Government House

“ The principle is that the House of Representatives of the United States is a representation only of the persons and freedom of the North, and of the persons, property, and slavery, of the South. Its practical operation has been to give the balance of power in the house, and in every department of the government, into the hands of the minority of numbers. For practical results look to the present composition of your government in all its departments. The President of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, are all slaveholders. ”

“ It was therefore necessary that the foundations of this government should be laid on the broad basis of the people. Yet the state governments are the pillars upon which this government is extended over such an immense territory, and are essential to its existence. The House of Representatives are immediately elected by the people. ”

“ Each house is judge of the elections, qualifications, and returns of its own members; determines its own rules of procedure, and may punish its members for disorderly behaviour, or by a two thirds vote expel a member. Absent members may be compelled under penalties to attend. Each house is required to keep a journal of its proceedings and at proper intervals to publish it, except such parts as for reasons of public policy had better be kept secret. ”

“ Questions of civil government are practical business questions, the principles of which are as often and as forcibly illustrated in a city council or a county board of supervisors, as in the House of Representatives at Washington. It is partly because too many of our citizens fail to realize that local government is a worthy study, that we find it making so much trouble for us. ”

“ 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 power is now in the hands of persons who nominate the Members of this House,—of large proprietors, and of individuals who come here representing small constituencies. It is they who rule the country; to them the Government are bound to bow. But let the great mass of the householders, let the intelligence of the people be heard in this House, and the Prime Minister may carry on his Government with more security to himself, and with more security to the country, than he can do with the factitious power he now possesses. ”

“ Again, all these legislatures have to provide immense hosts of men, in the shape of custom-house, excise, and police officers, to carry out their designs, all of whom, and their families, help to increase the burden, till it becomes insupportable. ”

“ Parliament has comprised uninterruptedly, aside from the king, the two branches which exist at the present time, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, or, strictly, the Lords of Parliament and the Representatives of the Commons.
The range of jurisdiction which, step by step, these chambers, both separately and conjointly, have acquired has been broadened until, so far as the dominions of the British crown extend, it covers all but the whole of the domain of human government. ”

“ The best constitution of a Second Chamber is that which embodies the greatest number of elements exempt from the class interests and prejudices of the majority, but having in themselves nothing offensive to democratic feeling. I repeat, however, that the main reliance for tempering the ascendancy of the majority can be placed in a Second Chamber of any kind. The character of a representative government is fixed by the constitution of the popular House. ”

“ The members of the lower house of the legislature are usually elected from fairly wieldy districts. The union of the executive and legislative functions is very simply accomplished by dropping from the list of elective officers the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, the auditor of public accounts, the treasurer, the superintendent of public instruction, the attorney-general, and others and adding the following provisions:
There shall be an executive council to advise the governor in the government of the state. ”

“ The House of Lords is thus seen to yield to the popular representatives in the House of Commons, and the government, dependent on the House of Commons, to listen to the demand of women for enfranchisement. ”

“ The institution is the most aristocratic in principle which now remains in England; far more so than the House of Lords, for it grants public money and disposes of important public interests, not in conjunction with a popular assembly, but alone. ”

“ That the ordinary legislature may alter the constitution itself. On the discontinuance of assemblies, it became necessary to substitute in their place some other body, competent to the ordinary business of government, and to the calling forth the powers of the State for the maintenance of our opposition to Great Britain. Conventions were therefore introduced, consisting of two delegates from each county, meeting together and forming one house, on the plan of the former house of burgesses, to whose places they succeeded. ”

“ The president and one House are a majority. The decision is in accordance with our system of government. The suggestion that the president or that the Houses may act under the influence of personal or political prejudice, may, with equal force, be urged against any scheme that can be devised. ”

“ PRESIDENT, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW HAVEN:—If the Republican party of this nation shall ever have the national House entrusted to its keeping, it will be the duty of that party to attend to all the affairs of national housekeeping. Whatever matters of importance may come up, whatever difficulties may arise in its way of administration of the Government, that party will then have to attend to. It will then be compelled to attend to other questions, besides this question which now assumes an overwhelming importance—the question of slavery. ”

“ Yet, on the other hand, that a revenue of twenty millions a year, an army of two hundred thousand men, a civil service abounding with lucrative situations, should be left to the disposal of the Crown without any check whatever, is what no minister, I conceive, would venture to propose. This House is indeed the check provided by the Constitution on the abuse of the royal prerogative. But that this House is, or is likely ever to be, an efficient check on abuses practised in India, I altogether deny. We have, as I believe we all feel, quite business enough. ”

“ Before, however, we pass in review the conduct of the House in modern times, we must form a clear idea of what have come to be the recognised functions of the House in matters of legislation and administration ”

“ Advertising practice; restrictions An individual, firm, or corporation practicing before an agency of the United States may not use the name of a Member of either House of Congress or of an individual in the service of the United States in advertising the business. ”

“ Parliamentarian The management, supervision, and administration of the Office shall be vested in the Parliamentarian, who shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of fitness to perform the duties of the position. ”

“ The daily work of the House was left, for the most part, in the hands of the members of the Administration and the leading members of the Opposition, or, in cases where the interests of a particular class, or trade, or district were concerned, to the men who had special knowledge of each subject of legislation. ”

“ Look at every walk of life, at this House, at the other House, at the Bar, at the Bench, at the Church, and see whether it be not true that those who attain high distinction in the world were generally men who were distinguished in their academic career. ”

“ With a great number of Americans, that have not visited England, there is in some way or another an abiding impression that the House of Commons is the most stately and dignified legislative body in the world. ”

“ Assuredly I will never shrink from innovation where I see reason to believe that innovation will be improvement. That the present Government does not shrink from innovations which it considers as improvements the bill now before the House sufficiently shows. ”

“ Dual compensation For the purposes of applicable law relating to the payment to any employee subject to the House Employees Schedule or the House Wage Schedule of compensation from more than one civilian office or position, the rate of basic compensation of each employee subject to any such schedule shall be held and considered to be that rate which, when increased by additional compensation then currently authorized by law for House employees generally, equals or most nearly equals the per annum rate of compensation of such employee under such schedule. ”

“ Single per annum gross rates of pay for employees Whenever the rate of pay of an employee whose pay is disbursed by the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives is fixed or adjusted on or after the effective date of this section, that rate, as so fixed or adjusted, shall be a single per annum gross rate. ”

“ This case is presented simply in the hope that it will do something to arouse thinking men in public life, and especially in the Congress of the United States, to provide at least a suitable house or apartment for the American representative in each of the more important capitals of the world, as all other great powers and many of the lesser nations have done. ”

“ The second method of meeting the demand of property for protection from the single popular legislative chamber is to give it a direct representation in the legislature and a voice in the enactment of the laws at the time they are in the process of making. ”

“ Each individual state of the Union governs itself in the same manner by two chambers, a senate and house of representatives, the numbers of which are elected in the state by the citizens of the state; and each state has its own capitol. ”

“ Thus the supreme legislative authority resides in the three estates of the realm,—the king, the senate, and equestrian order, assembled in a national diet; but each estate has no negative upon the other, and, therefore, there is no balance, and very little check. The great families and principal palatines will still govern without any effectual control. ”

“ We are of opinion that they do. By the Revised Statutes of the United States, the legislative power in each territory is vested in the governor and a legislative assembly, the latter to consist of a council and house of representatives. ”

“ The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people. It was designed as a control for the people. ”

“ I recommend also such legislation as will render available and efficient for the purposes of instruction, so far as is consistent with the public service, the cabinets or museums of invention, of surgery, of education, and of agriculture, and other collections the property of the National Government.
The capital of the nation should be something more than a mere political center. ”

“ The House of Lords has not pronounced its determination collectively, but when we know that the majority of the Commons are produced by its members, we are justified in the inference, that it will combine with the Executive to protect its own offspring. ”

“ As the particular representatives of the people are in their public character above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject to the jurisdiction of the House, and as the House, in the exercise of its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there is no antecedent decision of the whole legislature. ”

“ The Raad can, by motion, make a suggestion to the Executive Council that a certain measure should be formulated, but the Executive Council and the President have the authority to ignore the suggestion, leaving the First Raad without a vestige of authority. The upper House concerns itself chiefly with the questions of finance, changes in the Constitution, and the care of the natives. ”

“ The reform measures of 1867 and 1884, establishing in substance a system of manhood suffrage in parliamentary elections, converted the House of Commons into an organ of thoroughgoing democracy. The development of the cabinet system brought the working executive, likewise, within the power of the people to control. ”