Front matter (continued 5)

In this country the course of the reform was quite the reverse. Neither the Executive nor Congress began it. The call for it came imperatively from the people; it was a formulated demand of public opinion made upon Congress, and it had to be made again and again, each time with more determined emphasis, before Congress heeded. It worked its way up from the convictions of the many to the purposes of the few. Amongst the chief difficulties that have stood in its way, and which still block its perfect realization, is that peculiarity of structure which I have just now pointed out as intrinsic in the scheme of divided power which runs through the Constitution. One of the conditions precedent to any real and lasting reform of the civil service, in a country whose public service is moulded by the conditions of self-government, is the drawing of a sharp line of distinction between those offices which are political and those which are non-political. The strictest rules of business discipline, of merit-tenure and earned promotion, must rule every office whose incumbent has naught to do with choosing between policies; but no rules except the choice of parties can or should make and unmake, reward or punish, those officers whose privilege it is to fix upon the political purposes which administration shall be made to serve. These latter are not many under any form of government. There are said to be but fifty such at most in the civil service of Great Britain; but these fifty go in or out as the balance of power shifts from party to party. In the case of our own civil service it would, I take it, be extremely hard to determine where the line should be drawn. In all the higher grades this particular distinction is quite obscured. A doubt exists as to the Cabinet itself. Are the Secretaries political or non-political officers? It would seem that they are exclusively neither. They are at least semi-political. They are, on the one hand, merely the servants of Congress, and yet, on the other hand, they have enough freedom of discretion to mar and color, if not to choose, political ends. They can wreck plans, if they cannot make them. Should they be made permanent officials because they are mere Secretaries, or should their tenure depend upon the fortunes of parties because they have many chances to render party services? And if the one rule or the other is to be applied to them, to how many, and to which of their chief subordinates, is it to be extended? If they are not properly or necessarily party men, let them pass the examinations and run the gauntlet of the usual tests of efficiency, let errand-boys work up to Secretary-ships; but if not, let their responsibility to their party be made strict and determinate. That is the cardinal point of practical civil service reform.

This doubt as to the exact status in the system of the chief ministers of state is a most striking commentary on the system itself. Its complete self is logical and simple. But its complete self exists only in theory. Its real self offers a surprise and presents a mystery at every change of view. The practical observer who seeks for facts and actual conditions of organization is often sorely puzzled to come at the real methods of government. Pitfalls await him on every side. If constitutional lawyers of strait-laced consciences filled Congress and officered the departments, every clause of the Constitution would be accorded a formal obedience, and it would be as easy to know beforehand just what the government will be like inside to-morrow as it is now to know what it was like outside yesterday. But neither the knowledge nor the consciences of politicians keep them very close to the Constitution; and it is with politicians that we have to deal nowadays in studying the government. Every government is largely what the men are who constitute it. If the character or opinions of legislators and administrators change from time to time, the nature of the government changes with them; and as both their characters and their opinions do change very often it is very hard to make a picture of the government which can be said to have been perfectly faithful yesterday, and can be confidently expected to be exactly accurate to-morrow. Add to these embarrassments, which may be called the embarrassments of human nature, other embarrassments such as our system affords, the embarrassments of subtle legal distinctions, a fine theoretical plan made in delicate hair-lines, requirements of law which can hardly be met and can easily and naturally be evaded or disregarded, and you have in full the conception of the difficulties which attend a practical exposition of the real facts of federal administration. It is not impossible to point out what the Executive was intended to be, what it has sometimes been, or what it might be; nor is it forbidden the diligent to discover the main conditions which mould it to the forms of congressional supremacy; but more than this is not to be expected.

VI. CONCLUSION.

Political philosophy must analyze political history; it must distinguish what is due to the excellence of the people, and what to the excellence of the laws; it must carefully calculate the exact effect of each part of the constitution, though thus it may destroy many an idol of the multitude, and detect the secret of utility where but few imagined it to lie.—BAGEHOT.

CONGRESS always makes what haste it can to legislate. It is the prime object of its rules to expedite law-making. Its customs are fruits of its characteristic diligence in enactment. Be the matters small or great, frivolous or grave, which busy it, its aim is to have laws always a-making. Its temper is strenuously legislative. That it cannot regulate all the questions to which its attention is weekly invited is its misfortune, not its fault; is due to the human limitation of its faculties, not to any narrow circumscription of its desires. If its committee machinery is inadequate to the task of bringing to action more than one out of every hundred of the bills introduced, it is not because the quick clearance of the docket is not the motive of its organic life. If legislation, therefore, were the only or the chief object for which it should live, it would not be possible to withhold admiration from those clever hurrying rules and those inexorable customs which seek to facilitate it. Nothing but a doubt as to whether or not Congress should confine itself to law-making can challenge with a question the utility of its organization as a facile statute-devising machine.

The political philosopher of these days of self-government has, however, something more than a doubt with which to gainsay the usefulness of a sovereign representative body which confines itself to legislation to the exclusion of all other functions. Buckle declared, indeed, that the chief use and value of legislation nowadays lay in its opportunity and power to remedy the mistakes of the legislation of the past; that it was beneficent only when it carried healing in its wings; that repeal was more blessed than enactment. And it is certainly true that the greater part of the labor of legislation consists in carrying the loads recklessly or bravely shouldered in times gone by, when the animal which is now a bull was only a calf, and in completing, if they may be completed, the tasks once undertaken in the shape of unambitious schemes which at the outset looked innocent enough. Having got his foot into it, the legislator finds it difficult, if not impossible, to get it out again. "The modern industrial organization, including banks, corporations, joint-stock companies, financial devices, national debts, paper currency, national systems of taxation, is largely the creation of legislation (not in its historical origin, but in the mode of its existence and in its authority), and is largely regulated by legislation. Capital is the breath of life to this organization, and every day, as the organization becomes more complex and delicate, the folly of assailing capital or credit becomes greater. At the same time it is evident that the task of the legislator to embrace in his view the whole system, to adjust his rules so that the play of the civil institutions shall not alter the play of the economic forces, requires more training and more acumen. Furthermore, the greater the complication and delicacy of the industrial system, the greater the chances for cupidity when backed by craft, and the task of the legislator to meet and defeat the attempts of this cupidity is one of constantly increasing difficulty."[57]

Legislation unquestionably generates legislation. Every statute may be said to have a long lineage of statutes behind it; and whether that lineage be honorable or of ill repute is as much a question as to each individual statute as it can be with regard to the ancestry of each individual legislator. Every statute in its turn has a numerous progeny, and only time and opportunity can decide whether its offspring will bring it honor or shame. Once begin the dance of legislation, and you must struggle through its mazes as best you can to its breathless end,—if any end there be.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the enacting, revising, tinkering, repealing of laws should engross the attention and engage the entire energy of such a body as Congress. It is, however, easy to see how it might be better employed; or, at least, how it might add others to this overshadowing function, to the infinite advantage of the government. Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; and even more important than legislation is the instruction and guidance in political affairs which the people might receive from a body which kept all national concerns suffused in a broad daylight of discussion. There is no similar legislature in existence which is so shut up to the one business of law-making as is our Congress. As I have said, it in a way superintends administration by the exercise of semi-judicial powers of investigation, whose limitations and insufficiency are manifest. But other national legislatures command administration and verify their name of "parliaments" by talking official acts into notoriety. Our extra-constitutional party conventions, short-lived and poor in power as they are, constitute our only machinery for that sort of control of the executive which consists in the award of personal rewards and punishments. This is the cardinal fact which differentiates Congress from the Chamber of Deputies and from Parliament, and which puts it beyond the reach of those eminently useful functions whose exercise would so raise it in usefulness and in dignity.

An effective representative body, gifted with the power to rule, ought, it would seem, not only to speak the will of the nation, which Congress does, but also to lead it to its conclusions, to utter the voice of its opinions, and to serve as its eyes in superintending all matters of government,—which Congress does not do. The discussions which take place in Congress are aimed at random. They now and again strike rather sharply the tender spots in this, that, or the other measure; but, as I have said, no two measures consciously join in purpose or agree in character, and so debate must wander as widely as the subjects of debate. Since there is little coherency about the legislation agreed upon, there can be little coherency about the debates. There is no one policy to be attacked or defended, but only a score or two of separate bills. To attend to such discussions is uninteresting; to be instructed by them is impossible. There is some scandal and discomfort, but infinite advantage, in having every affair of administration subjected to the test of constant examination on the part of the assembly which represents the nation. The chief use of such inquisition is, not the direction of those affairs in a way with which the country will be satisfied (though that itself is of course all-important), but the enlightenment of the people, which is always its sure consequence. Very few men are unequal to a danger which they see and understand; all men quail before a threatening which is dark and unintelligible, and suspect what is done behind a screen. If the people could have, through Congress, daily knowledge of all the more important transactions of the governmental offices, an insight into all that now seems withheld and private, their confidence in the executive, now so often shaken, would, I think, be very soon established. Because dishonesty can lurk under the privacies now vouchsafed our administrative agents, much that is upright and pure suffers unjust suspicion. Discoveries of guilt in a bureau cloud with doubts the trustworthiness of a department. As nothing is open enough for the quick and easy detection of peculation or fraud, so nothing is open enough for the due vindication and acknowledgment of honesty. The isolation and privacy which shield the one from discovery cheat the other of reward.

Inquisitiveness is never so forward, enterprising, and irrepressible as in a popular assembly which is given leave to ask questions and is afforded ready and abundant means of getting its questions answered. No cross-examination is more searching than that to which a minister of the Crown is subjected by the all-curious Commons. "Sir Robert Peel once asked to have a number of questions carefully written down which they asked him one day in succession in the House of Commons. They seemed a list of everything that could occur in the British empire or to the brain of a member of parliament."[58] If one considered only the wear and tear upon ministers of state, which the plague of constant interrogation must inflict, he could wish that their lives, if useful, might be spared this blight of unending explanation; but no one can overestimate the immense advantage of a facility so unlimited for knowing all that is going on in the places where authority lives. The conscience of every member of the representative body is at the service of the nation. All that he feels bound to know he can find out; and what he finds out goes to the ears of the country. The question is his, the answer the nation's. And the inquisitiveness of such bodies as Congress is the best conceivable source of information. Congress is the only body which has the proper motive for inquiry, and it is the only body which has the power to act effectively upon the knowledge which its inquiries secure. The Press is merely curious or merely partisan. The people are scattered and unorganized. But Congress is, as it were, the corporate people, the mouthpiece of its will. It is a sovereign delegation which could ask questions with dignity, because with authority and with power to act.

Congress is fast becoming the governing body of the nation, and yet the only power which it possesses in perfection is the power which is but a part of government, the power of legislation. Legislation is but the oil of government. It is that which lubricates its channels and speeds its wheels; that which lessens the friction and so eases the movement. Or perhaps I shall be admitted to have hit upon a closer and apter analogy if I say that legislation is like a foreman set over the forces of government. It issues the orders which others obey. It directs, it admonishes, but it does not do the actual heavy work of governing. A good foreman does, it is true, himself take a hand in the work which he guides; and so I suppose our legislation must be likened to a poor foreman, because it stands altogether apart from that work which it is set to see well done. Members of Congress ought not to be censured too severely, however, when they fail to check evil courses on the part of the executive. They have been denied the means of doing so promptly and with effect. Whatever intention may have controlled the compromises of constitution-making in 1787, their result was to give us, not government by discussion, which is the only tolerable sort of government for a people which tries to do its own governing, but only legislation by discussion, which is no more than a small part of government by discussion. What is quite as indispensable as the debate of problems of legislation is the debate of all matters of administration. It is even more important to know how the house is being built than to know how the plans of the architect were conceived and how his specifications were calculated. It is better to have skillful work—stout walls, reliable arches, unbending rafters, and windows sure to "expel the winter's flaw"—than a drawing on paper which is the admiration of all the practical artists in the country. The discipline of an army depends quite as much upon the temper of the troops as upon the orders of the day.

It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and the disposition of the administrative agents of the government, the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; and unless Congress both scrutinize these things and sift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct. The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function. The argument is not only that discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration. The talk on the part of Congress which we sometimes justly condemn is the profitless squabble of words over frivolous bills or selfish party issues. It would be hard to conceive of there being too much talk about the practical concerns and processes of government. Such talk it is which, when earnestly and purposefully conducted, clears the public mind and shapes the demands of public opinion.

Congress could not be too diligent about such talking; whereas it may easily be too diligent in legislation. It often overdoes that business. It already sends to its Committees bills too many by the thousand to be given even a hasty thought; but its immense committee facilities and the absence of all other duties but that of legislation make it omnivorous in its appetite for new subjects for consideration. It is greedy to have a taste of every possible dish that may be put upon its table, as an "extra" to the constitutional bill of fare. This disposition on its part is the more notable because there is certainly less need for it to hurry and overwork itself at law-making than exists in the case of most other great national legislatures. It is not state and national legislature combined, as are the Commons of England and the Chambers of France. Like the Reichstag of our cousin Germans, it is restricted to subjects of imperial scope. Its thoughts are meant to be kept for national interests. Its time is spared the waste of attention to local affairs. It is even forbidden the vast domain of the laws of property, of commercial dealing, and of ordinary crime. And even in the matter of caring for national interests the way has from the first been made plain and easy for it. There are no clogging feudal institutions to embarrass it. There is no long-continued practice of legal or of royal tyranny for it to cure,—no clearing away of old débris of any sort to delay it in its exercise of a common-sense dominion over a thoroughly modern and progressive nation. It is easy to believe that its legislative purposes might be most fortunately clarified and simplified, were it to square them by a conscientious attention to the paramount and controlling duty of understanding, discussing, and directing administration.

If the people's authorized representatives do not take upon themselves this duty, and by identifying themselves with the actual work of government stand between it and irresponsible, half-informed criticism, to what harassments is the executive not exposed? Led and checked by Congress, the prurient and fearless, because anonymous, animadversions of the Press, now so often premature and inconsiderate, might be disciplined into serviceable capacity to interpret and judge. Its energy and sagacity might be tempered by discretion, and strengthened by knowledge. One of our chief constitutional difficulties is that, in opportunities for informing and guiding public opinion, the freedom of the Press is greater than the freedom of Congress. It is as if newspapers, instead of the board of directors, were the sources of information for the stockholders of a corporation. We look into correspondents' letters instead of into the Congressional Record to find out what is a-doing and a-planning in the departments. Congress is altogether excluded from the arrangement by which the Press declares what the executive is, and conventions of the national parties decide what the executive shall be. Editors are self-constituted our guides, and caucus delegates our government directors.

Since all this curious scattering of functions and contrivance of frail, extra-constitutional machinery of government is the result of that entire separation of the legislative and executive branches of the system which is with us so characteristically and essentially constitutional, it is exceedingly interesting to inquire and important to understand how that separation came to be insisted upon in the making of the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton has in our own times, as well as before, been "severely reproached with having said that the British government was the 'best model in existence.' In 1787 this was a mere truism. However much the men of that day differed they were all agreed in despising and distrusting a priori constitutions and ideally perfect governments, fresh from the brains of visionary enthusiasts, such as sprang up rankly in the soil of the French revolution. The Convention of 1787 was composed of very able men of the English-speaking race. They took the system of government with which they had been familiar, improved it, adapted it to the circumstances with which they had to deal, and put it into successful operation. Hamilton's plan, then, like the others, was on the British model, and it did not differ essentially in details from that finally adopted."[59] It is needful, however, to remember in this connection what has already been alluded to, that when that convention was copying the English Constitution, that Constitution was in a stage of transition, and had by no means fully developed the features which are now recognized as most characteristic of it. Mr. Lodge is quite right in saying that the Convention, in adapting, improved upon the English Constitution with which its members were familiar,—the Constitution of George III. and Lord North, the Constitution which had failed to crush Bute. It could hardly be said with equal confidence, however, that our system as then made was an improvement upon that scheme of responsible cabinet government which challenges the admiration of the world to-day, though it was quite plainly a marked advance upon a parliament of royal nominees and pensionaries and a secret cabinet of "king's friends." The English constitution of that day had a great many features which did not invite republican imitation. It was suspected, if not known, that the ministers who sat in parliament were little more than the tools of a ministry of royal favorites who were kept out of sight behind the strictest confidences of the court. It was notorious that the subservient parliaments of the day represented the estates and the money of the peers and the influence of the King rather than the intelligence and purpose of the nation. The whole "form and pressure" of the time illustrated only too forcibly Lord Bute's sinister suggestion, that "the forms of a free and the ends of an arbitrary government are things not altogether incompatible." It was, therefore, perfectly natural that the warnings to be so easily drawn from the sight of a despotic monarch binding the usages and privileges of self-government to the service of his own intemperate purposes should be given grave heed by Americans, who were the very persons who had suffered most from the existing abuses. It was something more than natural that the Convention of 1787 should desire to erect a Congress which would not be subservient and an executive which could not be despotic. And it was equally to have been expected that they should regard an absolute separation of these two great branches of the system as the only effectual means for the accomplishment of that much desired end. It was impossible that they could believe that executive and legislature could be brought into close relations of coöperation and mutual confidence without being tempted, nay, even bidden, to collude. How could either maintain its independence of action unless each were to have the guaranty of the Constitution that its own domain should be absolutely safe from invasion, its own prerogatives absolutely free from challenge? "They shrank from placing sovereign power anywhere. They feared that it would generate tyranny; George III. had been a tyrant to them, and come what might they would not make a George III."[60] They would conquer, by dividing, the power they so much feared to see in any single hand.

"The English Constitution, in a word," says our most astute English critic, "is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign authority, and making it good; the American, upon the principle of having many sovereign authorities, and hoping that their multitude may atone for their inferiority. The Americans now extol their institutions, and so defraud themselves of their due praise. But if they had not a genius for politics, if they had not a moderation in action singularly curious where superficial speech is so violent, if they had not a regard for law, such as no great people have ever evinced, and infinitely surpassing ours, the multiplicity of authorities in the American Constitution would long ago have brought it to a bad end. Sensible shareholders, I have heard a shrewd attorney say, can work any deed of settlement; and so the men of Massachusetts could, I believe, work any constitution."[61] It is not necessary to assent to Mr. Bagehot's strictures; but it is not possible to deny the clear-sighted justice of this criticism. In order to be fair to the memory of our great constitution-makers, however, it is necessary to remember that when they sat in convention in Philadelphia the English Constitution, which they copied, was not the simple system which was before Mr. Bagehot's eyes when he wrote. Its single sovereign authority was not then a twice-reformed House of Commons truly representative of the nation and readily obeyed by a responsible Ministry. The sovereignty was at see-saw between the throne and the parliament,—and the throne-end of the beam was generally uppermost. Our device of separated, individualized powers was very much better than a nominal sovereignty of the Commons which was suffered to be overridden by force, fraud, or craft, by the real sovereignty of the King. The English Constitution was at that time in reality much worse than our own; and, if it is now superior, it is so because its growth has not been hindered or destroyed by the too tight ligaments of a written fundamental law.

The natural, the inevitable tendency of every system of self-government like our own and the British is to exalt the representative body, the people's parliament, to a position of absolute supremacy. That tendency has, I think, been quite as marked in our own constitutional history as in that of any other country, though its power has been to some extent neutralized, and its progress in great part stayed, by those denials of that supremacy which we respect because they are written in our law. The political law written in our hearts is here at variance with that which the Constitution sought to establish. A written constitution may and often will be violated in both letter and spirit by a people of energetic political talents and a keen instinct for progressive practical development; but so long as they adhere to the forms of such a constitution, so long as the machinery of government supplied by it is the only machinery which the legal and moral sense of such a people permits it to use, its political development must be in many directions narrowly restricted because of an insuperable lack of open or adequate channels. Our Constitution, like every other constitution which puts the authority to make laws and the duty of controlling the public expenditure into the hands of a popular assembly, practically sets that assembly to rule the affairs of the nation as supreme overlord. But, by separating it entirely from its executive agencies, it deprives it of the opportunity and means for making its authority complete and convenient. The constitutional machinery is left of such a pattern that other forces less than that of Congress may cross and compete with Congress, though they are too small to overcome or long offset it; and the result is simply an unpleasant, wearing friction which, with other adjustments, more felicitous and equally safe, might readily be avoided.

Congress, consequently, is still lingering and chafing under just such embarrassments as made the English Commons a nuisance both to themselves and to everybody else immediately after the Revolution Settlement had given them their first sure promise of supremacy. The parallel is startlingly exact. "In outer seeming the Revolution of 1688 had only transferred the sovereignty over England from James to William and Mary. In actual fact it had given a powerful and decisive impulse to the great constitutional progress which was transferring the sovereignty from the King to the House of Commons. From the moment when its sole right to tax the nation was established by the Bill of Rights, and when its own resolve settled the practice of granting none but annual supplies to the Crown, the House of Commons became the supreme power in the State.... But though the constitutional change was complete, the machinery of government was far from having adapted itself to the new conditions of political life which such a change brought about. However powerful the will of the Commons might be, it had no means of bringing its will directly to bear on the control of public affairs. The ministers who had charge of them were not its servants but the servants of the Crown; it was from the King that they looked for direction, and to the King that they held themselves responsible. By impeachment or more indirect means the Commons could force a king to remove a minister who contradicted their will; but they had no constitutional power to replace the fallen statesman by a minister who would carry out their will.

"The result was the growth of a temper in the Lower House which drove William and his ministers to despair. It became as corrupt, as jealous of power, as fickle in its resolves and factious in its spirit as bodies always become whose consciousness of the possession of power is untempered by a corresponding consciousness of the practical difficulties or the moral responsibilities of the power which they possess. It grumbled ... and it blamed the Crown and its ministers for all at which it grumbled. But it was hard to find out what policy or measures it would have preferred. Its mood changed, as William bitterly complained, with every hour.... The Houses were in fact without the guidance of recognized leaders, without adequate information, and destitute of that organization out of which alone a definite policy can come."[62]

The cure for this state of things which Sunderland had the sagacity to suggest, and William the wisdom to apply, was the mediation between King and Commons of a cabinet representative of the majority of the popular chamber,—a first but long and decisive step towards responsible cabinet government. Whether a similar remedy would be possible or desirable in our own case it is altogether aside from my present purpose to inquire. I am pointing out facts,—diagnosing, not prescribing remedies. My only point just now is, that no one can help being struck by the closeness of the likeness between the incipient distempers of the first parliaments of William and Mary and the developed disorders now so plainly discernible in the constitution of Congress. Though honest and diligent, it is meddlesome and inefficient; and it is meddlesome and inefficient for exactly the same reasons that made it natural that the post-Revolutionary parliaments should exhibit like clumsiness and like temper: namely, because it is "without the guidance of recognized leaders, without adequate information, and destitute of that organization out of which alone a definite policy can come."

The dangers of this serious imperfection in our governmental machinery have not been clearly demonstrated in our experience hitherto; but now their delayed fulfillment seems to be close at hand. The plain tendency is towards a centralization of all the greater powers of government in the hands of the federal authorities, and towards the practical confirmation of those prerogatives of supreme overlordship which Congress has been gradually arrogating to itself. The central government is constantly becoming stronger and more active, and Congress is establishing itself as the one sovereign authority in that government. In constitutional theory and in the broader features of past practice, ours has been what Mr. Bagehot has called a "composite" government. Besides state and federal authorities to dispute as to sovereignty, there have been within the federal system itself rival and irreconcilable powers. But gradually the strong are overcoming the weak. If the signs of the times are to be credited, we are fast approaching an adjustment of sovereignty quite as "simple" as need be. Congress is not only to retain the authority it already possesses, but is to be brought again and again face to face with still greater demands upon its energy, its wisdom, and its conscience, is to have ever-widening duties and responsibilities thrust upon it, without being granted a moment's opportunity to look back from the plough to which it has set its hands.

The sphere and influence of national administration and national legislation are widening rapidly. Our populations are growing at such a rate that one's reckoning staggers at counting the possible millions that may have a home and a work on this continent ere fifty more years shall have filled their short span. The East will not always be the centre of national life. The South is fast accumulating wealth, and will faster recover influence. The West has already achieved a greatness which no man can gainsay, and has in store a power of future growth which no man can estimate. Whether these sections are to be harmonious or dissentient depends almost entirely upon the methods and policy of the federal government. If that government be not careful to keep within its own proper sphere and prudent to square its policy by rules of national welfare, sectional lines must and will be known; citizens of one part of the country may look with jealousy and even with hatred upon their fellow-citizens of another part; and faction must tear and dissension distract a country which Providence would bless, but which man may curse. The government of a country so vast and various must be strong, prompt, wieldy, and efficient. Its strength must consist in the certainty and uniformity of its purposes, in its accord with national sentiment, in its unhesitating action, and in its honest aims. It must be steadied and approved by open administration diligently obedient to the more permanent judgments of public opinion; and its only active agency, its representative chambers, must be equipped with something besides abundant powers of legislation.

As at present constituted, the federal government lacks strength because its powers are divided, lacks promptness because its authorities are multiplied, lacks wieldiness because its processes are roundabout, lacks efficiency because its responsibility is indistinct and its action without competent direction. It is a government in which every officer may talk about every other officer's duty without having to render strict account for not doing his own, and in which the masters are held in check and offered contradiction by the servants. Mr. Lowell has called it "government by declamation." Talk is not sobered by any necessity imposed upon those who utter it to suit their actions to their words. There is no day of reckoning for words spoken. The speakers of a congressional majority may, without risk of incurring ridicule or discredit, condemn what their own Committees are doing; and the spokesmen of a minority may urge what contrary courses they please with a well-grounded assurance that what they say will be forgotten before they can be called upon to put it into practice. Nobody stands sponsor for the policy of the government. A dozen men originate it; a dozen compromises twist and alter it; a dozen offices whose names are scarcely known outside of Washington put it into execution.

This is the defect to which, it will be observed, I am constantly recurring; to which I recur again and again because every examination of the system, at whatsoever point begun, leads inevitably to it as to a central secret. It is the defect which interprets all the rest, because it is their common product. It is exemplified in the extraordinary fact that the utterances of the Press have greater weight and are accorded greater credit, though the Press speaks entirely without authority, than the utterances of Congress, though Congress possesses all authority. The gossip of the street is listened to rather than the words of the law-makers. The editor directs public opinion, the congressman obeys it. When a presidential election is at hand, indeed, the words of the political orator gain temporary heed. He is recognized as an authority in the arena, as a professional critic competent to discuss the good and bad points, and to forecast the fortunes of the contestants. There is something definite in hand, and he is known to have studied all its bearings. He is one of the managers, or is thought to be well acquainted with the management. He speaks "from the card." But let him talk, not about candidates, but about measures or about the policy of the government, and his observations sink at once to the level of a mere individual expression of opinion, to which his political occupations seem to add very little weight. It is universally recognized that he speaks without authority, about things which his vote may help to settle, but about which several hundred other men have votes quite as influential as his own. Legislation is not a thing to be known beforehand. It depends upon the conclusions of sundry Standing Committees. It is an aggregate, not a simple, production. It is impossible to tell how many persons' opinions and influences have entered into its composition. It is even impracticable to determine from this year's law-making what next year's will be like.

Speaking, therefore, without authority, the political orator speaks to little purpose when he speaks about legislation. The papers do not report him carefully; and their editorials seldom take any color from his arguments. The Press, being anonymous and representing a large force of inquisitive news-hunters, is much more powerful than he chiefly because it is impersonal and seems to represent a wider and more thorough range of information. At the worst, it can easily compete with any ordinary individual. Its individual opinion is quite sure to be esteemed as worthy of attention as any other individual opinion. And, besides, it is almost everywhere strong enough to deny currency to the speeches of individuals whom it does not care to report. It goes to its audience; the orator must depend upon his audience coming to him. It can be heard at every fireside; the orator can be heard only on the platform or the hustings. There is no imperative demand on the part of the reading public in this country that the newspapers should report political speeches in full. On the contrary, most readers would be disgusted at finding their favorite columns so filled up. By giving even a notice of more than an item's length to such a speech, an editor runs the risk of being denounced as dull. And I believe that the position of the American Press is in this regard quite singular. The English newspapers are so far from being thus independent and self-sufficient powers,—a law unto themselves,—in the politics of the empire that they are constrained to do homage to the political orator whether they will or no. Conservative editors must spread before their readers verbatim reports not only of the speeches of the leaders of their own party, but also of the principal speeches of the leading Liberal orators; and Liberal journals have no choice but to print every syllable of the more important public utterances of the Conservative leaders. The nation insists upon knowing what its public men have to say, even when it is not so well said as the newspapers which report them could have said it.

There are only two things which can give any man a right to expect that when he speaks the whole country will listen: namely, genius and authority. Probably no one will ever contend that Sir Stafford Northcote was an orator, or even a good speaker. But by proof of unblemished character, and by assiduous, conscientious, and able public service he rose to be the recognized leader of his party in the House of Commons; and it is simply because he speaks as one having authority,—and not as the scribes of the Press,—that he is as sure of a heedful hearing as is Mr. Gladstone, who adds genius and noble oratory to the authority of established leadership. The leaders of English public life have something besides weight of character, prestige of personal service and experience, and authority of individual opinion to exalt them above the anonymous Press. They have definite authority and power in the actual control of government. They are directly commissioned to control the policy of the administration. They stand before the country, in parliament and out of it, as the responsible chiefs of their parties. It is their business to lead those parties, and it is the matter-of-course custom of the constituencies to visit upon the parties the punishment due for the mistakes made by these chiefs. They are at once the servants and scapegoats of their parties.

It is these well-established privileges and responsibilities of theirs which make their utterances considered worth hearing,—nay, necessary to be heard and pondered. Their public speeches are their parties' platforms. What the leader promises his party stands ready to do, should it be intrusted with office. This certainty of audience and of credit gives spice to what such leaders have to say, and lends elevation to the tone of all their public utterances. They for the most part avoid buncombe, which would be difficult to translate into Acts of Parliament. It is easy to see how great an advantage their station and influence give them over our own public men. We have no such responsible party leadership on this side the sea; we are very shy about conferring much authority on anybody, and the consequence is that it requires something very like genius to secure for any one of our statesmen a universally recognized right to be heard and to create an ever-active desire to hear him whenever he talks, not about candidates, but about measures. An extraordinary gift of eloquence, such as not every generation may hope to see, will always hold, because it will always captivate, the attention of the people. But genius and eloquence are too rare to be depended upon for the instruction and guidance of the masses; and since our politicians lack the credit of authority and responsibility, they must give place, except at election-time, to the Press, which is everywhere, generally well-informed, and always talking. It is necessarily "government by declamation" and editorial-writing.

It is probably also this lack of leadership which gives to our national parties their curious, conglomerate character. It would seem to be scarcely an exaggeration to say that they are homogeneous only in name. Neither of the two principal parties is of one mind with itself. Each tolerates all sorts of difference of creed and variety of aim within its own ranks. Each pretends to the same purposes and permits among its partisans the same contradictions to those purposes. They are grouped around no legislative leaders whose capacity has been tested and to whose opinions they loyally adhere. They are like armies without officers, engaged upon a campaign which has no great cause at its back. Their names and traditions, not their hopes and policy, keep them together.

It is to this fact, as well as to short terms which allow little time for differences to come to a head, that the easy agreement of congressional majorities should be attributed. In other like assemblies the harmony of majorities is constantly liable to disturbance. Ministers lose their following and find their friends falling away in the midst of a session. But not so in Congress. There, although the majority is frequently simply conglomerate, made up of factions not a few, and bearing in its elements every seed of discord, the harmony of party voting seldom, if ever, suffers an interruption. So far as outsiders can see, legislation generally flows placidly on, and the majority easily has its own way, acting with a sort of matter-of-course unanimity, with no suspicion of individual freedom of action. Whatever revolts may be threatened or accomplished in the ranks of the party outside the House at the polls, its power is never broken inside the House. This is doubtless due in part to the fact that there is no freedom of debate in the House; but there can be no question that it is principally due to the fact that debate is without aim, just because legislation is without consistency. Legislation is conglomerate. The absence of any concert of action amongst the Committees leaves legislation with scarcely any trace of determinate party courses. No two schemes pull together. If there is a coincidence of principle between several bills of the same session, it is generally accidental; and the confusion of policy which prevents intelligent coöperation also, of course, prevents intelligent differences and divisions. There is never a transfer of power from one party to the other during a session, because such a transfer would mean almost nothing. The majority remains of one mind so long as a Congress lives, because its mind is very vaguely ascertained, and its power of planning a split consequently very limited. It has no common mind, and if it had, has not the machinery for changing it. It is led by a score or two of Committees whose composition must remain the same to the end; and who are too numerous, as well as too disconnected, to fight against. It stays on one side because it hardly knows where the boundaries of that side are or how to cross them.

Moreover, there is a certain well-known piece of congressional machinery long ago invented and applied for the special purpose of keeping both majority and minority compact. The legislative caucus has almost as important a part in our system as have the Standing Committees, and deserves as close study as they. Its functions are much more easily understood in all their bearings than those of the Committees, however, because they are much simpler. The caucus is meant as an antidote to the Committees. It is designed to supply the cohesive principle which the multiplicity and mutual independence of the Committees so powerfully tend to destroy. Having no Prime Minister to confer with about the policy of the government, as they see members of parliament doing, our congressmen confer with each other in caucus. Rather than imprudently expose to the world the differences of opinion threatened or developed among its members, each party hastens to remove disrupting debate from the floor of Congress, where the speakers might too hastily commit themselves to insubordination, to quiet conferences behind closed doors, where frightened scruples may be reassured and every disagreement healed with a salve of compromise or subdued with the whip of political expediency. The caucus is the drilling-ground of the party. There its discipline is renewed and strengthened, its uniformity of step and gesture regained. The voting and speaking in the House are generally merely the movements of a sort of dress parade, for which the exercises of the caucus are designed to prepare. It is easy to see how difficult it would be for the party to keep its head amidst the confused cross-movements of the Committees without thus now and again pulling itself together in caucus, where it can ask itself its own mind and pledge itself anew to eternal agreement.

The credit of inventing this device is probably due to the Democrats. They appear to have used it so early as the second session of the eighth Congress. Speaking of that session, a reliable authority says: "During this session of Congress there was far less of free and independent discussion on the measures proposed by the friends of the administration than had been previously practiced in both branches of the national legislature. It appeared that on the most important subjects, the course adopted by the majority was the effect of caucus arrangement, or, in other words, had been previously agreed upon at meetings of the Democratic members held in private. Thus the legislation of Congress was constantly swayed by a party following feelings and pledges rather than according to sound reason or personal conviction."[63] The censure implied in this last sentence may have seemed righteous at the time when such caucus pledges were in disfavor as new-fangled shackles, but it would hardly be accepted as just by the intensely practical politicians of to-day. They would probably prefer to put it thus: That the silvern speech spent in caucus secures the golden silence maintained on the floor of Congress, making each party rich in concord and happy in coöperation.

The fact that makes this defense of the caucus not altogether conclusive is that it is shielded from all responsibility by its sneaking privacy. It has great power without any balancing weight of accountability. Probably its debates would constitute interesting and instructive reading for the public, were they published; but they never get out except in rumors often rehearsed and as often amended. They are, one may take it for granted, much more candid and go much nearer the political heart of the questions discussed than anything that is ever said openly in Congress to the reporters' gallery. They approach matters without masks and handle them without gloves. It might hurt, but it would enlighten us to hear them. As it is, however, there is unhappily no ground for denying their power to override sound reason and personal conviction. The caucus cannot always silence or subdue a large and influential minority of dissentients, but its whip seldom fails to reduce individual malcontents and mutineers into submission. There is no place in congressional jousts for the free lance. The man who disobeys his party caucus is understood to disavow his party allegiance altogether, and to assume that dangerous neutrality which is so apt to degenerate into mere caprice, and which is almost sure to destroy his influence by bringing him under the suspicion of being unreliable,—a suspicion always conclusively damning in practical life. Any individual, or any minority of weak numbers or small influence, who has the temerity to neglect the decisions of the caucus is sure, if the offense be often repeated, or even once committed upon an important issue, to be read out of the party, almost without chance of reinstatement. And every one knows that nothing can be accomplished in politics by mere disagreement. The only privilege such recalcitrants gain is the privilege of disagreement; they are forever shut out from the privilege of confidential coöperation. They have chosen the helplessness of a faction.

It must be admitted, however, that, unfortunate as the necessity is for the existence of such powers as those of the caucus, that necessity actually exists and cannot be neglected. Against the fatal action of so many elements of disintegration it would seem to be imperatively needful that some energetic element of cohesion should be provided. It is doubtful whether in any other nation, with a shorter inheritance of political instinct, parties could long successfully resist the centrifugal forces of the committee system with only the varying attraction of the caucus to detain them. The wonder is that, despite the forcible and unnatural divorcement of legislation and administration and the consequent distraction of legislation from all attention to anything like an intelligent planning and superintendence of policy, we are not cursed with as many factions as now almost hopelessly confuse French politics. That we have had, and continue to have, only two national parties of national importance or real power is fortunate rather than natural. Their names stand for a fact, but scarcely for a reason.

An intelligent observer of our politics[64] has declared that there is in the United States "a class, including thousands and tens of thousands of the best men in the country, who think it possible to enjoy the fruits of good government without working for them." Every one who has seen beyond the outside of our American life must recognize the truth of this; to explain it is to state the sum of all the most valid criticisms of congressional government. Public opinion has no easy vehicle for its judgments, no quick channels for its action. Nothing about the system is direct and simple. Authority is perplexingly subdivided and distributed, and responsibility has to be hunted down in out-of-the-way corners. So that the sum of the whole matter is that the means of working for the fruits of good government are not readily to be found. The average citizen may be excused for esteeming government at best but a haphazard affair, upon which his vote and all of his influence can have but little effect. How is his choice of a representative in Congress to affect the policy of the country as regards the questions in which he is most interested, if the man for whom he votes has no chance of getting on the Standing Committee which has virtual charge of those questions? How is it to make any difference who is chosen President? Has the President any very great authority in matters of vital policy? It seems almost a thing of despair to get any assurance that any vote he may cast will even in an infinitesimal degree affect the essential courses of administration. There are so many cooks mixing their ingredients in the national broth that it seems hopeless, this thing of changing one cook at a time.

The charm of our constitutional ideal has now been long enough wound up to enable sober men who do not believe in political witchcraft to judge what it has accomplished, and is likely still to accomplish, without further winding. The Constitution is not honored by blind worship. The more open-eyed we become, as a nation, to its defects, and the prompter we grow in applying with the unhesitating courage of conviction all thoroughly-tested or well-considered expedients necessary to make self-government among us a straightforward thing of simple method, single, unstinted power, and clear responsibility, the nearer will we approach to the sound sense and practical genius of the great and honorable statesmen of 1787. And the first step towards emancipation from the timidity and false pride which have led us to seek to thrive despite the defects of our national system rather than seem to deny its perfection is a fearless criticism of that system. When we shall have examined all its parts without sentiment, and ganged all its functions by the standards of practical common sense, we shall have established anew our right to the claim of political sagacity; and it will remain only to act intelligently upon what our opened eyes have seen in order to prove again the justice of our claim to political genius.

INDEX.

Aberdeen. Lord, and civil service reform, 285.

Accounts, British public, how audited, 144, how kept, 145; French public, how kept, 145; federal, how audited, 175-179; how kept formerly, 179.

Adams, John, on the constitutional balances, 12, 13; influence of, as President, 41; claim of originality for the Constitution, 55, 249.

Adams, Samuel, 209.

"Address" of early Presidents to Senate, 239.

Administration, talents for, not encouraged in U. S., 199, 200; questions of, now predominant, 203; divorced from legislation in U. S., 251-253; training necessary for, 255, 256; contrasted with legislation, 273, 274; not less important than legislation, 297; must be debated, 302; tendency towards widening sphere of national, 316, 317.

Alabama claims, in Senate, 51.

Alien and Sedition Laws, 21.

Amendment, difficulty of constitutional, 242, 243; extra-constitutional, 243.

"American system" of protective tariffs, 167.

Appointing power of Speaker of House, 103; history of, of Speaker, 104; accustomed use of, for party ends, 108.

Appropriation, bills, "general," 150; former methods of, 151; stinginess of Congress in, 152, 159; bills, reported at any time, 153; bills, specially debated, 78, 154, 155, 183, 184; bills, in the Senate, 155-158.

Appropriations, debate of, 78, 154, 155, 183, 184; "white-button mandarins" of Committee on, 111; Committee on, consider estimates, 149; "permanent," 152, 153; Committee on, controls only annual grants, 153; semi-annual, 159; Committees on, relations between, and financial officers of the govt., 160-164; reports of Committee on, preferred to reports of Committee of Ways and Means, 174, 183, 184.

Audit of public accounts in England, 144; in U. S., 175-179.

Bagehot, Walter, on living reality and paper description of English Constitution, 10; description of Parliament by, applied to Congress, 44; on time required for opinions, 130; on public opinion, 187; on House of Lords, 220; on bicameral system, 221, 222; on technicalities of constitutional interpretation in U. S., 243; on questions asked in the Commons, 300; on influence of Geo. III. on Constitution of U. S., 309; on multiplicity of authorities in American Constitution, 309, 310.

Balance, between state and federal powers, See 'Federal and State governments;' between judiciary and other branches of federal govt., 34 et seq.; between state legislatures and the Senate, 40; of the people against their representatives, 40; of presidential electors against the people, 40; between Executive and Congress, 41; between Senate and House of Representatives, real, 228.

Balances of the Constitution, ideal, 52; present state of, 53; at variance with inevitable tendency to exalt representative body, 311.

Bank of the U. S., 22.

Bicameral system, utility of a, 219 et seq.

Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of the U. S., 7.

Bills, introduced on Mondays, 66; early course of, in House, 67; all committed, 67; doubt in committing some, 67, 68; fate of committed, 69; passed under suspension of Rules, 111, 112; of private members in House of Commons, 120, 121.

Bismarck, Count, stands for govt. in Germany, 59, 208.

"Bland Silver Bill," 185.

Bright, John, 198.

British govt. by party, 117 et seq.

Buckle, on use of legislation, 295.

Budget, controlled, not originated, by British House of Commons, 137; preparation and submission of, by English Chancellor of Exchequer, 140-142; both originated and controlled by Congress, 148, 191.

Burke, Edmund, 209; on value of House of Commons, 227.

Cabinet, discords in first, 2; change in character of, 45 et seq.; real executive equality of, with President, 46, 257; diminishing power of, to control policy, 45, 47, 262, 269; parliamentary position of British, 95; British, a single Standing Committee, 117; irresponsibility of, in U. S., in matters of finance, 164; an integral part of the Executive, 257; limits to independence of, 258; relations of, to President, 258, 259; ministerial, rather than political, officers in U. S., 261, 264 et seq., 291; duties of, supervised by Standing Committees, 262; in the leading-strings of Congress, 262, 266; fixed terms of, 261, 264 et seq.; represent whom? 265, 266; party relations of, 269; easily evade many questions and commands of Congress, 271, 272; indistinct responsibility of, 282; history of responsibility of British, 286 et seq.; status of, in American constitutional system, 291.

Calhoun, J. C., 89, 218.

Call of States for bills, 66; of Standing Committees for reports, 72, 73.

Canning, George, 209.

Caucus, failure of congressional nominating, 247; legislative, disciplines parties in Congress, 326, 327; invention of, by Democrats, 327, 328; privacy and irresponsibility of legislative, 328, 329; methods and constraints of legislative, 329, 330; necessity for legislative, 330.

Centralization, present tendency towards, in federal govt. and Congress, 53, 315, 316; questions which seem to necessitate, 54.

Chairman of Standing Committees, govt. by, 102; elders of Congress, 102; relations of, to each other, 102, 103; limits to leadership of each of the, 205.

Chatham, Earl of, 209, 258.

Civil Rights Act, 33, n.

Civil Service Reform, and usurpations of Senate, 49, 236 et seq.; hindered by institutional causes in U. S., 285, 290; history of, in Great Britain, 285 et seq.; history of, in U. S., 289, 290; conditions precedent to, 290.

Clay, Henry, 89, 218, 252.

Clôture in French Assembly, 126.

Cobden, Richard, 198.

Coinage Act of 1873, 185.

Commerce, federal power over, 30, 31; former control of appropriations for internal improvements by Committee on, 167.

Commission, legislative, proposed by J. S. Mill, 115, 129, 192; the most effective legislative, 192.

Committee, "Executive," proposed for House of Representatives, 114.

Committees, select, 67.

Committees, Standing, government by, 56; chairmen of, leaders of House, 60; chairmen of, do not consult or coöperate, 61; for every topic of legislation, 61; served by rules of House, 66, 71; number and uses of, 67, 68; consider all bills, 67; overlapping jurisdiction of, 68; cannot reject bills, 69; neglect of, to report, 69, 70; entire direction of legislation by, 70, 78; hasty consideration of reports of, by House, 71; four specially licensed, 71, 72; average time given to each of the, to report, 72; call of, for reports, 72, 73; hastening of business by the, 74 et seq.; control of debate by, 75 et seq.; arguments before the, 81-85; division of power amongst the, 92; both parties represented on, 99; appointed in House by Speaker, 103; history of rules of appointment of, 104; aided by Speaker, 108; Roman magistrates and the, 109; "little legislatures" made up of all sorts of men, 113; contrasted with single Standing Committee of Parliament, 116, 117; of House of Commons, 122; which control national income, 136; which create demands upon the Treasury, 167, 168; on expenditures, 175-177; multiplication of, by Congress, 176, n.; approachability of the, by lobbyists, 189, 190; choice of, in the Senate, 212, n.; supervision of the departments by the, 231, 262, 271, 272; may command, but cannot superintend, 271; part of the mechanism of Congress, 281; offset by legislative caucus, 326.

Commons, House of, represented by Ministers of Crown, 59, 244; character of debate in the, 94, 95; Cabinet's place and functions in the, 117 et seq.; private members' bills in the, 120, 121; committees of, 122; functions and character of Speaker of, 122; the, in session, 123; compared with French Chamber, 123, 128, 129; controls, does not originate, financial measures, 137; opposition of, to civil service reform, 285, 289; cross-examination of Ministers in, 300.

Conference Committees on appropriation bills, 157, 158, 280.

Congress, the centre and source of power, 11; early awkwardness of, 21, 44; made dominant and irresistible by doctrine of "implied powers," 23; check upon, by Judiciary, 35, 36; power of, over federal courts, 38; check upon, by President, 41; quick assumption of control by, 44, 45; enlarged powers of, created by efficiency of organization, 47; prominence of Senate in contests with executive, 47 et seq.; proper central object of constitutional study, 57; complex organization of, 58; without authoritative leaders, 59, 92, 205, 212, 315; embarrassments of new member in, 61 et seq.; work of, parceled out to Committees, 67; delays of each new, in getting to work, 72, 73; uninteresting character of debate in, 95, 96; means of financial control by, 147; supervision of expenditures by, 175, 179; difficulties of constituencies in controlling, 186-189; cause for distrust of, 186 et seq.; lobbying in, 189, 190; failure of presidential nominating caucus of, 247; does not breed administrators, 251, 252; and the Executive, party diversity between, 267; defective means of, for controlling executive action, 270 et seq., 302; and the Executive, absence of confidential coöperation between, 278; exactions of, upon the departments, 278, 279; diligence of, in legislation, 294, 297; necessity for discussion of administration by, 301 et seq.; informing function of, to be magnified, 303; grasps after new subjects of legislation, 304; freedom of action possible to, 304, 305; inferior to the Press as a critical authority, 306, 319; embarrassments of, in making its authority open and respectable, 312 et seq.; and Parliament succeeding Revolution settlement in Eng., 315; without adequate information, 315; tendency towards concentration of federal powers in hands of, 315, 316; irresponsibility of, 318; agreement and stability of majorities in, 324 et seq.; parties in, disciplined by caucus, 326, 327.

Conkling, Roscoe, resignation of, from Senate, 237.

Constituencies, difficulties of, in controlling Congress, 186-189.

Constitution, The, its wayward fortunes, 1; difficulties attending adoption of, 2; outward conformity to principles of, in former times, 3; present attitude of criticism toward, 5; its change of substance and persistency of form, 7; growth of, 7; elementary structure of, 8; in operation and in the books, 9, 10; "literary theory" of, 12; "implied powers" of, 22 et seq.; centre of all early political contests, 196 et seq.; questions of interpretation of, not now urgent, 202; practically amended without being constitutionally amended, 242; modeled after the English Constitution, 307 et seq.; Bagehot on multiplicity of authorities in, 309, 310; forms of, hold Congress back from making its power convenient and honest, 312.

Consultation between President and Senate, not real, 232 et seq.; means of, between President and Senate, 234.

Contingent Fund of Treasury Dept., fraudulent use of, 178.

Convention, Constitutional, of 1787, 268, 284, 307, 309.

Convention, national nominating, real functions of a, 245 et seq.; minority representation in composition of a, 246; conditions surrounding choice of a candidate by a, 250, 251; does not pick from Congress, 251, 252.

Cooley, Judge, on balance between state and federal govts., 17, 18; on checks upon federal encroachment, 33, 34; on judicial control of the Executive, 35; on the originality of the Constitution, 55, 56; incompleteness of constitutional view of, 56, 57.

"Courtesy" of the Senate, 238.

Criticism, necessity for a new, of constitutional methods, 53 et seq.; former methods of constitutional, 57; Congress central object of constitutional, 57; of legislation by Senate, 219.

Cromwell, Oliver, 207, 208.

Cushman, Samuel, 89.

Dale, Mr., on indifference of public opinion in U. S., 331.

Debate, time for, and conditions of, in House, 75 et seq.; importance of, 78; on Ways and Means and Appropriations, 78; absence of instinct of, in House, 79; relegated to Standing Committees, 81, 82; in Standing Committees, 81; value of, in Committees, 82; kind of, necessary, 85; physical limitations of, in House, 86 et seq.; in early Houses, 89, 90; uninteresting and uninstructive character of, in Congress, 95, 96, 101, 184, 185, 298; parliamentary, centres about Ministry, 95; necessity for, under responsible Cabinet govt., 119; in French Assembly, 125 et seq.; of appropriation bills, 154, 155, 183, 184; of all financial questions by Congress, 183; in Senate, 211, 216 et seq.; in Congress, directed at random, 298; chief use of public, in representative bodies, 299 et seq.; of administration, cannot be too much of, in Congress, 304.

Deficiency Bills, 159.

Democracy, limited in U. S. by Senate, 226.

Denmark, treaty with, in regard to St. Thomas, in Senate, 50, 51.

Departments, communications of, with Appropriation Committees concerning estimates, 160-164; present methods of book-keeping in the, 163; heads of, make interest with Appropriation Committees, 163; Senate's share in control of the, 231; and Congress, defective means of coöperation between, 270, 271; demoralizing relations of, with Congress, 277, 278; exactions of Congress upon, 278, 279; objects of suspicion because of their privacy, 299, 300.

Eaton, D. B., on civil service reform in Great Britain, 285.

Education, federal aid to, 29.

Election, Senate shielded by the method of its, 224; of President, real method of, 243 et seq.; virtual, by nominating conventions, 245.

Electors, presidential, balanced against people, 40; agents of nominating conventions, 245, 250; history of action of, 246, 247, 250.

Ellsworth, Oliver, on veto power, 52.

Embargo, the, 21.

English Constitution, likeness between the, and that of U. S., 7, 307 et seq.; character of, when Constitution of U. S. was formed, 307, 308, 310, 311.

Estimates, in House of Commons, 137; preparation of the federal, 148, 149; federal, go to Committee on Appropriations, 149; communications and conferences between Appropriation Committees and the departments concerning, 160-164; thoroughness of later, 163.

Exchequer, Chancellor of, preparation and submission to Commons of budget by, 140-142; represented by House Committee of Ways and Means, 170; financial policy of, compared with policy of House Committee of Ways and Means, 171-175.

Executive, 242-293; relations of, with Senate, 230 et seq.; really chosen by representative, deliberative body, 244; and legislative service divorced in U. S., 251-253; the President not all of the, 257; elements constituting the, in U. S., 259; functions bestowed upon the Secretaries, 260; and Congress, party diversity between, 267; Roger Sherman upon real character of, 268; and Congress, defective means of coöperation between, 270 et seq.; responsibility of, and civil service reform, 285 et seq.; suspected because not clearly visible through Congress, 299, 300; embarrassed by half-informed criticism, 305.

Expenditure, questions of, disconnected from questions of supply, 174, 175; supervision of, by Congress, 175-179.

Federal govt., the, early weakness and timidity of, 18, 19; growth in self-confidence and power of, 19, 20; first questions that engaged the attention of, 20; brought to every man's door, 25; supervision of elections by, 27; highest point of aggression of, 33; advantage of indirect taxation to, 133; necessity for two chambers in, 221, 222; possible paralysis of, in emergencies, 282; rapidly widening sphere of, 316, 317; weakness of our present, 318.

Federal and state govts., balance between, 13; object of balance between, 14; early conditions of balance between, 15; Hamilton on balance between, 16, 17; present inefficacy of balance between, 17; balance between, destroyed by doctrine of "implied powers," 23; balance between, dependent on federal judiciary, 24; balance between, prejudiced by internal improvements, 28, and by federal power over commerce, 30, 31; balance between, last pictured in "reconstruction," 32, 33.

Federalist, the, quoted, 16, 17.

Ferry, M. Jules, 248.

Fillmore, President, 259.

Finance, loose govt. practices concerning, 130, 131; comparatively unembarrassed character of American, 135; necessity for responsibility in direction of, 135; shifting character of federal, 135, 136; number of Committees controlling, in Congress, 136; administration of, in England, 137-146; administration of, in U. S., 146 et seq., 280; Senate Committee on, 169; confusion of public opinion in regard to action of Congress upon, 280.

Financial, officials, accessibility of English, in the Commons, 146, 147; officials, separation of, from Congress in the U. S., 147; officials, mere witnesses in U. S., 164; officials, irresponsibility of, for estimates in U. S., 164; system of U. S., contrasted with that of Eng., 180; system of U. S., incoherency of, 180, 181; policy of Congress, shifting character of, 181, 182; legislation, prominent place of, in congressional business, 183; questions, control of, by Committees in Senate, 212, n.; questions, confusion of public opinion regarding action of Congress upon, 280.

Fish, Secretary, and treaty with Denmark, 51.

Foreign relations, principal concern of federal govt. during first quarter century, 43; hand of Senate in, 49 et seq., 232 et seq.; no real consultation between President and Senate concerning, 232; Senate Committee on, 234.

France, public accounts, how kept in, 145; Ministry, how chosen in, 244.

French Assembly, organization of, 123; parties in, 124; proceedings of, 125 et seq.; compared with House of Representatives and House of Commons, 127-129.

French Revolution, 20, 43.

Froude, J. A., on political orators, 215.

Gallatin, Albert, 181.

George III., 187, 308, 309.

Gladstone, Wm. E., 59; on direct and indirect taxes, 134; 209, 322.

Government, by chairmen of Standing Committees, 102; by Standing Committees, contrasted with govt. by responsible Ministry, 116 et seq.; conditions of perfect party, 267, 268; "by declamation," 318.

Grant, President, and treaty with Denmark, 51; nominates Smythe, 235.

Green, J. R., on Parliament and public opinion under Geo. III., 187, 188; on temper and embarrassments of the Parliament succeeding the Revolution Settlement in England, 313, 314.

Grévy, President, 248.

Hall of House of Representatives, size of, 86 et seq.

Hamilton, Alex., on balance between state and national govts., 16, 17; influence of, upon early policy of govt., 21; advocacy of protective duties, 22; announces doctrine of "implied powers," 22; 181, 259, 306, 307.

Hampden, John, 208.

Henry, Patrick, 209.

Hoar, G. F., Senator, on time for reporting given to Committees, 72; on suspension of the Rules in House, 111, 112.

House of Commons, See 'Commons, House of.'

House of Lords, Bagehot on the, 220.

House of Representatives, See 'Representatives, House of.'

Impeachment, 275, 276.

"Implied powers," enunciated by Hamilton, 22; sustained national bank, 22; McCulloch v. Maryland, 23; a vigorous principle of constitutional growth, 23; effect of, upon status of States, 23, 24; practical issue of doctrine of, 25 et seq.

Internal Improvements, 28; moral effect of, upon state policy, 29; history of policy of, 165-167; sums appropriated for, 167; character of opposition to, 197.

Jackson, President, 166, 204; why chosen President, 252; 259, 266.

James II., 213.

Jefferson, Thos., leads his party as President, 41, 204, 252.

Johnson, President, contest of, with Senate, 49.

Judiciary, power of, to control Executive, 34, 35; power of, to control Congress, 35, 36; change of party color in, 37; power of Congress over, 38, 39.

Judiciary Act of 1789, 39.

Kentucky, protest of, against Alien and Sedition Laws, 21.

Leaders, absence of authoritative, in Congress, 58, 92, 205, 212, 315; lacking in parties of U. S., 187; raised up by the constitutional struggles before the war, 199 et seq.; slavery and anti-slavery, 201, 202; no offices for political, in U. S., 203; training necessary for, 255, 256; political, authority of, in England, 323.

Leadership, conditions of political, in U. S., 204 et seq., 323; character of legislative, 206 et seq.; lack of, in Senate, 212, 213; the prize of, 214; lack of, in U. S. makes parties conglomerate, 324.

"Legal tender" decision, 33, n., 38.

Legislation, character of, determined by privileges of Committees and necessity for haste, 74; compromise character of, in Congress, 101; conglomerate and heterogeneous, 113, 325; part of President in, by virtue of veto power, 260, 266; and administration contrasted, 273, 274; Buckle on present value of, 295; nature of present task of, 295, 296; generates legislation, 297; not more important than administration, 297; general function of, 301, 302; tendency toward widening sphere of, 316, 317.

Legislative service divorced from Executive, in U. S., 251-253.

"Letter" of Secretary of Treasury to Congress, 149, 153.

Lincoln, President, 259, 283, n.

"Literary theory" of the Constitution, 12, 268, 284; marred by growth of federal powers, 30.

Lobbying in Congress, 189, 190.

Lodge, H. C., quoted with regard to Hamilton, 21, 22.

"Log-rolling," 169.

Lords, House of, Bagehot on, 220.

Louisiana, purchase of, 20, 43.

Lowell, J. R., on "government by declamation," 318.

Macaulay, criticism of legislative leadership by, 207.

Machiavelli, on responsibility of ministers, 275.

Maclay, Wm., Sketches of First Senate by, quoted, 24, n.

McMaster, J. B., quoted, 19.

Madison, President, 165, refuses to meet Senate, 234, n.

Magna Carta, and the Constitution of U. S., 7.

Member, the new, embarrassments of, in the House, 61 et seq.

Members, suppression of independence and ability amongst, in the House, by the Rules, 110.

Membership, of Senate, made up by promotions from House, 210; of Senate, biennially renewed in part, 228, 229.

Mill, J. S., "legislative commission" proposed by, 115, 129, 192.

Ministry, parliamentary debate centres around British, 95; disintegrate, in Congress, 102; parliamentary position of British, 95, 244; British, a single Standing Committee of Parliament, 117; necessity of public debate to British, 119; British, compared with French, 123, 124, 129; history of parliamentary responsibility of British, 286-288.

Monroe, President, 165, 252.

"Morning hours," 73.

Nation, the, letter to, on federal financial system, quoted, 191; on status of Cabinet, quoted, 269.

National sovereignty, growth of sentiment of, 31, 32; sentiment of, makes advent and issue of the war inevitable, 32.

Newcastle, Duke of, 286.

Nominations, the Senate and, 235; popular interest attaching to action of Senate on, 236, 237; of Presidents by conventions, virtual character of, 245.

North, Lord, 287, 308.

Northcote, Sir Stafford, 322.

Offices, political and non-political, 290, 291.

Orators, character of the ruling, of our race, 208 et seq.; natural leaders of a self-governing people, 209; Froude on political, 215; political, without authority or responsibility in U. S., 319 et seq.; political weight of, in England, 321-324.

Otis, James, 209.

Parties, vagueness of responsibility of, for legislation in U. S., 96-101; both, represented on Standing Committees, 99; in U. S., absence of responsible organization in, 187; in U. S., headless, conglomerate character of, 324; in Congress, discipline of, 326, 327; in Congress, kept together by caucus, 330.

Parton, on purposes of a national parliament, 250, 251.

Party, govt. by, practical necessity for, 97 et seq.; organization, outside Congress, 98; inside Congress, 99; choice of Speaker by, 107; govt. by, perfected in British system, 117 et seq.; diversity between Executive and Congress, 267; conditions of govt. by, 267, 268; relations of President and Cabinet, 269; insignificance of Cabinet, 270; leaders in England, weight and position of, 322.

Peel, Sir Robt., 209; on questions asked Prime Minister in the Commons, 300.

Pension Act, in 48th Congress, 79-81.

"Permanent appropriations," 152, 153.

Pitt, Wm., 209; elected to rule Commons, 249.

Political discretion of President and Congress, 34, 35.

Power, diffusion of, in Congress, 92, 206; irresponsible, 92, 93, 314; and accountability, 283, 284.

Presidency, tendency to raise governors of States to the, 253.

President, the, and Supreme Court, relations between, 35; independence and influence of, 41; declining prestige of office of, 43; belittled by growth of congressional power, 43; and Cabinet, division of labor between, 45, 46; veto power of, 52, 260; and Senate, no real consultation between, 232 et seq.; irresponsible dictation of Senate to, 238, 239; functional contrast of, with English Prime Minister, 249; conditions surrounding choice of a, by convention, 250, 251; character of usual functions of, 254; not all of the Executive, 257; relations of, to Cabinet, 258, 259; De Tocqueville on position of, 266, n.; party relations of, 269; party insignificance of, 270; and Congress, defective means of coöperation between, 270, 271.

President of French Assembly, functions and powers of, 125, 126.

Presidents, character and influence of the early, 41; decline of character of, along with crystallization of electoral system, 42; real method of electing, 243 et seq.

Press, the, political influence of, in U. S., 305, 306, 319-321; in England, subordinate to political leaders, 321.

Previous Question, 75, 90; in the Senate, 211, n., 218.

Prime Minister, method of selecting a, in England and France, 248; and President, contrast between, 249; questions asked the, in House of Commons, 300.

Printing, prerogatives of Committee on, 71, 72; of unspoken speeches, 91.

"Private bill day," 73.

Protective policy of Committee of Ways and Means, 172-174.

Public life, conditions of, in U. S., 195 et seq.; in England, 214; attractiveness of leadership in, 214.

Public opinion, not instructed by congressional debate, 101; difficulties of, in understanding and controlling Congress, 186-189; not led in U. S., 187; distrust of Congress by, 188; confusion of, with regard to congressional policy, 280; instruction of, important duty of representative assembly, 297 et seq.; information of, by inquisitive public body, 300, 301; leaders of English, 322; paralysis of, in U. S., 331.

Pulteney, 286, 287.

Randolph, John, 89; interview of, with Treasury officials, 162, 163.

"Reconstruction," reflected altered condition of balance between state and federal govts., 32, 33.

"Record," Congressional, unspoken speeches in, 91; little read, 94.

Reform Bill of 1832 in England, 220.

Reichstag, consent of, necessary to policy in Germany, 59.

Reports, of Standing Committees, time given to, 72; backed by neither party, 96; thoroughly considered in early Congresses, 106; of Committee on Appropriations, privileges of, 153, 154; of Conference Committees, extraordinary privilege of, 158; annual, of Treasury, referred to Committee of Ways and Means, 170, 171; of Committee on Appropriations preferred to reports of Committee of Ways and Means, 174.

Representative assemblies, duties and means of, in instructing public opinion, 298 et seq.; supremacy of, in every system of self-government, 311.

Representative government, government by advocacy, 208.

Representatives, House of, 58-192; position of Speaker in, 59, 103-108; led by chairmen of Standing Committees, 60; multiplicity of leaders in, 61; rules of, restrain individual activity, 63; introduction of bills in, 64; bills in, introduced on Mondays, 66; early course of bills in, 67, 68; daily course of business in, 73; press of time in business of, 74, 90; conditions of debate in, 75 et seq.; absence of instinct of debate in, 79; best discussion impossible in, 86; hall of, 86, 87; debate in, in former times, 89; compared with Roman assembly, 109; concentration of federal power in, 110; suspension of rules of, to pass bills, 111, 112; compared with British Commons, 116 et seq.; with English and French chambers, 129; disintegrate character of, 210; "latent unity" of, with Senate, 224.

Responsibility, of administrators, to representative chamber for inefficiency, 274, 276, 277; of ministers Machiavelli on, 275; scattering of, by federal constitutional system, 281; with power, 283, 284; of Executive, and civil service reform, 285 et seq.; history of ministerial, in England, 286 et seq.

Resumption Act of 1875, 185.

Revenue, controlled by House Committee of Ways and Means and Senate Committee on Finance, 169; policy of Committee of Ways and Means and of English Chancellor of Exchequer, 171-175; subordinate to Supply in Congress, 174, 175.

Revolution, English, of 1688, character of Parliament succeeding the, 313.

Revolution, French, 20, 43.

Rivers and Harbors, Committee on, 165; prerogatives of Committee on, 167; Committee on, and "log-rolling," 168.

Rockingham, Lord, 287.

Roman assembly and House of Representatives, 109.

Rosebery, Lord, on the Senate, 228.

Rules of House, restrict individual activity of members of House, 63; support privileges of Standing Committees, 66, 71, 74; complexity of, 73, 74; principle of, 74; readopted biennially, 104; repress independence and ability, 110; oligarchy of Committee on, 111; suspension of, to pass bills, 111, 112.

St. Thomas, treaty with Denmark regarding island of, 50, 51.

Secession, character of contest over, 198, 199.

Senate, the, 193-241; overt character of contests of, with President, 48; efforts of, to control nominations, 49; usurpations of, and civil service reform, 49; semi-executive powers of, in regard to foreign policy, 49 et seq.; and treaty with Denmark, 50; and Alabama claims, 51; thoroughness of discussion in, 94; amendment of appropriation bills by, 155, 156; usual estimates of, 193, 194; character and composition of, 194, 195; conditions of public life, shaping character of, 195 et seq.; a select House of Representatives, 210; contrasts of, with the House, 211; organized like the House, 212; choice of Committees in, 212; absence of leadership in, 213 et seq.; character of debate in, 216 et seq.; equality of, with House of Representatives, 223; and House of Representatives, "latent unity" between, 224; not a class chamber, 225; limits democracy in Constitution, 226; dignity and remove from popular heat of, 227; a real check upon the House, 228; liability of, to biennial change in membership, 228, 229; "slow and steady" forms of, 230; share of, in control of executive departments, 231; and President, no real consultation between, 232 et seq.; and President, means of consultation between, 234; and nominations, 235, et seq.; "courtesy" of, 238; irresponsible dictation of, to President, 238.

Sherman, Roger, 268.

Silver Bill, the Bland, 185.

Slavery, character of contest over, 198-202, passim.

Smith, Robt., Secretary of Treasury, 162.

Smythe, nominated Minister to St. Petersburg by Pres. Grant, 235.

Speaker, of House of Representatives, appoints leaders of House, 60; prerogatives of, 103-108; appoints Standing Committees, 103; history of appointing power of, 104; power of appointing of, renewed with Rules, 105; chosen by party vote, 107; personal character of, 107; use of power by, in constituting and aiding Committees, 108; concentration of power in hands of, 110, 111; of House of Commons, functions and character of, 122.

Stages of national political growth, before civil war, 200; since, 202.

"Star Route" trials, 178, n.

State and federal governments, balance between, See 'Federal and state governments.'

States, the, disadvantages of direct taxation to, 133.

Sumner, Chas., Chairman Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 235.

Sumner, Prof. W. G., on task of legislator, 296.

Sunderland, Earl of, 314.

Supervision of elections by federal govt., 27.

Supply, Committee of, in House of Commons, 137-139; vital character of votes of, in House of Commons, 139; Committee of, in House of Representatives, 154; questions of, take precedence of questions of revenue in Congress, 174.

Surpluses, 173, 174, 179.

Suspension of Rules, bills passed under a, in House, 111, 112.

Swiss Constitution and bicameral system, 221.

Tariff of 1833, character of contest over, 198.

Taxation, sensitiveness of people concerning, 131; direct and indirect, 132, 133; Mr. Gladstone on direct and indirect, 134; direct, by States, indirect, by federal govt., 133.

Telegraph lines, constitutional interpretation in connection with, 30, 31.

Tenure of Office Act, 49, 277.

Terms of office, short, 255; of the Secretaries, 261, 264 et seq.

Tocqueville, De, on position of President, 266, n.

Townshend, Chas., 207, 208.

Treasury, accessibility of heads of British, in the Commons, 146, 147; "Letter" from Secretary of, 149; annual reports of, referred to Committee of Ways and Means, 170; character of annual reports of, 170, 171; Secretary of, duties of, 263; non-political character of functions of Secretary of, 264.

"Tribune" of French Assembly, 127, 128.

Turgot, M., on bicameral system of U. S., 220.

Van Buren, Martin, 259.

Veto, power of, 52, 260.

Vice-President, the, 240, 241.

Victorian Parliament, two chambers of, 223.

Virginia, protest of, against Alien and Sedition Laws, 21.

Walpole, Sir Robt., 208, 286.

War, change wrought by the civil, in constitutional methods and in constitutional criticism, 5 et seq.; the civil, a struggle between nationality and principles of disintegration, 32; opened a new period of public life in U. S., 195.

Washington, antagonisms in first Cabinet of, 2; influence of the Executive under, 41, 246, 252, 259.

Ways and Means, debate of, 78; "Brahmins" of Committee of, 111; chairmen of, federal Chancellors of Exchequer, 134; preference of Committee of, for indirect taxation, 134; Committee of, in House of Commons, 139-144; weight of votes of Committee of, in Commons, 142; House Committee of, formerly controlled appropriations, 161; character of Committee of, 170; policy of Committee of, compared with policy of English Chancellor of Exchequer, 171-175; reports of, deferred to reports of Committee on Appropriations, 174, 183, 184.

"Ways and Means Bills," 143, 144.

Webster, Daniel, 89, 204, 218, 252, 259.

William the Silent, 207, 208.

William III., 313, 314.

Windham, Wm., 207, 208.

Year, British financial, 140; federal financial, 148.