National Congress

“ How shall the essential arrangements of the Constitution be preserved? Congress is the purposing, designing, aggressive power of the national government. Disturbing and demoralizing influences in the organism, if there be any, come out from its restless energies. Damaging encroachments upon ground forbidden to the federal government generally originate in measures of its planning. ”

“ It is arguably the most important Congress in U.S. history. To this new legislature fell the responsibility of passing all the legislation needed to implement the new system, solving the difficult political questions left by the Constitutional Convention, setting up the rules and procedures of the House and Senate, and establishing the roles of its officers such as Speaker of the House and President of the Senate. ”

“ Remember that for the last 40 years the Congress has been the only national institution and its pandal the chosen field of our action. Here it is that our fathers decided to give battle to the powers that be. ”

“ The true answer must be, that as soon as congress assumed powers and passed measures, which were in their nature national, to that extent the people, from whose acquiescence and consent they took effect; must be considered as agreeing to form a nation. [51] The congress of 1774, looking at the general terms of the commissions, under which the delegates were appointed, seem to have possessed the power of concerting such measures, as they deemed best, to redress the grievances, and preserve the rights and liberties of all the colonies. ”

“ Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; and even more important than legislation is the instruction and guidance in political affairs which the people might receive from a body which kept all national concerns suffused in a broad daylight of discussion. There is no similar legislature in existence which is so shut up to the one business of law-making as is our Congress. ”

“ 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 congress of the United States, being empowered by the constitution 'to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever' over the seat of the national government, has the entire control over the District of Columbia for every purpose of government,-national or local. ”

“ The balances of the Constitution are for the most part only ideal. For all practical purposes the national government is supreme over the state governments, and Congress predominant over its so-called coördinate branches. Whereas Congress at first overshadowed neither President nor federal judiciary, it now on occasion rules both with easy mastery and with a high hand ”

“ The reässembling of Congress, marking as it does the procession of our national history, is always regarded with interest by the people for whom it is to legislate. But it is not unsafe to say that millions more than ever before, North, South, East, and West, are looking to the Congress which opens its session to-day with an earnestness and solicitude unequaled on similar occasions in the past. ”

“ The first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress proposed, as their plan of Reconstruction, a Constitutional Amendment. It was a bond of public justice and public safety combined, to be embodied in our national Constitution, to show to our posterity that patriotism is a virtue and rebellion is a crime. ”

“ The great national measures, whose progress through Congress has been given in detail, occupied the attention of that body continuously, from the first days of its existence to the closing hours of its last session. No day passed which was not rendered important by something said or done upon questions which concern not only the nation, but humanity, and which are of interest not only for the present, but for all time to come. ”

“ Of course every new province into which Congress has been allured by the principle of implied powers has required for its administration a greater or less enlargement of the national civil service, which now, through its hundred thousand officers, carries into every community of the land a sense of federal power, as the power of powers, and fixes the federal authority, as it were, in the very habits of society. ”

“ The Constitutional Convention struggled for weeks over how representatives to a national legislature should be chosen. The report of the Grand Committee, shown here, represented an effort to find a compromise between the positions of the large and small states. ”

“ Advocates the origination of money bills by the representatives, 418. Thinks that members of Congress should be paid out of the national treasury, 426. Wishes a limitation on the number of representatives of the large states, 452. Objects to an absolute prohibition of duties on exports, 454. Views on the power of Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves, 459, 477. Wishes a provision against retrospective laws, 488. Wishes the great appointments made by Congress, 442. Objects to surrendering to Congress the power over the militia, 444. Prefers a ratification of treaties by law, 470. ”

“ Lawrence.—The advocates of this measure stand in an unfortunate situation; for being those who in general advocate national measures, they are charged with designs to extend the powers of the Government unduly. He, however, consoled himself with a conscious attachment to the constitution, and with the reflection that their conduct received the approbation of their constituents. ”

“ Parties, vagueness of responsibility of, for legislation in U.S., 96-101; both, represented on Standing Committees, 99; in U.S., absence of responsible organization in, 187; in U.S., headless, conglomerate character of, 324; in Congress, discipline of, 326, 327; in Congress, kept together by caucus, 330.
Parton, on purposes of a national parliament, 250, 251.
Party, govt. by, practical necessity for, 97 et seq.; organization, outside Congress, 98; inside Congress, 99; choice of Speaker by, 107; govt. by, perfected in British system, 117 et seq.; diversity between Executive and Congress, 267 ”

“ We are here to enable the greatness of our Nation, not to restrain it. I call on the Congress to take up critical legislative measures, and to work together to set free the full potential of our People. ”

“ I am of the opinion that the national laws governing the choice of members of the Congress should be extended to include appropriate representation of the respective parties at the ballot box ant equality of representation on the various registration boards, wherever they exist. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Go through each state in the Union, and be convinced that a disregard for law hath taken the place of order, and that Congress is so slighted by all of them that not one hath complied with her requisitions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I accept the proposition that Congress is the proper branch of our Government to decide legislative policies and enact general laws and that in so doing it must of necessity deal with facts to some extent. ”

“ In the assembling of a convention for this purpose, which grew out of the free action of the people of each State, uninfluenced by law or precedent, we see congregated a body of men combining more talent, more wisdom, and more individuality of character than perhaps was ever aggregated in any other public body ever assembled. From this convention of sages emanated the Constitution of the United States; and most of those constituting this body reassembled in the first Congress, which sat as the supreme power in the United States. ”

“ It is not true that the people will not agree to enlarge the powers of the present Congress. The language of the people has been, that Congress ought to have the power of collecting an impost, and of coercing the states where it may be necessary. ”

“ To present to their consideration from time to time subjects in which the interests of the nation are most deeply involved, and for the regulation of which the legislative will is alone competent, is a duty prescribed by the Constitution, to the performance of which the first meeting of the new Congress is a period eminently appropriate, and which it is now my purpose to discharge. ”

“ This is the cardinal fact which differentiates Congress from the Chamber of Deputies and from Parliament, and which puts it beyond the reach of those eminently useful functions whose exercise would so raise it in usefulness and in dignity.
An effective representative body, gifted with the power to rule, ought, it would seem, not only to speak the will of the nation, which Congress does, but also to lead it to its conclusions, to utter the voice of its opinions, and to serve as its eyes in superintending all matters of government,—which Congress does not do. ”

“ Can it be supposed that the inhabitants of a single district in a State, are better informed with respect to the general interests of the Union, than a select body assembled from every part? Can it be supposed that a part will be more desirous of promoting the good of the whole than the whole will of the part? I apprehend, sir, that Congress will be the best judges of proper measures, and that instructions will never be resorted to but for party purposes, when they will generally contain the prejudices and acrimony of the party, rather than the dictates of honest reason and sound policy. ”

“ We are the first Americans to hear our own countrymen ask whether the Constitution is it 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. ”

“ Congress, it is true, are invested by the Constitution with the right of deciding these questions according to their sound discretion. Congress is composed of the representatives of all the States and of all the people of all the States. ”

“ What makes it the more important to understand the present mechanism of national government, and to study the methods of congressional rule in a light unclouded by theory, is that there is plain evidence that the expansion of federal power is to continue, and that there exists, consequently, an evident necessity that it should be known just what to do and how to do it, when the time comes for public opinion to take control of the forces which are changing the character of our Constitution. There are voices in the air which cannot be misunderstood. ”

“ No one, I take it for granted, is disposed to disallow the principle that the representatives of the people are the proper ultimate authority in all matters of government, and that administration is merely the clerical part of government. Legislation is the originating force. It determines what shall be done; and the President, if he cannot or will not stay legislation by the use of his extraordinary power as a branch of the legislature, is plainly bound in duty to render unquestioning obedience to Congress. ”

“ If Congress can declare what rights and privileges shall be enjoyed in the States by the people of one class, it can, by the same kind of reasoning, determine what shall be enjoyed by every class. If it can say who may go into and settle in and acquire property in a State, it can also say who shall not. ”

“ The Constitution devolves this solemn duty upon the people’s representatives, the Congress, because the linchpin of representative democracy is public confidence in the political system, regime, and community. ”