No Amendment Of The Constitution
Is Needed Here, Nor Has The Weakness Come From Any Insufficiency Of
The Constitution.
The Senate can assume to itself to-morrow its own
glories, and can, by doing so, become the saviour of the honor and
glory of the nation.
It is to the Senate that we must look for that
conservative element which may protect the United States from the
violence of demagogues on one side, and from the despotism of
military power on the other. The Senate, and the Senate only, can
keep the President in check. The Senate also has a power over the
Lower House with reference to the disposal of money, which deprives
the House of Representatives of that exclusive authority which
belongs to our House of Commons. It is not simply that the House of
Representatives cannot do what is done by the House of Commons.
There is more than this. To the Senate, in the minds of all
Americans, belongs that superior prestige, that acknowledged
possession of the greater power and fuller scope for action, which
is with us as clearly the possession of the House of Commons. The
United States Senate can be conservative, and can be so by virtue of
the Constitution. The love of the Constitution in the hearts of all
Americans is so strong that the exercise of such power by the Senate
would strengthen rather than endanger its position. I could wish
that the Senators would abandon their money payments, but I do not
imagine that that will be done exactly in these days.
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