House of Representatives

“ No reasoning, therefore, was necessary to satisfy the American people of the advantages of a house of representatives, which should emanate directly from themselves; which should guard their interests, support their rights, express their opinions, make known their wants, redress their grievances, and introduce a pervading popular influence throughout all the operations of the government. ”

“ In the other branch of the legislature, the House of Representatives, shall we not have the advantages of benevolence and attachment to the people, whose immediate representatives they are?
A free government has often been compared to a pyramid. ”

“ In the House of Representatives there is not the substance, but the shadow only, of representation, which can never produce proper information in the legislature, or inspire confidence in the people. The laws will, therefore, be generally made by men little concerned in, and unacquainted with, their effects and consequences. ”

“ That the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be ineligible to, and incapable of holding, any civil office under the authority of the United States, during the time for which they shall respectively be elected. ”

“ The House of Representatives consists of members elected, under the Electoral Law of 1874, by a complicated franchise based upon property, taxation, profession or official position, and ancestral privileges. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker of the House of Representatives who shall be willing to organize the committees of that House so as to give the Free States their just influence in the business of legislation? ”

“ In the maintenance of our rights and the vindication of our institutions the most unequal contests are in the United States House of Representatives, and we have cause to congratulate ourselves on the ability, the fidelity and harmonious cooperation of our members. ”

“ Our House of Representatives is supposed to be our popular law-making body, and yet its members do not convene until a year and one month from the time they are elected. No matter how pressing the issue upon which a majority of them are chosen, more than a year must elapse before they may begin their endeavors to carry out the will of the people. ”

“ I have visited every day the Senate and the Assembly of Representatives, though generally the former, because I hear well there, and because as a parliametary assembly it seems, in every case, to stand above the other.
In the House of Representatives no speaker may occupy more than an hour of time. ”

“ Nothing in the elections, either for President or for Congress, showed that the people were disposed to scrutinize sharply the workings of any part of their government except the House of Representatives. ”

“ The present House of Representatives consists of 181 members, which are apportioned among the states in a ratio of one representative for every thirty-five thousand federal numbers, which are ascertained by adding to the whole number of free persons, three-fifths of the slaves. ”

“ Many who have come to know how Presidents are made have abandoned the polls in disgust. The Senate is a badly abridged edition of the House of Lords, while the House of Representatives is the same of the House of Commons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We shall very soon have parties formed—a court and country party—and these parties will have names given them; one party in the house of representatives will support the president and his measures and ministers—the other will oppose them—a similar party will be in the senate—these parties will struggle with all their art, perhaps with intrigue, perhaps with corruption at every election to increase their own friends, and diminish their opposers. ”

“ The members to the national House of Representatives are to be chosen by the people at large, in proportion to the numbers in the respective districts. When we come to the Senate, its members are elected by the states in their equal and political capacity. But had the government been completely consolidated, the Senate would have been chosen by the people in their individual capacity, in the same manner as the members of the other house. ”

“ THE number of which the House of Representatives is to consist, forms another, and a very interesting point of view, under which this branch of the Fœderal Legislature may be contemplated. ”

“ Gentlemen may talk of public virtue and confidence; we shall be told that the House of Representatives will consist of the most virtuous men on the continent, and that in their hands we may trust our dearest rights. ”