fear of displeasing the people, and to the sentiment within the House itself in favour of full and fair discussion, which sometimes induces the majority to refuse the previous question when demanded by one of their own party, or on behalf of a motion which they are as a whole supporting. “No one,” I was assured, “who is bona fide discussing a subject in a sensible way would be stopped by the application of the previous question. On the other hand we should never get appropriation bills through without it.”
Notwithstanding this powerful engine for expediting business, obstruction, or, as it is called in America, filibustering, is by no means unknown. It is usually practised by making repeated motions for the adjournment of a debate, or for “taking a recess” (suspending the sitting), or for calling the yeas and nays. Between one such motion and another some business must intervene, but as the making of a speech is “business,” there is no difficulty in complying with this requirement. No speaking is permitted on these obstructive motions, yet by them time may be wasted for many continuous hours, and if the obstructing minority is a strong one, it generally succeeds, if not in defeating a measure, yet in extorting a compromise. It must be remembered that owing to the provision of the Constitution above mentioned, the House is in this matter not sovereign even over its own procedure. That rules are not adopted, as they might be, which would do more than the present system does to extinguish filibustering, is due partly to this provision, partly to the notion that it is prudent to leave some means open by which a minority can make itself disagreeable, and to the belief that adequate checks exist on any gross abuse of such means.17 These checks are two. One is the fact that filibustering will soon fail unless conducted by nearly the whole of the party which happens to be in a minority, and that so large a section of the House will not be at the trouble of joining in it unless upon some really serious question. Some few years ago, seventeen or eighteen members tried to obstruct systematically a measure they objected to, but their number proved insufficient, and the attempt failed. But at an earlier date, during the Reconstruction troubles which followed the war, the opposition of the solid Democratic party, then in a minority, succeeded in defeating a bill for placing five of the Southern states under military government. The other check is found in the fear of popular disapproval. If the nation sees public business stopped and necessary legislation delayed by factious obstruction, it will visit its displeasure both upon the filibustering leaders individually, and on the whole of the party compromised. However hot party spirit may be, there is always a margin of moderate men in both parties whom the unjustifiable use of legally permissible modes of opposition will alienate. Since such men can make themselves felt at the polls when the next election arrives, respect for their opinion cools the passion of congressional politicians. Thus the general feeling is that as the power of filibustering is in extreme cases a safeguard against abuses of the system of closure by “previous question,” so the good sense of the community is in its turn a safeguard against abuses of the opportunities which the rules still leave open. One ex-Speaker, who had had large experience in leading both a majority and a minority of the House, observed to me that he thought the rules, taken all in all, as near perfection as any rules could be. This savours of official optimism. We all know the attachment which those who have grown old in working a system show to its faults as well as to its merits. Still, true is it that congressmen generally complain less of the procedure under which they live, and which seems to an English observer tyrannical, than do members of the English House of Commons of the less rigid methods of their own ancient and famous body. I know no better instance of the self-control and good humour of Americans than the way in which the minority in the House generally submit to the despotism of the majority, consoling themselves with the reflection that it is all according to the rules of the game, and that their turn will come in due course. To use the power of closing debate as stringently at Westminster as it is used at Washington would revolutionize the life of the House of Commons.18 But the House of Representatives is an assembly of a very different nature. Like the House of Commons it is a legislating, if hardly to be deemed a governing, body. But it is not a debating body. It rules through and by its committees, in which discussion is unchecked by any closing power; and the whole House does little more than register by its votes the conclusions which the committees submit. One subject alone, the subject of revenue, that is to say, taxation and appropriation, receives genuine discussion by the House at large. And although the power of limiting debate is often applied to expedite such business, it is seldom applied till opportunity has been given for the expression of all relevant views.
The rules regarding the procedure in Committee of the Whole House are in the main similar to those of the British House of Commons; but the chairman of such a committee is not (as usually in England) a permanent chairman of Ways and Means, but a person nominated by the Speaker on each occasion. A rule, not duly observed, forbids any member to speak twice to any question, until every member desiring to speak shall have spoken.19
The House has a power of going into secret session whenever confidential communications are received from the president, or a member informs it that he has communications of a secret nature to make. But this power, though employed in early days, is now in disuse. Every word spoken is reported by official stenographers and published in the Congressional Record, and the huge galleries are never cleared.
The number of bills brought into the House every year is very large, and has steadily increased. In the Thirty-seventh Congress (1861–63) the total number of bills introduced was 1,026, viz., 613 House bills, and 433 Senate bills. In the Fifty-first Congress (1889–91) the number had risen further, to 19,646 (including joint resolutions), of which 14,328 were introduced in the House, 5,318 in the Senate.20 In the Sixty-second there had been a further rise, for the bills and joint resolutions introduced in the House reached about 29,000, and those in the Senate approached 9,000. In the British House of Commons the number of public bills introduced was, in the session of 1892, 335 (20 of which had come from the Lords), besides 80 provisional order bills. In 1908 the total number of bills of all kinds introduced was 482, of which 297 were public bills, 56 provisional order bills, and 127 private bills. America is, of course, a far larger country, and more than twice as populous, but the legislative competence of Congress is incomparably smaller than that of the British Parliament, seeing that the chief part of the field both of public bill and private bill legislation belongs in America to the several states. By far the larger number of bills in Congress are what would be called in England “private” or “local and personal” bills, i.e., they establish no general rule of law but are directed to particular cases. Such are the numerous bills for satisfying persons with claims against the federal government, and for giving or restoring pensions to individuals alleged to have served in the Northern armies during the War of Secession. It is only to a very small extent that bills can attempt to deal with ordinary private law, since most of that topic belongs to state legislation. The proportion of bills that pass to bills that fail is a very small one, not one-thirtieth.21 As in England so even more in America, bills are lost less by direct rejection than by failing to reach their third reading, a mode of exinction which the good nature of the House, or the unwillingness of its members to administer snubs to one another, would prefer to direct rejection, even were not the want of time a sufficient excuse to the committees for failing to report them. One is told in Washington that few bills are brought in with a view to being passed. They are presented in order to gratify some particular persons or places, and it is well understood in the House that they must not be taken seriously. Sometimes a less pardonable motive exists. The great commercial corporations, and especially the railroad companies, are often through their land grants and otherwise brought into relations with the federal government. Bills are presented in Congress which purport to withdraw some of the privileges of these companies, or to establish or favour rival enterprises, but whose real object is to levy blackmail on these wealthy bodies, since it is often cheaper for a company to buy off its enemy than to defeat him either by the illegitimate influence of the lobby, or by the strength of its case in open combat. Several great corporations have thus to maintain a permanent staff at Washington for the sake of resisting legislative attacks upon them, some merely extortionate, some intended to win local popularity.
The title and attributions of the Speaker of the House are taken from his famous English original. But the character of the office has greatly altered from that original. The
