FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]These are Mr. Bagehot's words with reference to the British constitutional system. See hisEnglish Constitution(last American edition), p. 69.[2]Works, vol. vi., p. 467: "Letter to Jno. Taylor." The words and sentences omitted in the quotation contain Mr. Adams's opinions as to the value of the several balances, some of which he thinks of doubtful utility, and others of which he, without hesitation, pronounces altogether pernicious.[3]Federalist, No. 17.[4]Cooley'sPrinciples of Const. Law, p. 143.[5]McMaster,Hist. of the People of the U. S., vol. i., p. 564.[6]Lodge'sAlexander Hamilton(Am. Statesmen Series), p. 85.[7]Lodge'sAlexander Hamilton, p. 105.[8]Its final and most masterly exposition, by C. J. Marshall, may be seen in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 316.[9]The following passage from William Maclay'sSketches of Debate in the First Senate of the United States(pp. 292-3) illustrates how clearly the results of this were forecast by sagacious men from the first: "The system laid down by these gentlemen (the Federalists) was as follows, or rather the development of the designs of a certain party: The general power to carry the Constitution into effect by a constructive interpretation would extend to every case that Congress may deem necessary or expedient.... The laws of the United States will be held paramount to all "state" laws, claims, and even constitutions. The supreme power is with the general government to decide in this, as in everything else, for the States have neglected to secure any umpire or mode of decision in case of difference between them. Nor is there any point in the Constitution for them to rally under. They may give an opinion, but the opinions of the general government must prevail.... Any direct and open act would be termed usurpation. But whether the gradual influence and encroachments of the general government may not gradually swallow up the state governments, is another matter."[10]Pensacola Tel. Co.v. West. Union, 96 U. S. 1, 9. (Quoted by Judge Cooley in hisPrinciples of Constitutional Law.)[11]18 Stat., part 3, 336. See Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339.[12]Sect. 5515 Rev. Stats. See Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371. Equally extensive of federal powers is that "legal tender" decision (Juilliardv. Greenman) of March, 1884, which argues the existence of a right to issue an irredeemable paper currency from the Constitution's grant of other rights characteristic of sovereignty, and from the possession of a similar right by other governments. But this involves no restriction of state powers; and perhaps there ought to be offset against it that other decision (several cases, October, 1883), which denies constitutional sanction to the Civil Rights Act.[13]Principles of Constitutional Law, pp. 143, 144.[14]Marburyv. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137.[15]Cooley'sPrinciples, p. 157.[16]For an incisive account of the whole affair, see an article Entitled "The Session,"No. Am. Review, vol. cxi., pp. 48, 49.[17]7 Wall. 506.[18]For a brilliant account of the senatorial history of these two treaties, see the article entitled "The Session,"No. Am. Rev., vol. cviii. (1869), p. 626et seq.[19]In an article entitled "The Conduct of Business in Congress" (North American Review, vol. cxxviii. p. 113), to which I am indebted for many details of the sketch in the text.[20]No Committee is entitled, when called, to occupy more than the morning hours of two successive days with the measures which it has prepared; though if its second morning hour expire while the House is actually considering one of its bills, that single measure may hold over from morning hour to morning hour until it is disposed of.[21]Quoted from an exceedingly life-like and picturesque description of the House which appeared in the New YorkNationfor April 4, 1878.[22]No. Am. Rev., vol. xxvi., p. 162.[23]Id., the same article.[24]"Glances at Congress,"Dem. Rev., March, 1839.[25]Autobiography, pp. 264, 265.[26]The National Budget, etc.(English Citizen Series), p. 146. In what I have to say of the English system, I follow this volume, pp. 146-149, and another volume of the same admirable series, entitledCentral Government, pp. 36-47, most of my quotations being from the latter.[27]See an article entitled "National Appropriations and Misappropriations," by the late President Garfield,North American Review, vol cxxviii. pp 578et seq.[28]Senator Hoar's article, already several times quoted.[29]Adams'sJohn Randolph. American Statesman Series, pp. 210, 211.[30]On one occasion "the House passed thirty-seven pension bills at one sitting. The Senate, on its part, by unanimous consent, took up and passed in about ten minutes seven bills providing for public buildings in different States, appropriating an aggregate of $1,200,000 in this short time. A recent House feat was one in which a bill, allowing 1,300 war claims in a lump, was passed. It contained one hundred and nineteen pages full of little claims, amounting in all to $291,000; and a member, in deprecating criticism on this disposition of them, said that the Committee had received ten huge bags full of such claims, which had been adjudicated by the Treasury officials, and it was a physical impossibility to examine them."—N. Y.Sun, 1881.[31]Congress, though constantly erecting new Committees, never gives up old ones, no matter how useless they may have become by subtraction of duties. Thus there is not only the superseded Committee on Public Expenditures but the Committee on Manufactures also, which, when a part of the one-time Committee on Commerce and Manufactures, had plenty to do, but which, since the creation of a distinct Committee on Commerce, has had nothing to do, having now, together with the Committees on Agriculture and Indian Affairs, no duties assigned to it by the rules. It remains to be seen whether the Committee on Commerce will suffer a like eclipse because of the gift of its principal duties to the new Committee on Rivers and Harbors.[32]See the report of this Committee, which was under the chairmanship of Senator Windom.An illustration of what the House Committees find by special effort may be seen in the revelations of the investigation of the expenses of the notorious "Star Route Trials" made by the Forty-eighth Congress's Committee on Expenditures in the department of Justice.[33]See General Garfield's article, already once quoted,North American Review, vol. cxxviii. p. 533.[34]Essays on Parliamentary Reform.[35]Green'sHistory of the English People, vol. iv., pp. 202, 203.[36]"G. B." in N. Y.Nation, Nov. 30, 1882.[37]An attempt was once made to bring the previous question into the practices of the Senate, but it failed of success, and so that imperative form of cutting off all further discussion has fortunately never found a place there.[38]As regards all financial measures indeed committee supervision is specially thorough in the Senate. "All amendments to general appropriation bills reported from the Committees of the Senate, proposing new items of appropriation, shall, one day before they are offered, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and all general appropriation bills shall be referred to said Committee; and in like manner amendments to bills making appropriations for rivers and harbors shall be again referred to the Committee to which such bills shall be referred."—Senate Rule 30.[39]The twenty-nine Standing Committees of the Senate are, however, chosen by ballot, not appointed by the Vice-President, who is an appendage, not a member, of the Senate.[40]In the Birmingham Town Hall, November 3, 1882. I quote from the report of theLondon Times.[41]"No Senator shall speak more than twice, in any one debate, on the same day, without leave of the Senate."—Senate Rule 4.[42]These quotations from Bagehot are taken from various parts of the fifth chapter of hisEnglish Constitution.[43]These are the words of Lord Rosebery—testimony from the oldest and most celebrated second chamber that exists.[44]There seems to have been at one time a tendency towards a better practice. In 1813 the Senate sought to revive the early custom, in accordance with which the President delivered his messages in person, by requesting the attendance of the President to consult upon foreign affairs; but Mr. Madison declined.[45]North American Review, vol. 108, p. 625.[46]English Constitution, chap, viii., p. 293.[47]Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxv., p. 148.[48]Something like this has been actually proposed by Mr. Albert Stickney, in his interesting and incisive essay,A True Republic.[49]State, Treasury, War, Navy.[50]As quoted inMacmillan's Magazine, vol. vii., p. 67.[51]I quote from an excellent handbook,The United States Government, by Lamphere.[52]"In America the President cannot prevent any law from being passed, nor can he evade the obligation of enforcing it His sincere and zealous coöperation is no doubt useful, but it is not indispensable, in the carrying on of public affairs. All his important acts are directly or indirectly submitted to the legislature, and of his own free authority he can do but little. It is, therefore, his weakness, and not his power, which enables him to remain in opposition to Congress. In Europe, harmony must reign between the Crown and the other branches of the legislature, because a collision between them may prove serious; in America, this harmony is not indispensable, because such a collision is impossible."—De Tocqueville, i. p. 124.[53]Westminster Review, vol. lxvi., p. 193.[54]Tenure of Office Act, already discussed.[55]These "ifs" are abundantly supported by the executive acts of the war-time. The Constitution had then to stand aside that President Lincoln might be as prompt as the seeming necessities of the time.[56]Central Government(Eng. Citizen Series), II. D. Traill, p. 20.[57]Professor Sumner'sAndrew Jackson(American Statesmen Series), p. 226. "Finally," adds Prof. S., "the methods and machinery of democratic republican self-government—caucuses, primaries, committees, and conventions—lend themselves perhaps more easily than any other methods and machinery to the uses of selfish cliques which seek political influence for interested purposes."[58]Bagehot:Essay on Sir Robert Peel, p. 24.[59]H. C. Lodge'sAlexander Hamilton(Am. Statesmen Series), pp. 60, 61.[60]Bagehot,Eng. Const., p. 293.[61]Bagehot,Eng. Const., p. 296.[62]Green:Hist. of the English People(Harpers' ed.), iv., pp 58, 59.[63]Statesman's Manual, i. p. 244.[64]Mr. Dale, of Birmingham.

[1]These are Mr. Bagehot's words with reference to the British constitutional system. See hisEnglish Constitution(last American edition), p. 69.

[2]Works, vol. vi., p. 467: "Letter to Jno. Taylor." The words and sentences omitted in the quotation contain Mr. Adams's opinions as to the value of the several balances, some of which he thinks of doubtful utility, and others of which he, without hesitation, pronounces altogether pernicious.

[3]Federalist, No. 17.

[4]Cooley'sPrinciples of Const. Law, p. 143.

[5]McMaster,Hist. of the People of the U. S., vol. i., p. 564.

[6]Lodge'sAlexander Hamilton(Am. Statesmen Series), p. 85.

[7]Lodge'sAlexander Hamilton, p. 105.

[8]Its final and most masterly exposition, by C. J. Marshall, may be seen in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 316.

[9]The following passage from William Maclay'sSketches of Debate in the First Senate of the United States(pp. 292-3) illustrates how clearly the results of this were forecast by sagacious men from the first: "The system laid down by these gentlemen (the Federalists) was as follows, or rather the development of the designs of a certain party: The general power to carry the Constitution into effect by a constructive interpretation would extend to every case that Congress may deem necessary or expedient.... The laws of the United States will be held paramount to all "state" laws, claims, and even constitutions. The supreme power is with the general government to decide in this, as in everything else, for the States have neglected to secure any umpire or mode of decision in case of difference between them. Nor is there any point in the Constitution for them to rally under. They may give an opinion, but the opinions of the general government must prevail.... Any direct and open act would be termed usurpation. But whether the gradual influence and encroachments of the general government may not gradually swallow up the state governments, is another matter."

[10]Pensacola Tel. Co.v. West. Union, 96 U. S. 1, 9. (Quoted by Judge Cooley in hisPrinciples of Constitutional Law.)

[11]18 Stat., part 3, 336. See Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339.

[12]Sect. 5515 Rev. Stats. See Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371. Equally extensive of federal powers is that "legal tender" decision (Juilliardv. Greenman) of March, 1884, which argues the existence of a right to issue an irredeemable paper currency from the Constitution's grant of other rights characteristic of sovereignty, and from the possession of a similar right by other governments. But this involves no restriction of state powers; and perhaps there ought to be offset against it that other decision (several cases, October, 1883), which denies constitutional sanction to the Civil Rights Act.

[13]Principles of Constitutional Law, pp. 143, 144.

[14]Marburyv. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137.

[15]Cooley'sPrinciples, p. 157.

[16]For an incisive account of the whole affair, see an article Entitled "The Session,"No. Am. Review, vol. cxi., pp. 48, 49.

[17]7 Wall. 506.

[18]For a brilliant account of the senatorial history of these two treaties, see the article entitled "The Session,"No. Am. Rev., vol. cviii. (1869), p. 626et seq.

[19]In an article entitled "The Conduct of Business in Congress" (North American Review, vol. cxxviii. p. 113), to which I am indebted for many details of the sketch in the text.

[20]No Committee is entitled, when called, to occupy more than the morning hours of two successive days with the measures which it has prepared; though if its second morning hour expire while the House is actually considering one of its bills, that single measure may hold over from morning hour to morning hour until it is disposed of.

[21]Quoted from an exceedingly life-like and picturesque description of the House which appeared in the New YorkNationfor April 4, 1878.

[22]No. Am. Rev., vol. xxvi., p. 162.

[23]Id., the same article.

[24]"Glances at Congress,"Dem. Rev., March, 1839.

[25]Autobiography, pp. 264, 265.

[26]The National Budget, etc.(English Citizen Series), p. 146. In what I have to say of the English system, I follow this volume, pp. 146-149, and another volume of the same admirable series, entitledCentral Government, pp. 36-47, most of my quotations being from the latter.

[27]See an article entitled "National Appropriations and Misappropriations," by the late President Garfield,North American Review, vol cxxviii. pp 578et seq.

[28]Senator Hoar's article, already several times quoted.

[29]Adams'sJohn Randolph. American Statesman Series, pp. 210, 211.

[30]On one occasion "the House passed thirty-seven pension bills at one sitting. The Senate, on its part, by unanimous consent, took up and passed in about ten minutes seven bills providing for public buildings in different States, appropriating an aggregate of $1,200,000 in this short time. A recent House feat was one in which a bill, allowing 1,300 war claims in a lump, was passed. It contained one hundred and nineteen pages full of little claims, amounting in all to $291,000; and a member, in deprecating criticism on this disposition of them, said that the Committee had received ten huge bags full of such claims, which had been adjudicated by the Treasury officials, and it was a physical impossibility to examine them."—N. Y.Sun, 1881.

[31]Congress, though constantly erecting new Committees, never gives up old ones, no matter how useless they may have become by subtraction of duties. Thus there is not only the superseded Committee on Public Expenditures but the Committee on Manufactures also, which, when a part of the one-time Committee on Commerce and Manufactures, had plenty to do, but which, since the creation of a distinct Committee on Commerce, has had nothing to do, having now, together with the Committees on Agriculture and Indian Affairs, no duties assigned to it by the rules. It remains to be seen whether the Committee on Commerce will suffer a like eclipse because of the gift of its principal duties to the new Committee on Rivers and Harbors.

[32]See the report of this Committee, which was under the chairmanship of Senator Windom.An illustration of what the House Committees find by special effort may be seen in the revelations of the investigation of the expenses of the notorious "Star Route Trials" made by the Forty-eighth Congress's Committee on Expenditures in the department of Justice.

[32]See the report of this Committee, which was under the chairmanship of Senator Windom.

An illustration of what the House Committees find by special effort may be seen in the revelations of the investigation of the expenses of the notorious "Star Route Trials" made by the Forty-eighth Congress's Committee on Expenditures in the department of Justice.

[33]See General Garfield's article, already once quoted,North American Review, vol. cxxviii. p. 533.

[34]Essays on Parliamentary Reform.

[35]Green'sHistory of the English People, vol. iv., pp. 202, 203.

[36]"G. B." in N. Y.Nation, Nov. 30, 1882.

[37]An attempt was once made to bring the previous question into the practices of the Senate, but it failed of success, and so that imperative form of cutting off all further discussion has fortunately never found a place there.

[38]As regards all financial measures indeed committee supervision is specially thorough in the Senate. "All amendments to general appropriation bills reported from the Committees of the Senate, proposing new items of appropriation, shall, one day before they are offered, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and all general appropriation bills shall be referred to said Committee; and in like manner amendments to bills making appropriations for rivers and harbors shall be again referred to the Committee to which such bills shall be referred."—Senate Rule 30.

[39]The twenty-nine Standing Committees of the Senate are, however, chosen by ballot, not appointed by the Vice-President, who is an appendage, not a member, of the Senate.

[40]In the Birmingham Town Hall, November 3, 1882. I quote from the report of theLondon Times.

[41]"No Senator shall speak more than twice, in any one debate, on the same day, without leave of the Senate."—Senate Rule 4.

[42]These quotations from Bagehot are taken from various parts of the fifth chapter of hisEnglish Constitution.

[43]These are the words of Lord Rosebery—testimony from the oldest and most celebrated second chamber that exists.

[44]There seems to have been at one time a tendency towards a better practice. In 1813 the Senate sought to revive the early custom, in accordance with which the President delivered his messages in person, by requesting the attendance of the President to consult upon foreign affairs; but Mr. Madison declined.

[45]North American Review, vol. 108, p. 625.

[46]English Constitution, chap, viii., p. 293.

[47]Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxv., p. 148.

[48]Something like this has been actually proposed by Mr. Albert Stickney, in his interesting and incisive essay,A True Republic.

[49]State, Treasury, War, Navy.

[50]As quoted inMacmillan's Magazine, vol. vii., p. 67.

[51]I quote from an excellent handbook,The United States Government, by Lamphere.

[52]"In America the President cannot prevent any law from being passed, nor can he evade the obligation of enforcing it His sincere and zealous coöperation is no doubt useful, but it is not indispensable, in the carrying on of public affairs. All his important acts are directly or indirectly submitted to the legislature, and of his own free authority he can do but little. It is, therefore, his weakness, and not his power, which enables him to remain in opposition to Congress. In Europe, harmony must reign between the Crown and the other branches of the legislature, because a collision between them may prove serious; in America, this harmony is not indispensable, because such a collision is impossible."—De Tocqueville, i. p. 124.

[53]Westminster Review, vol. lxvi., p. 193.

[54]Tenure of Office Act, already discussed.

[55]These "ifs" are abundantly supported by the executive acts of the war-time. The Constitution had then to stand aside that President Lincoln might be as prompt as the seeming necessities of the time.

[56]Central Government(Eng. Citizen Series), II. D. Traill, p. 20.

[57]Professor Sumner'sAndrew Jackson(American Statesmen Series), p. 226. "Finally," adds Prof. S., "the methods and machinery of democratic republican self-government—caucuses, primaries, committees, and conventions—lend themselves perhaps more easily than any other methods and machinery to the uses of selfish cliques which seek political influence for interested purposes."

[58]Bagehot:Essay on Sir Robert Peel, p. 24.

[59]H. C. Lodge'sAlexander Hamilton(Am. Statesmen Series), pp. 60, 61.

[60]Bagehot,Eng. Const., p. 293.

[61]Bagehot,Eng. Const., p. 296.

[62]Green:Hist. of the English People(Harpers' ed.), iv., pp 58, 59.

[63]Statesman's Manual, i. p. 244.

[64]Mr. Dale, of Birmingham.

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