arisen from the practice of employing as counsel before the Supreme Court, senators whose influence has contributed to the appointment or confirmation of the judges.6 There are opportunities for corruption and blackmailing, of which unscrupulous men are well known to take advantage. Such men are fortunately few; but considering how demoralized are the legislatures of a few states, their presence must be looked for; and the rest of the Senate, however it may blush for them, is obliged to work with them and to treat them as equals. The contagion of political vice is nowhere so swiftly potent as in legislative bodies, because you cannot taboo a man who has got a vote. You may loathe him personally, but he is the people’s choice. He has a right to share in the government of the country; you are grateful to him when he saves you on a critical division; you discover that “he is not such a bad fellow when one knows him”; people remark that he gives good dinners, or has an agreeable wife; and so it goes on till falsehood and knavery are covered under the cloak of party loyalty.
As respects ability, the Senate cannot be profitably compared with the English House of Lords, because that assembly consists of some thirty eminent and as many ordinary men attending regularly, with a multitude of undistinguished persons who rarely appear, and take no real share in the deliberations. Setting the Senate beside the House of Commons, the average natural capacity of its ninety-six members is not above that of the ninety-six best men in the English house. There is more variety of talent in the latter, and a greater breadth of culture. On the other hand, the Senate excels in legal knowledge as well as in practical shrewdness. The House of Commons contains more men who could give a good address on a literary or historical subject; the Senate together with a very few eminent lawyers, has more who could either deliver a rousing popular harangue or manage the business of a great trading company, these being the forms of capacity commonest among congressional politicians. An acute American observer said (writing in 1885) and the description is still true:
“The Senate is just what the mode of its election and the conditions of public life in this country make it. Its members are chosen from the ranks of active politicians, in accordance with a law of natural selection to which the State legislatures are commonly obedient; and it is probable that it contains, consequently, the best men that our system calls into politics. If these best men are not good, it is because our system of government fails to attract better men by its prizes, not because the country affords or could afford no finer material. The Senate is in fact, of course, nothing more than a part, though a considerable part, of the public service; and if the general conditions of that service be such as to starve statesmen and foster demagogues, the Senate itself will be full of the latter kind, simply because there are no others available.”7
This judgment is severe, but not unjust. Whether the senators of today are inferior in ability and integrity to those of seventy, forty, twenty years ago, is not easy to determine. But it must be admitted, however regretfully, that they are less independent, less respected by the people, less influential with the people, than were their predecessors; and their wealth, which has made them fear the reproach of wanting popular sympathies, may count for something in this decline.
The place which the Senate holds in the constitutional system of America cannot be fully appreciated till the remaining parts of the system have been described. This much, however, may be claimed for it, that it has been and is still, though perhaps less than formerly, a steadying and moderating power. One cannot say, in the language of European politics, that it has represented aristocratic principles, or antipopular principles, or even conservative principles. Each of the great historic parties has in turn commanded a majority in it, and the difference between their strength has seldom been marked for any great while. On none of the great issues that have divided the nation has the Senate been, for any long period, decidedly opposed to the other house of Congress. It showed no more capacity than the House for grappling with the problems of slavery extension. It was scarcely less ready than the House to strain the Constitution by supporting Lincoln in the exercise of the so-called war powers, or subsequently by cutting down presidential authority in the struggle between Congress and Andrew Johnson, though it refused to convict him when impeached by the House. All the fluctuations of public opinion tell upon it, nor does it venture, any more than the House, to confront a popular impulse, because it is, equally with the House, subject to the control of the great parties, which seek to use while they obey the dominant sentiment of the hour.
But the fluctuations of opinion tell on it less energetically than on the House of Representatives. They reach it more slowly and gradually, owing to the system which renews it by one-third every second year, so that it sometimes happens that before the tide has risen to the top of the flood in the Senate it has already begun to ebb in the country. The Senate has been a stouter bulwark against agitation, not merely because a majority of the senators have always four years of membership before them, within which period public feeling may change, but also because the senators have been individually stronger men than the representatives. They are less democratic, not in opinion, but in temper, because they are more self-confident, because they have more to lose, because experience has taught them how fleeting a thing popular sentiment is, and how useful a thing continuity in policy is. The Senate has therefore usually kept its head better than the House of Representatives. It has expressed more adequately the judgment, as contrasted with the emotion, of the nation; and at least since 1896 it has been the body to which property and the financial powers chiefly look for support. In this sense it does constitute a “check and balance” in the federal government. Of the three great functions which the Fathers of the Constitution meant it to perform, the first, that of securing the rights of the smaller states, is no longer important; while the second, that of advising or controlling the executive in appointments as well as in treaties, has given rise to evils possibly commensurate with its benefits. But the third duty is still well discharged, for “the propensity of a single and numerous assembly to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions” is frequently, though not invariably, restrained.
The House of Representatives, usually called for shortness, the House, represents the nation on the basis of population, as the Senate represents the states.
But even in the composition of the House the states play an important part. The Constitution provides1 that “representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers,” and under this provision Congress allots so many members of the House to each state in proportion to its population at the last preceding decennial census, leaving the state to determine the districts within its own area for and by which the members shall be chosen. These districts are now equal or nearly equal in size; but in laying them out there is ample scope for the process called “gerrymandering,” 2 which the dominant party in a state rarely fails to apply for its own advantage. Where a state legislature has failed to redistribute the state into congressional districts, after the state has received an increase of representatives, the additional member or members are elected by the voters of the whole state on a general ticket, and are called “representatives at large.” Recently one state (Maine) elected all its representatives on this plan, while another (Kansas) elected three by districts and four by general ticket. Each district, of course, lies wholly within the limits of one state. When a seat becomes vacant the governor of the state issues a writ for a new election, and when a member desires to resign his seat he does so by letter to the governor.
The original House which met in 1789 contained only 65 members, the idea being that there should be one member for every 30,000 persons. As population grew and new states were added, the number of members was increased. Originally Congress fixed the ratio of members to population, and the House accordingly grew; but latterly, fearing a too rapid increase, it has fixed the number of members with no regard for any precise ratio of members to population. Under a statute of 1891, the number was fixed
