useful, without such a direct election as that by which members are chosen to the House of Commons.1 The American plan, which is older than any of those in use on the European continent, is also better, because it is not only simple, but natural, i.e. grounded on and consonant with the political conditions of America. It produces a body which is both strong in itself and different in its collective character from the more popular house.

It also constitutes, as Hamilton anticipated, a link between the State Governments and the National Government. It is a part of the latter, but its members derive their title to sit in it from their choice by State legislatures. In one respect this connection is no unmixed benefit, for it has helped to make the national parties powerful, and their strife intense, in these lastnamed bodies. Every vote in the Senate is so important to the great parties that they are forced to struggle for ascendency in each of the State legislatures by whom the senators are elected. The method of choice in these bodies was formerly left to be fixed by the laws of each State, but as this gave rise to much uncertainty and intrigue, a Federal statute was passed in 1866 providing that each House of a State legislature shall first vote separately for the election of a Federal senator, and that if the choice of both Houses shall not fall on the same person, both Houses in joint meeting shall proceed to a joint vote, a majority of each House being present. Even under this arrangement, a senatorial election often leads to long and bitter struggles; the minority endeavouring to prevent a choice, and so keep the seat vacant. Quite recently in Illinois, Indiana, and New Jersey, the legislatures fought for months together over the election of a senator.

The method of choosing the Senate by indirect election has excited the admiration of foreign critics, who have found in it a sole and sufficient cause of the excellence of the Senate as a legislative and executive authority. I shall presently inquire whether the critics are right. Meantime it is worth observing that the election of senators has in substance almost ceased to be indirect. They are still nominally chosen, as under the letter of the Constitution they must be chosen, by the State legislatures.

1 Under a recent statute, two persons may be appointed by the Crown to sit in the House of Lords as Lords of Appeal, with the dignity of baron for life. The Scotch and Irish peers enjoy hereditary peerages, but are elected to sit in the House of Lords, the latter for life, the former for each parliament.

The State legislature means, of course, the party for the time dominant, which holds a party meeting (caucus) and decides on the candidate, who is thereupon elected, the party going solid for whomsoever the majority has approved. Now the determination of the caucus has almost always been arranged beforehand by the party managers. Sometimes when a vacancy in a senatorship approaches, the aspirants for it put themselves before the people of the State. Their names are discussed at the State party convention held for the nomination of party candidates for State offices, and a vote in that convention decides who shall be the party nominee for the senatorship. This vote binds the

party within and without the State legislature, and at the election of members for the State legislature, which immediately precedes the occurrence of the senatorial vacancy, candidates for seats in that legislature are generally expected to declare for which aspirant to the senatorship they will, if elected, give their votes. Sometimes the aspirant, who is of course a leading State politician, goes on the stump in the interest of those candidates for the legislature who are prepared to support him, and urges his own claims while urging theirs. I do not say that things have, in all States, gone so far as to make the choice by the legislature of some particular person as senator a foregone conclusion when the legislature has been elected. Circumstances may change; compromises may be necessary; still, it is now generally true that in most States little freedom of choice remains with the legislature. The people, or rather those wirepullers who manage the people and act in their name, have practically settled the matter at the election of the State legislature. So hard is it to make any scheme of indirect election work according to its original design; so hard is it to keep even a written and rigid constitution from bending and warping under the actual forces of politics.3

1 The Constitution of the State of Nebraska (1875) allows the electors in voting for members of the State legislature to "express by ballot their preference for some person for the office of U.S. senator. The votes cast for such candidates

shall be canvassed and returned in the same manner as for State officers." This is an attempt to evade and by a side wind defeat the provision of the Federal Constitution which vests the choice in the legislature.

2 This happened recently in Nebraska, and seems to be not uncommon. The famous struggle of Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln for the Illinois senatorship in 1858 was conducted in a stump campaign.

3 A proposal recently made to amend the Federal Constitution by taking the election of senators away from the legislatures in order to vest it in the people of

It

Members of the Senate vote as individuals, that is to say, the vote a senator gives is his own and not that of his State. was otherwise in the Congress of the old Confederation before 1789; it is otherwise in the present Federal Council of the German Empire, in which each State votes as a whole, though the number of her votes is proportioned to her population. Accordingly, in the American Senate, the two senators from a State may belong to opposite parties; and this often happens in the case of senators from States in which the two great parties are pretty equally balanced, and the majority oscillates between them. Suppose Ohio to have to elect a senator in 1886. The Democrats have a majority in the State legislature; and a Democrat is therefore chosen senator. In 1888 the other Ohio senatorship falls vacant. But by this time the balance of parties each State is approved by some judicious publicists, who think that bad candidates will have less chance with the party at large and the people than they now have in bodies apt to be controlled by a knot of party managers. A nomination made for a popular election will at least be made publicly, whereas now a nomination for an election by a legislature may be made secretly. I subjoin the form which this proposal took in 1881 as a specimen of the form in which amendments to the Constitution may be submitted to Congress.

46th Congress,

3rd Session.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
31st January 1881.

Read twice, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Weaver introduced the following joint resolution :

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, providing for the election of Senators by vote of the people.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution, to wit:—

Article

That so much of section third, article first, of the Constitution of the United States as provides that the Senators of the United States shall be chosen by the Legislatures thereof shall be amended so that the same shall read as follows:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, to be chosen by the vote of the qualified electors in said States respectively, and at such time as shall be determined by Act of Congress."

Similar proposals have been repeatedly made in subsequent Congresses, but never accepted by either House.

1 It was arranged from the beginning of the Federal Government that the two senatorships from the same State should never be vacant at the same time.

VOL. I

H

in Ohio has shifted. The Republicans control the legislature; a Republican senator is therefore chosen, and goes to Washington to vote against his Democratic colleague. This fact has largely contributed to render the senators independent of the State legislatures, for as these latter bodies sit for short terms (the larger of the two houses usually for two years only), a senator has during the greater part of his six years' term to look for re-election not to the present but to a future State legislature.1

The length of the senatorial term was one of the provisions of the Constitution which were most warmly attacked and defended in 1788. A six years' tenure, it was urged, would turn the senators into dangerous aristocrats, forgetful of the legislature which had appointed them; and some went so far as to demand that the legislature of a State should have the right to recall its senators.2 Experience has shown that the term is by no means too long; and its length is one among the causes which have made it easier for senators than for members of the House to procure re-election, a result which, though it offends the doctrinaires of democracy, has worked well for the country. Senators from the smaller States are more frequently re-elected than those from the larger, because in the small States the competition of ambitious men is less keen, politics less changeful, the people perhaps more steadily attached to a man whom they have once honoured with their confidence. The senator from such a State generally finds it more easy to maintain his influence over his own legislature; not to add that if the State should be amenable to the power of wealth, his wealth will tell far more than it could in a large State. Yet no small State was ever more controlled by one man than the great State of Pennsylvania by Mr. Simon Cameron, who represented it for eighteen years. In recent times it is the senators from the small States, such as Rhode Island, Vermont, and Delaware, who have been most

1 If a vacancy occurs in a senatorship at a time when the State legislature is not sitting, the executive of the State is empowered to fill it up until the next meeting of the State legislature. This is sometimes an important power, especially if the vacancy occurs at a time when parties are equally divided in the Senate.

2 This was recommended by a Pennsylvanian Convention, which met after the adoption of the Constitution to suggest amendments. See Elliot's Debates, ii. p. 545. It was also much pressed by some members of the New York Convention. A State legislature sometimes passes resolutions instructing its senators to vote in a particular way, but the senators are of course in no way bound to regard such instructions.

frequently re-elected. The average age of the Senate is less than might be expected. Three-fourths of its members are under sixty. The importance of the State he represents makes no great difference to the influence which a senator enjoys; this depends on his talents, experience, and character; and as the small State senators have often the advantage of long service and a safe seat, they are often among the most influential.

The Senate resembles the Upper Houses of Europe, and differs from those of the British colonies, and of most of the States of the Union, in being a permanent body. It does not change all at once, as do bodies created by a single popular election, but undergoes an unceasing process of gradual change and renewal, like a lake into which streams bring fresh water to replace that which the issuing river carries out. This provision was designed to give the Senate that permanency of composition which might qualify it to conduct or control the foreign policy of the nation.1 An incidental and more valuable result has been the creation of a set of traditions and a corporate spirit which have tended to form habits of dignity and self-respect. The new senators, being always in a minority, are readily assimilated; and though the balance of power shifts from one party to another according to the predominance in the State legislatures of one or other party, it shifts more slowly than in bodies directly chosen. all at once, and a policy is therefore less apt to be suddenly reversed.

The legislative powers of the Senate being, except in one point, the same as those of the House of Representatives, will be described later. That one point is a restriction as regards money bills. On the ground that it is only by the direct representatives of the people that taxes ought to be levied, and in obvious imitation of the venerable English doctrine, which had already found a place in several State constitutions, the Constitution (Art. i. § 7) provides that "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments, as on other bills." practice, while the House strictly guards its right of origination, the Senate largely exerts its power of amendment, and wrangles with the House over taxes, and still more keenly over appropriations. Almost every session ends with a dispute, a conference,

In

1 See Federalist, No. Ixi., and Hamilton's argument in the New York State Convention. Elliot's Debates, vol. ii. p. 307.