Corps législatif

“ If congress be not equally incompetent, it is, because that body unites the powers of local legislation with those, which are to operate through the Union, and may use the last in aid of the first; or, because the power of exercising exclusive legislation draws after it, as an incident, the power of making that legislation effectual; and the incidental power may be exercised throughout the Union, because the principal power is given to that body, as the legislature of the Union. ”

“ How, then, can it assert, in the face of such admissions, that the House of Representatives derives its authority from the American people, in the aggregate, as forming one people or nation? To give color to the assertion, it affirms, that the people will be represented on the same principle, and in the same proportion, as they are in the legislature of each particular State. ”

“ Are not both the agents of the people, amenable to them? Is there any thing in this Constitution which gives them the power to perpetuate the sitting members? Is there any such strange absurdity? If the legislature of this state has the power to fix the time, place, and manner, of holding elections, why not place the same confidence in the general government? The members of the general government, and those of the state legislature, are both chosen by the people. ”

“ I can speak only of the movements of corps, without dwelling upon those scenes which stir the blood and fire the soul,—the hardihood, the endurance, the cool, collected, reserved force, abiding the time, the calm facing of death, the swift advance, the rush, the plunge into the thickest of the fight, where hundreds of cannon, where fifty thousand muskets, fill the air with iron hail and leaden rain! ”

“ Were our government a parliamentary system, such as exists among the free peoples of the Old World, we should have a legislature promptly responsive to movements of the popular will, a ministry sitting in one or the other house of Congress, and dependent for continuance in power upon the support of a majority in the Lower House, and an executive disarmed in whole or in part of the power to negative legislative enactments. ”

“ In the opinion of your committee, whenever a constitution shall be formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system imperatively demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that fundamental law, without fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ Under the Constitution, upon all subjects of legislation but one, the two houses are equal and coördinate branches of Congress. That one relates to their representation in the bodies, to their membership, that which constitutes their existence, which is essential to their life and their independence. That is confided to each house, and to each house alone, to act for itself. It judges for itself upon the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members. It judges, it admits, it punishes, it expels. It can not share that responsibility with any other department of the Government. ”

“ Having split the Congress, the lower branch was given to the people, while the upper was given to the state legislatures, thus opposing a barrier to the will of the state governments in the House and to the will of the people in the Senate. Not daring to trust either people or legislatures to choose a president, a select body of citizens was created, to whom the choice of that official was assigned, thus making a second defense from the populace or state legislatures. ”

“ But shall the whole power of legislation rest in one assembly? Most of the foregoing reasons apply equally to prove that the legislative power ought to be more complex; to which we may add, that if the legislative power is wholly in one assembly, and the executive in another, or in a single person, these two powers will oppose and encroach upon each other, until the contest shall end in war, and the whole power, legislative and executive, be usurped by the strongest. ”

“ The most prevalent idea I think at present is a total change of the federal system, and instituting a great national council or parliament upon the principles of equal, proportionate representation, consisting of two branches of the legislature invested with full legislative powers upon the objects of the Union ”

“ As the same people will elect good men to represent them in one legislative chamber of Congress, and bad men to represent them in two legislative chambers of each State, the one House of Representatives, not having a power to make laws, is a safer guardian of the State local right of self-government, than the two houses. ”

“ The United States Constitution establishes the exclusive qualifications for congressional office, sets the specific length of terms for Members of the House and for Senators, and expressly delegates to each house of Congress the authority to judge the elections and qualifications of, and to discipline and to remove its own Members. ”

“ Those who were for two branches in the legislature—a House of Representatives and a Senate—urged the necessity of a second branch, to serve as a check upon the first, and used all those trite and common-place arguments which may be proper and just when applied to the formation of a state government over individuals variously distinguished in their habits and manners, fortune and rank; where a body chosen in a select manner, respectable for their wealth and dignity, may be necessary, frequently, to prevent the hasty and rash measures of a representation more popular. ”

“ THE COMPROMISES.—In the course of the debates in the convention great difference of opinion arose on several matters.
The small states wanted a Congress of one house, and equality of state representation. The great states wanted Historical a Congress of two houses, with representation in proportion to population. This difference of opinion was so serious that a compromise was necessary, and it was agreed that in one branch (House of Representatives) the people should be represented, and in the other (Senate) the states. ”

“ The government being divided into branches, executive and legislative, in all contests between them the people have divided into the favorers of one or the other. From their dread of the executive, and affection to their representatives, they have always sided with the legislature. ”

“ Is there any spell or charm, that instantly changes a delegate to Congress from an honest man into a knave—a tyrant? I confess freely that I am willing to trust Congress with any powers that I should dare lodge in a state-legislature. I believe life, liberty, and property is as safe in the hands of a federal legislature, organized in the manner proposed by the convention, as in the hands of any legislature, that has ever been or ever will be chosen in any particular state. ”

“ The Congress, under the proposed constitution, will have the same interest as the people; they are a part of the people; their interest is inseparable from that of the people; and this union of interest will eternally remain, while the right of election shall continue in the people. Over this right Congress will have no control: The time and manner of exercising that right are very wisely vested in Congress; otherwise a delinquent State might embarrass the measures of the Union. ”

“ It is, therefore, a fact of the most serious consequence that by our system of congressional rule no such means of controlling legislation is afforded. Outside of Congress the organization of the national parties is exceedingly well-defined and tangible ”

“ The supreme power of the Federation is divided for its exercise into legislative, executive, and judicial. Two or more of these powers shall never be united in one person or corporation, nor the legislative power be deposited in one individual. Article 51. The legislative power of the nation is deposited in a general Congress, which shall be divided into two houses, one of Deputies and the other of Senators. [Footnote: The original form of this article was as follows: "The exercise of the supreme legislative power is vested in one assembly, which shall be denominated Congress of the Union."] ”

“ Consider how the three main functions of Parliament are performed—legislation, finance, and the control of administration. The discussion of legislation by the whole House has been made to seem futile by the crack of the party whip, by obstruction, and by the weapons designed to deal with obstruction—the closure, the guillotine, the kangaroo. A real amendment has been brought about in this sphere by the establishment of a system of committees to which legislative proposals of various kinds are referred, and this is one of the most hopeful features of recent development. ”

“ It is enough, that the state presents her own representation on the floor of congress in the mode she chooses to present it. If a state were to give to one portion of her territory a representative for every twenty-five thousand persons, and to the rest a representative only for every fifty thousand, it would be an act of unjust legislation, doubtless, but it would be wholly beyond redress by any power in congress; because the constitution has left all this to the state itself. ”

“ Constitutionally, the Grand National Assembly, as the highest voice of the people, is asserted to be the supreme organ of state power, and all other government bodies are theoretically subordinate to it. ”

“ As we have found It necessary to give very extensive powers to the federal government both over the persons and estates of the citizens, we thought it right to draw one branch of the legislature immediately from the people, and that both wealth and numbers should be considered in the representation. ”

“ Whatever can contribute to its prosperity must enlist the feelings of its constitutional guardians and command their favorable consideration.
Our Government is one of limited powers, and its successful administration eminently depends on the confinement of each of its coordinate branches within its own appropriate sphere. The first section of the Constitution ordains that--
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. ”

“ To the States-General fell the task, after a terrific struggle with king and nobles, to create the Constituent Assembly, a great national congress, whose function it was to moderate the despotism of the throne by conferring upon [Pg 410] a nation of twenty-five millions of people, after ages of oppression, constitutional liberty. The Constituent Assembly, which succeeded the States-General, abolished those old institutions of feudal servitude which had become utterly unendurable, and established a constitutional monarchy, taking as a model, in the main, the British Constitution. ”

“ While the rules adopted and used by the House of Representatives are recognized authority in legislative bodies of the country, yet because it is so large a body, its business so complicated, and the supremacy of party so strong, its laws cannot always be followed as a model. ”

“ With harmony, co-operation and determination we shall yet build this organization, of such numbers and political strength that through the power of constituency it can dictate at least one plank in the platform of every political party, and secure an amendment from any Legislature it petitions. ”

“ The representatives in Congress are to be chosen, every second year, by the people of the several states. Consequently, it lies with the people themselves to say who shall represent them. It will, then, be their own fault if they do not choose the best men in the commonwealth. ”

“ If ten men in our Assembly do the public business, may not the same observation extend to Congress? May not five men do the public business of the Union? But there is a great difference between the objects of legislation in Congress and those of the state legislatures. If the former be more complicated, there is a greater necessity of a full and adequate representation. ”

“ There must be such an assembly as our present House of Representatives, standing in the same immediate relation to the people of the whole country as was sustained by the assembly of each separate state to the people of that state. Without such direct representation of the whole people in the Federal Congress, it would be impossible to achieve one secure step toward the radical reform of the weaknesses and vices of the confederation. ”

“ The whole is applicable, we think, fully, even to “Congress” itself. Write “our General Legislature” in place of “Parliament,” “assembly” instead of “congress,” for “Bristol” read “Virginia,” and we see no difficulty whatever.
Our general legislature is not an assembly of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain as an agent, and advocate against the other agents and advocates; but our general legislature is a deliberative [Mr. B. has italicized deliberative] assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole. ”

“ It may, therefore, be observed, that the investiture of such power, so far from being an objection, is a most cogent reason for accepting the Constitution. The power of Congress, both in the legislative and executive line, is the power of the people, collected through a certain medium, to a focal point, at all times ready to be exerted for the general benefit, according as circumstances or exigencies may require. ”

“ There are those who question why a Constituent Assembly is needed, if the Constitution can be amended by Congress. Those who make this objection should remember that the Executive Branch must concentrate on governing, and Congress on legislating and exercising political control over the government; tasks that must be referred to attend the urgent matters of each day. ”