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Books by Woodrow Wilson

CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT. A Study in
American Politics. 16mo, $1.25.

MERE LITERATURE, and Other Essays, 12mo,
$1.50.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK




CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT

_A STUDY IN AMERICAN POLITICS_

BY

WOODROW WILSON

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY WOODROW WILSON

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To

His Father,

THE PATIENT GUIDE OF HIS YOUTH,
THE GRACIOUS COMPANION OF HIS MANHOOD,
HIS BEST INSTRUCTOR AND MOST LENIENT CRITIC,

This Book

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE TO FIFTEENTH EDITION.


I have been led by the publication of a French translation of this
little volume to read it through very carefully, for the first time
since its first appearance. The re-reading has convinced me that it
ought not to go to another impression without a word or two by way of
preface with regard to the changes which our singular system of
Congressional government has undergone since these pages were written.

I must ask those who read them now to remember that they were written
during the years 1883 and 1884, and that, inasmuch as they describe a
living system, like all other living things subject to constant subtle
modifications, alike of form and of function, their description of the
government of the United States is not as accurate now as I believe it
to have been at the time I wrote it.

This is, as might have been expected, more noticeable in matters of
detail than in matters of substance. There are now, for example, not
three hundred and twenty-five, but three hundred and fifty-seven members
in the House of Representatives; and that number will, no doubt, be
still further increased by the reapportionment which will follow the
census of the present year. The number of committees in both Senate and
House is constantly on the increase. It is now usually quite sixty in
the House, and in the Senate more than forty. There has been a still
further addition to the number of the "spending" committees in the House
of Representatives, by the subdivision of the powerful Committee on
Appropriations. Though the number of committees in nominal control of
the finances of the country is still as large as ever, the tendency is
now towards a concentration of all that is vital in the business into
the hands of a few of the more prominent