It Will Not, However,
Do For Us To Ignore Them If They Exist; And Therefore They Should Be
Changed.
It is, I think, manifest that our own pretensions as to
the right of search must be modified after this.
And now I trust I
may finish my book without again naming Messrs. Slidell and Mason.
The working of the Senate bears little or no analogy to that of our
House of Lords. In the first place, the Senator's tenure there is
not hereditary, nor is it for life. They are elected, and sit for
six years. Their election is not made by the people of their
States, but by the State legislature. The two Houses, for instance,
of the State of Massachusetts meet together and elect by their joint
vote to the vacant seat for their State. It is so arranged that an
entirely new Senate is not elected every sixth year. Instead of
this a third of the number is elected every second year. It is a
common thing for Senators to be re-elected, and thus to remain in
the house for twelve and eighteen years. In our Parliament the
House of Commons has greater political strength and wider political
action than the House of Lords; but in Congress the Senate counts
for more than the House of Representatives in general opinion.
Money bills must originate in the House of Representatives, but that
is, I think, the only special privilege attaching to the public
purse which the Lower House enjoys over the Upper. Amendments to
such bills can be moved in the Senate; and all such bills must pass
the Senate before they become law. I am inclined to think that
individual members of the Senate work harder than individual
Representatives. More is expected of them, and any prolonged
absence from duty would be more remarked in the Senate than in the
other House. In our Parliament this is reversed. The payment made
to members of the Senate is 3000 dollars, or 600l., per annum, and
to a Representative, 500l. per annum. To this is added certain
mileage allowance for traveling backward and forward between their
own State and the Capitol. A Senator, therefore, from California or
Oregon has not altogether a bad place; but the halcyon days of
mileage allowances are, I believe, soon to be brought to an end. It
is quite within rule that the Senator of to-day should be the
Representative of to-morrow. Mr. Crittenden, who was Senator from
Kentucky, is now a member of the Lower House from an electoral
district in that State. John Quincy Adams went into the House of
Representatives after he had been President of the United States.
Divisions in the Senate do not take place as in the House of
Representatives. The ayes and noes are called for in the same way;
but if a poll be demanded, the Clerk of the House calls out the
names of the different Senators, and makes out lists of the votes
according to the separate answers given by the members. The mode is
certainly more dignified than that pursued in the other House, where
during the ceremony of voting the members look very much like sheep
being passed into their pens.
I heard two or three debates in the House of Representatives, and
that one especially in which, as I have said before, a chapter was
read out of the Book of Joshua. The manner in which the Creator's
name and the authority of His Word was banded about the house on
that occasion did not strike me favorably. The question originally
under debate was the relative power of the civil and military
authority. Congress had desired to declare its ascendency over
military matters, but the army and the Executive generally had
demurred to this, - not with an absolute denial of the rights of
Congress, but with those civil and almost silent generalities with
which a really existing power so well knows how to treat a nominal
power. The ascendant wife seldom tells her husband in so many words
that his opinion in the house is to go for nothing; she merely
resolves that such shall be the case, and acts accordingly. An
observer could not but perceive that in those days Congress was
taking upon itself the part, not exactly of an obedient husband, but
of a husband vainly attempting to assert his supremacy. "I have got
to learn," said one gentleman after another, rising indignantly on
the floor, "that the military authority of our generals is above
that of this House." And then one gentleman relieved the difficulty
of the position by branching off into an eloquent discourse against
slavery, and by causing a chapter to be read out of the Book of
Joshua.
On that occasion the gentleman's diversion seemed to have the effect
of relieving the House altogether from the embarrassment of the
original question; but it was becoming manifest, day by day, that
Congress was losing its ground, and that the army was becoming
indifferent to its thunders: that the army was doing so, and also
that ministers were doing so. In the States, the President and his
ministers are not in fact subject to any parliamentary
responsibility. The President may be impeached, but the member of
an opposition does not always wish to have recourse to such an
extreme measure as impeachment. The ministers are not in the
houses, and cannot therefore personally answer questions. Different
large subjects, such as foreign affairs, financial affairs, and army
matters, are referred to Standing Committees in both Houses; and
these committees have relations with the ministers. But they have
no constitutional power over the ministers; nor have they the much
more valuable privilege of badgering a minister hither and thither
by viva voce questions on every point of his administration. The
minister sits safe in his office - safe there for the term of the
existing Presidency if he can keep well with the president; and
therefore, even under ordinary circumstances, does not care much for
the printed or written messages of Congress.
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