But Even This Would Not Be Exact, Seeing
That The Master Of The Rolls And The Officers Of The Army And Navy
Can Sit In Parliament.
The absence of the President's ministers
from Congress certainly occasions much confusion, or rather
prohibits a more thorough political understanding between the
executive and the legislature than now exists.
In speaking of the
government of the United States in the next chapter, I shall be
constrained to allude again to this subject.*
* It will be alleged by Americans that the introduction into
Congress of the President's ministers would alter all the existing
relations of the President and of Congress, and would at once
produce that parliamentary form of government which England
possesses, and which the States have chosen to avoid. Such a change
would elevate Congress and depress the President. No doubt this is
true. Such elevation, however, and such depression seemed to me to
be the two things needed.
The duties of the House of Representatives are solely legislative.
Those of the Senate are legislative and executive, as with us those
of the Upper House are legislative and judicial. The House of
Representatives is always open to the public. The Senate is so open
when it is engaged on legislative work; but it is closed to the
public when engaged in executive session. No treaties can be made
by the President, and no appointments to high offices confirmed,
without the consent of the Senate; and this consent must be given -
as regards the confirmation of treaties - by two-thirds of the
members present. This law gives to the Senate the power of debating
with closed doors upon the nature of all treaties, and upon the
conduct of the government as evinced in the nomination of the
officers of State. It also gives to the Senate a considerable
control over the foreign relations of the government. I believe
that this power is often used, and that by it the influence of the
Senate is raised much above that of the Lower House. This influence
is increased again by the advantage of that superior statecraft and
political knowledge which the six years of the Senator gives him
over the two years of the Representative. The tried Representative,
moreover, very frequently blossoms into a Senator but a Senator does
not frequently fade into a Representative. Such occasionally is the
case, and it is not even unconstitutional for an ex-President to
reappear in either House. Mr. Benton, after thirty years' service
in the Senate, sat in the House of Representatives. Mr. Crittenden,
who was returned as Senator by Kentucky, I think seven times, now
sits in the Lower House; and John Quincy Adams appeared as a
Representative from Massachusetts after he had filled the
presidential chair.
And, moreover, the Senate of the United States is not debarred from
an interference with money bills, as the House of Lords is debarred
with us. "All bills for raising revenue," says the seventh section
of the first article of the Constitution, "shall originate with the
House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with
amendments as on other bills." By this the Senate is enabled to
have an authority in the money matters of the nation almost equal to
that held by the Lower House - an authority quite sufficient to
preserve to it the full influence of its other powers.
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