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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, which are most often mentioned
in the text. The auditing committees on the several departments, for
example, have now for some time exercised little more than a merely
nominal oversight over executive expenditures.

Since the text was written, the Tenure of Office Act, which sought to
restrict the President's removal from office, has been repealed; and
even before its repeal it was, in fact, inoperative. After the time of
President Johnson, against whom it was aimed, the party in power in
Congress found little occasion to insist upon its enforcement; its
constitutionality was doubtful, and it fell into the background. I did
not make sufficient allowance for these facts in writing the one or two
sentences of the book which refer to the Act.

Neither did I give sufficient weight, I now believe, to the powers of
the Secretary of the Treasury. However minutely bound, guided,
restricted by statute, his power has proved at many a critical juncture
in our financial history--notably in our recent financial history--of
the utmost consequence. Several times since this book was written, the
country has been witness to his decisive influence upon the money
markets, in the use of his authority with regard to the bond issues of
the government and his right to control the disposition of the funds of
the Treasury. In these matters, however, he has exercised, not
political, but business power. He has helped the markets as a banker
would help them. He has altered no policy. He has merely made
arrangements which would release money for use and facilitate loan and
investment. The country feels safer when an experienced banker, like Mr.
Gage, is at the head of the Treasury, than when an experienced
politician is in charge of it.

All these, however, are matters of detail. There are matters of
substance to speak of also.

It is to be doubted whether I could say quite so confidently now as I
said in 1884 that the Senate of the United States faithfully represents
the several elements of the nation's makeup, and furnishes us with a
prudent and normally constituted moderating and revising chamber.
Certainly vested interests have now got a much more formidable hold upon
the Senate than they seemed to have sixteen years ago. Its political
character also has undergone a noticeable change. The tendency seems to
be to make of the Senate, instead of merely a smaller and more
deliberate House of Representatives, a body of successful party
managers. Still, these features of its life may be temporary, and may
easily be exaggerated. We do not yet know either whether they will
persist, or, should they persist, whither they will lead us.

A more important matter--at any rate, a thing more concrete and
visible--is the gradual integration of the organization of the House of
Representatives. The power of the Speaker has of late years taken on new
phases. He is now, more than ever, expected to guide and control the
whole course of business in the House,--if not alone, at any rate
through the instrumentality of the small Committee on Rules, of which he
is chairman. That committee is expected not only to reformulate and
revise from time to time the permanent Rules of the House, but also to
look closely to the course of its business from day to day, make its
programme, and virtually control its use of its time. The committee
consists of five members; but the Speaker and the two other members of
the committee who represent the majority in the House determine its
action; and its action is allowed to govern the House. It in effect
regulates the precedence of measures. Whenever occasion requires, it
determines what shall, and what shall not, be undertaken. It is like a
steering ministry,--without a ministry's public responsibility, and
without a ministry's right to speak for both houses. It is a private
piece of party machinery within the single chamber for which it acts.
The Speaker himself--not as a member of the Committee on Rules, but by
the exercise of his right to "recognize" on the floor--undertakes to
determine very absolutely what bills individual members shall be allowed
to bring to a vote, out of the regular order fixed by the rules or
arranged by the Committee on Rules.

This obviously creates, in germ at least, a recognized and sufficiently
concentrated leadership within the House. The country is beginning to
know that the Speaker and the Committee on Rules must be held
responsible in all ordinary seasons for the success or failure of the
session, so far as the House is concerned. The congressional caucus has
fallen a little into the background. It is not often necessary to call
it together, except when the majority is impatient or recalcitrant under
the guidance of the Committee on Rules. To this new leadership,
however, as to everything else connected with committee government, the
taint of privacy attaches. It is not leadership upon the open floor,
avowed, defended in public debate, set before the view and criticism of
the country. It integrates the House alone, not the Senate; does not
unite the two houses in policy; affects only the chamber in which there
is the least opportunity for debate, the least chance that
responsibility may be properly and effectively lodged and avowed. It has
only a very remote and partial resemblance to genuine party leadership.

Much the most important change to be noticed is the result of the war
with Spain upon the lodgment and exercise of power within our federal
system: the greatly increased power and opportunity for constructive
statesmanship given the President, by the plunge into international
politics and into the administration of distant dependencies, which has
been that war's most striking and momentous consequence. When foreign
affairs play a prominent part in the politics and policy of a nation,
its Executive must of necessity be its guide: must utter every initial
judgment, take every first step of action, supply the information upon
which it is to act, suggest and in large measure control its conduct.
The President of the United States is now, as of course, at the front of
affairs, as no president, except Lincoln, has been since the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, when the foreign relations of the new
nation had first to be adjusted. There is no trouble now about getting
the President's speeches printed and read, every word. Upon his choice,
his character, his experience hang some of the most weighty issues of
the future. The government of dependencies must be largely in his hands.
Interesting things may come out of the singular change.

For one thing, new prizes in public service may attract a new order of
talent. The nation may get a better civil service, because of the sheer
necessity we shall be under of organizing a service capable of carrying
the novel burdens we have shouldered.

It may be, too, that the new leadership of the Executive, inasmuch as it
is likely to last, will have a very far-reaching effect upon our whole
method of government. It may give the heads of the executive departments
a new influence upon the action of Congress. It may bring about, as a
consequence, an integration which will substitute statesmanship for
government by mass meeting. It may put this whole volume hopelessly out
of date.

WOODROW WILSON.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, 15 _August_, 1900.




PREFACE


The object of these essays is not to exhaust criticism of the government
of the United States, but only to point out the most characteristic
practical features of the federal system. Taking Congress as the central
and predominant power of the system, their object is to illustrate
everything Congressional. Everybody has seen, and critics without number
have said, that our form of national government is singular, possessing
a character altogether its own; but there is abundant evidence that very
few have seen just wherein it differs most essentially from the other
governments of the world. There have been and are other federal systems
quite similar, and scarcely any legislative or administrative principle
of our Constitution was young even when that Constitution was framed. It
is our legislative and administrative _machinery_ which makes our
government essentially different from all other great governmental
systems. The most striking contrast in modern politics is not between
presidential and monarchical governments, but between Congressional and
Parliamentary governments. Congressional government is Committee
government; Parliamentary government is government by a responsible
Cabinet Ministry. These are the two principal types which present
themselves for the instruction of the modern student of the practical in
politics: administration by semi-independent executive agents who obey
the dictation of a legislature to which they are not responsible, and
administration by executive agents who are the accredited leaders and
accountable servants of a legislature virtually supreme in all things.
My chief aim in these essays has been, therefore, an adequate
illustrative contrast of these two types of government, with a view to
making as plain as possible the actual conditions of federal
administration. In short, I offer, not a commentary, but an outspoken
presentation of such cardinal facts as may be sources of practical
suggestion.

WOODROW WILSON

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, _October_ 7, 1884.




CONTENTS.


I. INTRODUCTORY      1

II. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES      58

III. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. REVENUE AND SUPPLY      130

IV. THE SENATE      193

V. THE EXECUTIVE      242

VI. CONCLUSION      294




CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT:

A STUDY IN AMERICAN POLITICS.




I.

INTRODUCTORY.

     The laws reach but a very little way. Constitute government how you
     please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the
     exercise of powers, which are left at large to the prudence and
     uprightness of ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of
     the laws depends upon them. Without them your commonwealth is no
     better than a scheme upon paper; and not a living, active,
     effective organization.--BURKE.

     The great fault of political writers is their too close adherence
     to the forms of the system of state which they happen to be
     expounding or examining. They stop short at the anatomy of
     institutions, and do not penetrate to the secret of their
     functions.--JOHN MORLEY.


It would seem as if a very wayward fortune had presided over the history
of the Constitution of the United States, inasmuch as that great federal
charter has been alternately violated by its friends and defended by its
enemies. It came hard by its establishment in the first place,
prevailing with difficulty over the strenuous forces of dissent which
were banded against it. While its adoption was under discussion the
voices of criticism were many and authoritative, the voices of
opposition loud in tone and ominous in volume, and the Federalists
finally triumphed only by dint of hard battle against foes, formidable
both in numbers and in skill. But the victory was complete,--astonishingly
complete. Once established, the new government had only the zeal of its
friends to fear. Indeed, after its organization very little more is
heard of the party of opposition; they disappear so entirely from
politics that one is inclined to think, in looking back at the party
history of that time, that they must have been not only conquered but
converted as well. There was well-nigh universal acquiescence in the new
order of things. Not everybody, indeed, professed himself a Federalist,
but everybody conformed to federalist practice. There were jealousies
and bickerings, of course, in the new Congress of the Union, but no
party lines, and the differences which caused the constant brewing and
breaking of storms in Washington's first cabinet were of personal rather
than of political import. Hamilton and Jefferson did not draw apart
because the one had been an ardent and the other only a lukewarm friend
of the Constitution, so much as because they were so different in
natural bent and temper that they would have been like to disagree and
come to drawn points wherever or however brought into contact. The one
had inherited warm blood and a bold sagacity, while in the other a
negative philosophy ran suitably through cool veins. They had not been
meant for yoke-fellows.

There was less antagonism in Congress, however, than in the cabinet; and
in none of the controversies that did arise was there shown any serious
disposition to quarrel with the Constitution itself; the contention was
as to the obedience to be rendered to its provisions. No one threatened
to withhold his allegiance, though there soon began to be some
exhibition of a disposition to confine obedience to the letter of the
new commandments, and to discountenance all attempts to do what was not
plainly written in the tables of the law. It was recognized as no longer
fashionable to say aught against the principles of the Constitution; but
all men could not be of one mind, and political parties began to take
form in antagonistic schools of constitutional construction. There
straightway arose two rival sects of political Pharisees, each
professing a more perfect conformity and affecting greater "ceremonial
cleanliness" than the other. The very men who had resisted with might
and main the adoption of the Constitution became, under the new division
of parties, its champions, as sticklers for a strict, a rigid, and
literal construction.

They were consistent enough in this, because it was quite natural that
their one-time fear of a strong central government should pass into a
dread of the still further expansion of the power of that government, by
a too loose construction of its charter; but what I would emphasize here
is not the motives or the policy of the conduct of parties in our early
national politics, but the fact that opposition to the Constitution as a
constitution, and even hostile criticism of its provisions, ceased
almost immediately upon its adoption; and not only ceased, but gave
place to an undiscriminating and almost blind worship of its principles,
and of that delicate dual system of sovereignty, and that complicated
scheme of double administration which it established. Admiration of that
one-time so much traversed body of law became suddenly all the vogue,
and criticism was estopped. From the first, even down to the time
immediately preceding the war, the general scheme of the Constitution
went unchallenged; nullification itself did not always wear its true
garb of independent state sovereignty, but often masqueraded as a
constitutional right; and the most violent policies took care to make
show of at least formal deference to the worshipful fundamental law. The
divine right of kings never ran a more prosperous course than did this
unquestioned prerogative of the Constitution to receive universal
homage. The conviction that our institutions were the best in the
world, nay more, the model to which all civilized states must sooner or
later conform, could not be laughed out of us by foreign critics, nor
shaken out of us by the roughest jars of the system.

Now there is, of course, nothing in all this that is inexplicable, or
even remarkable; any one can see the reasons for it and the benefits of
it without going far out of his way; but the point which it is
interesting to note is that we of the present generation are in the
first season of free, outspoken, unrestrained constitutional criticism.
We are the first Americans to hear our own countrymen ask whether the
Constitution is still adapted to serve the purposes for which it was
intended; the first to entertain any serious doubts about the
superiority of our own institutions as compared with the systems of
Europe; the first to think of remodeling the administrative machinery of
the federal government, and of forcing new forms of responsibility upon
Congress.

The evident explanation of this change of attitude towards the
Constitution is that we have been made conscious by the rude shock of
the war and by subsequent developments of policy, that there has been a
vast alteration in the conditions of government; that the checks and
balances which once obtained are no longer effective; and that we are
really living under a constitution essentially different from that which
we have been so long worshiping as our own peculiar and incomparable
possession. In short, this model government is no longer conformable
with its own original pattern. While we have been shielding it from
criticism it has slipped away from us. The noble charter of fundamental
law given us by the Convention of 1787 is still our Constitution; but it
is now our _form of government_ rather in name than in reality, the form
of the Constitution being one of nicely adjusted, ideal balances, whilst
the actual form of our present government is simply a scheme of
congressional supremacy. National legislation, of course, takes force
now as at first from the authority of the Constitution; but it would be
easy to reckon by the score acts of Congress which can by