Nevertheless, I Believe I Am
Justified In Saying That It Has Become A Recognized Link In The
System Of Government Adopted By The United States.
In each House
standing committees are named, to which are delegated the special
consideration of certain affairs of State.
There are, for instance,
Committees of Foreign Affairs, of Finance, the Judiciary Committee,
and others of a similar nature. To these committees are referred
all questions which come before the House bearing on the special
subject to which each is devoted. Questions of taxation are
referred to the Finance Committee before they are discussed in the
House; and the House, when it goes into such discussion, has before
it the report of the committee. In this way very much of the work
of the legislature is done by branches of each House, and by
selected men whose time and intellects are devoted to special
subjects. It is easy to see that much time and useless debate may
be thus saved; and I am disposed to believe that this system of
committees has worked efficiently and beneficially. The mode of
selection of the members has been so contrived as to give to each
political party that amount of preponderance in each committee which
such party holds in the House. If the Democrats have in the Senate
a majority, it would be within their power to vote none but
Democrats into the Committee on Finance; but this would be
manifestly unjust to the Republican party, and the injustice would
itself frustrate the object of the party in power; therefore the
Democrats simply vote to themselves a majority in each committee,
keeping to themselves as great a preponderance in the committee as
they have in the whole House, and arranging also that the chairman
of the committee shall belong to their own party.
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