. Kemmerer, Postal Savings; History and Critical Study of the Postal XXII
Savings System of the United States (Princeton, 1917).

W. L. Wanlass, "The United States Department of Agriculture; a Study in
Administration," Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies in Hist. and Polit. Sci.,
XXXVIII, 1-131 (1920).

C. R. Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States
(New York, 1915).

G. W. James, Reclaiming the Arid West (New York, 1917).

C. D. Wright and W. C. Hunt, History and Growth of the United States Census (Washington, 1900).

Annual reports of the heads of the several departments, transmitted in advance of the convening of Congress in regular session in December.

CHAPTER XXIII

Importance of Congress

Why the bicameral system was adopted

THE STRUCTURE OF CONGRESS

"Congress," writes a former distinguished member of that body, "is the law-making department of the government, and this function, in a government which is theoretically one of law, entitles it to preeminence under our system. It is the established organ by which the people are supposed to declare the policies that are to govern them." The two houses do not, of course, form such a sovereign, omnipotent assembly as is the British Parliament. Their powers, taken as a group, are distinctly inferior to those of the parliaments of France, Italy, Canada, and many other countries, Congress is strictly bound by the constitution, which it has no power to amend; it cannot appoint or fully control the executive; it is hedged about by the reserved authority of forty-eight state legislatures, whose functions are just as well based as its own and cannot be invaded by it. Nevertheless, whatever legislative power the nation possesses is vested exclusively and permanently in Congress and, as has already appeared, and will be more fully explained below, to its strictly legislative powers are added, largely as a result of the application of the principle of checks and balances, four or five other powers of first-rate practical importance. We now turn to a study of this interesting and imposing part of our governmental system-its structure, organization, procedure, functions, powers, limitations, features of strength and elements of weakness.

The easiest decision that the framers of the constitution had to make was to provide in their plan for a national congress. For thirteen years the common affairs of the colonies and later states had been managed by such an agency; the constitutional convention. was itself held by congressional authority; the first necessity of any republican scheme of government was recognized to be a representative body; and every scheme proposed for the convention's consideration made Congress an indispensable feature. The only doubt,

1
'S. W. McCall, The Business of Congress, 3.

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XXIII

aside from questions of power, was as to whether there should be CHAP. one house or two, and what, in either case, should be the basis of membership. The decision in favor of the bicameral form was influenced by several considerations. In the first place, practically all precedent, except that of the existing Congress, pointed in that direction. The English Parliament consisted of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Most of the colonies had had two legislative chambers. All of the new state constitutions except those of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Vermont provided for a relatively large, popularly chosen lower house and a smaller, more conservative upper house. And, on the whole, the plan had worked well. A second consideration, of a more theoretical nature, was that it was unwise to entrust the large legislative powers that were now to be given the national government to a single chamber-most of all, to one whose members were to be elected by direct popular vote. A more conservative upper house seemed to be needed as a check upon hasty, prejudiced, or otherwise ill-considered legislative actions. Finally, strong practical reasons appeared for creating two houses. The conflict that arose in the convention between the small and large states has been described.1 It might easily have terminated the deliberations and frustrated all hope of a stronger union. The act that chiefly averted this disaster was, as we have seen, the adoption of the so-called Connecticut compromise, under which the states were to be represented according to numbers in a lower house but on a footing of equality in an upper house; only in the organization of the Senate was a practical way found of not merely saying that the states were equal but giving them an actual equality of power and importance.

Events have justified the decision. We shall see that in the domain of local government the bicameral principle has little to commend it, for the reason that, in the main, legislative action does not there extend to matters affecting life, liberty, or other fundamental interests and rights. The plan is not followed in English local government, and it is being fast abandoned in our own country, notably in commission-governed cities. Of late, it has been brought into question, too, as applied to our state legislatures. But as applied to Congress it is generally and properly regarded as useful. It entails added expense and sometimes leads to undesirable delay and shifting of responsibility. But it lends stability, checks legislation on mere impulse, ensures the consideration of 1See p. 135.

The

bicameral

system

useful

in the government

national

CHAP.
XXIII

The House of Representatives

By whom elected

measures from more varied angles than would otherwise be the case, and, as now operated, imposes no restraints on the influence of public opinion. The kind of representation for which the Senate provides is different from, but hardly less desirable than, the kind provided for by the House.

How this comes about will appear if we look into the composition of the two branches. In contrast with both the president and the Senate, the House of Representatives was intended to be an organ of government directly representing the general body of the people; and accordingly the constitution provides that the members shall be elected "by the people of the several states." Under a unitary form of government, such as prevails in England and France, members of the popular branch of the legislature are chosen in accordance with uniform suffrage regulations, which are laid down by national laws. In some federally-organized states, also, this is the case; in the former German empire members of the Reichstag were elected under a single imperial suffrage law, notwithstanding wide differences in the suffrage systems of the states, and the same is true in the present German republic. A different plan, however, prevails in the United States. No uniform national suffrage system has ever been set up here, either by the constitution or by law. The constitution stipulates only that for purposes of congressional elections "the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature;" so that, whoever is entitled under the constitution and laws of any given state to vote for a member of the lower branch of the legislature of that state is ipso facto qualified to vote in that state for a member of Congress. Under the Fifteenth Amendment a state may not withhold the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and under the Nineteenth, on the ground of sex. But these restrictions are general, and do not apply to congressional elections more than to others. In an earlier chapter we have seen that suffrage regulations vary greatly from state to state. Hence it follows that in some states only citizens can vote for members of Congress, while in others persons who have merely declared their intention to be naturalized can do so; that educational tests are imposed here and taxpaying qualifications there; that periods of residence differ, and also requirements of registration.

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Basis of

apportion.

members

Although a broadly national, popular body, the House is far- CHAP. ther constructed with reference to state lines. Every representative is elected within given state, and every state has, as such, a definite quota of members. Provisional quotas were assigned in the ment of constitution as originally adopted, to serve until a census could be taken; and thereafter representatives were to be apportioned among the several states "according to their respective numbers," which were to be computed by "adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. 1 The "other persons" referred to were, of course, slaves; and this clause, as has been pointed out, formed one of the important compromises of the constitution. With the abolition of slavery, the three-fifths provision became obsolete, and the constitution now provides simply, in the Fourteenth Amendment, for apportionment among the states "according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." It also provides for a reduction in the representation of any state which withholds voting privileges from adult male citizens of the United States "except for participation in rebellion, or other crime." Many states, as we have seen, are, and have long been, liable to this penalty, though enforcement of it has never been found practicable.3

After the results of a decennial census are known, Congress decides how many members the House of Representatives shall have during the next ten years and allots to each state its share of the total. The apportionment must be made according to population, as just explained, with the qualification that each state is to have at least one representative, regardless of how scant its numbers may be. It is curious to note today that one of the grounds on which the constitution was opposed during the debates on ratification was that the House of Representatives would be too small; one of the papers in the "Federalist" is devoted entirely to an answer to that objection. As a matter of fact, the House long ago reached the point of unwieldiness. Starting with 65 in 1789, the membership rose at once, after the census of 1790, to 103. Following other censuses, it mounted as follows: 1820, 213; 1870, 292; 1880, 325; 1890, 356; 1900, 386; 1910, 435. Every reapportionment in our history

'Art. I, § 2, cl. 3.

"See p. 207.

'See p. 135.

No. LVII (Lodge's ed., 350-355).

Growth

of mem

bership

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