United States Senator

“ The United States Senator from his State, or his representative in Congress, or both, find it desirable for what they call the public interest—that is, their own interest, in keeping their political machine in order—that the ambition of this person should be gratified, and they assail the President with suitable urgency, telling him that the people of their respective States or districts demand just this thing, and that unless it be done the consequences to the party will be awful. ”

“ Sir, I make the obvious point of order that there are no vacancies to fill in the office of United States Senator, and that it does not lie within the province of the delegates chosen to this convention to pledge the party to any man. ”

“ More importantly, you will be vindicating the confidence that the Framers placed in each person who takes the oath of office, as Senator, upholding a trust that echoes through the centuries.
I share the confidence that Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, and the Framers placed in this body and in its members. But I am not blind. The Senate today, in my view, is not functioning as it can and should.
But look around you. This moment is difficult, not only for this body, but for the nation it serves. ”

“ It is a strange thing, an exceedingly strange thing, that when a few Senators in the city of Washington, ill at their houses, give assurance that they can be here to act upon a great public question on the day following this, we should hear a piece of declamation, the Senator appealing to his God, and saying, with an Io triumphe air, 'Well or ill, God has made them ill.' Sir, the god of desolation, the god of darkness, the god of evil is his god. I never expected to hear such objections raised among honorable men; and men to be Senators should be honorable men. ”

“ The floor staff, the cloakroom professionals, and the hundreds of unknown and unseen people who show up every day to make this critical institution of our democracy function--without them, no Senator could fulfill his or her obligation to the American people.
Many of my personal staff and Committee staff are present in the Senate gallery today. And neither I, nor the millions of Americans whose lives you have enriched and whose burdens you have lightened, can ever thank you enough. ”

“ The Senator is an excellent debater; he always speaks to the point as he understands it; and yet his point is apt to be political. Of course he [Pg 245] speaks as one having authority with his party, in which he is an acknowledged leader. And now, Sir, you will please to remark, he comes forward as leader for the President of the United States. The Senator from Indiana, an old-school Democrat,—he will not deny the appellation,—presents himself as defender of the President. ”

“ The United States Senate does not work that way, nor can it, or should it.
Mayors, governors, and presidents can sometimes succeed by the sheer force of their will. But there has never been a Senator so persuasive, so charismatic, so clever, or so brilliant that they could make a significant difference, while refusing to work with other members of this body.
Simply put, Mr. President, Senators cannot ultimately be effective alone. ”

“ As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle. I am not proud of the obviously staged, undignified countercharges that have been attempted in retaliation from the other side of the aisle.
I don't like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity. ”

“ Does [p. 406] the spirit of our Constitution (for clearly in terms it does not) intend to make a Senator of the United States a mere passive instrument or agent in the hands of a State Legislature. Is he required by any legal or moral duty or obligation, to surrender into the hands of any man or body of men, his honest judgment and conscientious convictions of right? To act on their dictation and his own responsibility ”

“ The propriety of some limitation upon admissions to office, after naturalization, cannot well be doubted. The senate is to participate largely in transactions with foreign governments; and it seems indispensable, that time should have elapsed sufficient to wean a senator from all prejudices, resentments, and partialities, in relation to the land of his nativity, before he should be entrusted with such high and delicate functions. ”

“ It is well known here and out of this Senate that the honorable Senator from Indiana is a gentleman who never, in any of his addresses here, says any thing that is in the slightest degree calculated to effect a party purpose, and has so little of that party feeling which presses itself upon other men as to be hardly suspected of being a party man at all. ”

“ The only difference between it and the continental congress under the old confederation is, that in this the vote was by states; in the senate, each senator has a single vote. So that, though they represent states, they vote as individuals. The vote of the senate thus may, and often does, become a mixed vote, embracing a part of the senators from some of the states on one side, and another part on the other. ”

“ The Senators shall hold their places during good behaviour, removable only by conviction on impeachment for some crime or misdemeanor. They shall continue to exercise their offices when impeached untill a conviction shall take place. Sixteen Senators attending in person shall be sufficient to make a House to transact business; but the Legislature may increase this number, yet so as never to exceed a majority of the whole number of Senators. The Senators may vote by proxy, but no Senator who is present shall be proxy for more than two who are absent. ”

“ And, sir, if this is done, some of us may hope to live—I probably may not, but the honorable Senator from Massachusetts may—to see the time when, by their own act, and under the effect of an enlightened study of their own interests, all men may be placed upon the same broad constitutional level, enjoying the same rights, and seeking happiness in the same way and under the same advantages ”

“ No reproach has ever reached the senate for its unfaithful discharge of these high functions; and the voice of a state has rarely, if ever, displaced a single senator for his vote on such an occasion. What more could be asked in the progress of any government? What more could experience produce to justify confidence in the institution?
§ 779. The next clause is, that
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further, than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honour, trust, or profit, under the United States. ”

“ It is almost impossible to learn anything in Washington to the detriment of the Senate. There seems to be a sort of esprit de corps in the entire city. They look politely horrified if you suggest that a Senator of the United States, honouring Washington with the society of his wives and daughters, is anything that he should not be. I was obliged to go to New York and Boston to get the information I wanted, and even now it is far from complete. ”

“ I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.
I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American. ”

“ Our political system remains with but little change. Each State has still two United States Senators, though the population represented by each representative has been greatly increased, so that the Senate has grown numerically much more than the House. It is the duty of each member of Congress to understand the conditions existing in every other member's State or district, and the country's interest always precedes that of party. ”

“ The Senate presents the most difficult problem for democracy to solve. The present method of choosing senators is altogether unsatisfactory. It has resulted in making the upper house of our Federal legislature representative of those special interests over which there is urgent need of effective public control. It has also had the effect of subordinating the making of laws in our state legislatures to that purely extraneous function—the election of United States senators. ”

“ Thus is this momentous measure, which both its friends and foes unite in thinking will exert a tremendous, if not revolutionary influence upon the business and concerns of the country—a measure which has so long and so greatly distracted and divided our councils, and against which the people have so often and so signally pronounced their judgment—to be forced through the senate of the United States. ”

“ A member of a senate, of immense wealth, the most respected birth, and transcendent abilities, has no influence in the nation, in comparison of what he would have in a single representative assembly. When a senate exists, the most powerful man in the state may be safely admitted into the house of representatives, because the people have it in their power to remove him into the senate as soon as his influence becomes dangerous. ”

“ The people will also be jealous, that the influence of the senate will be employed to conceal, connive, and defend guilt in executive officers, instead of being a guard and watch upon them, and a terror to them—a council selected by the president himself, at his pleasure, from among the senators, representatives, and nation at large, would be purely responsible—in that case, the senate, as a body, would not be compromised. ”

“ I believe the more this provision of the constitution is attended to, and experienced, the more the wisdom and utility of it will appear. As senators cannot hold any other office themselves, they will not be influenced, in their advice to the president, by interested motives. But it is said, they may have friends and kindred to provide for; it is true they may, but when we consider their character and situation, will they not be diffident of nominating a friend, or relative, who may wish for an office, and be well qualified for it, lest it should be suspected to proceed from partiality? ”

“ In concluding this topic, it is proper to remark, that no qualification whatsoever of property is established in regard to senators, as none had been established in regard to representatives. Merit, therefore, and talent have the freest access open to them into every department of office under the national government. Under such circumstances, if the choice of the people is but directed by a suitable sobriety of judgment, the senate cannot fail of being distinguished for wisdom, for learning, for exalted patriotism, for incorruptible integrity, and for inflexible independence. ”

“ There is one circumstance which will have a tendency to increase the dependence of the senators on the states, in proportion to the duration of their appointments. As the state legislatures are in continual fluctuation, the senator will have more attachments to form, and consequently a greater difficulty of maintaining his place, than one of shorter duration. He will, therefore, be more cautious and industrious to suit his conduct to the wishes of his constituents. ”

“ A senate duly constituted would not only operate, as a salutary check upon the representatives, but occasionally upon the people themselves, against their own temporary delusions and errors. The cool, deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of their rulers. ”

“ We one hundred Senators are but temporary stewards of a unique American institution, founded upon universal principles. The Senate was designed to be different, not simply for the sake of variety, but because the framers believed the Senate could and should be the venue in which statesmen would lift America up to meet its unique challenges. ”

“ Besides; the very habits of business, and the uniformity and regularity of system, acquired by a long possession of office, are of great concern in all cases of this sort. The senators from the longer duration of their office will have great opportunities of extending their political information, and of rendering their experience more and more beneficial to their country. The members are slowly changed; so, that the body will at all times, from its very organization, comprehend a large majority of persons, who have been engaged for a considerable time in public duties, and foreign affairs. ”