Parliamentarism

“ 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. ”

“ After we are chosen, and have taken our seats in this house, we have no longer any dependance upon our electors, at least so far as regards our behavior here; their whole power is then devolved upon us, and we are in every question to regard only the public good in general, and to determine according to our own judgment. If we do not—if we are to depend upon our representatives, and to follow blindly the instructions they send us, we cannot be said to act freely, nor can such parliaments be called free parliaments. ”

“ The method by which the party in opposition contrives to secure a parliamentary majority for itself is by disparaging the measures of the party in power, and promising greater reforms and better measures than those of their rivals. ”

“ A great and incalculable advantage is bestowed on that constituency which returns to parliament a distinguished man. His distinction ennobles the place he represents, it sustains public spirit, it augments the manly interest in all that affects the nation. Every time his voice hushes the assembled parliament, it reminds us of our common country; and even the discussion amongst his constituents which his voice provokes, clears their perceptions of the public interest, and enlightens themselves, from the intellect which commands their interests, and compels their attention. ”

“ No student of the recent action of parliaments is at all likely to be weighed to the earth by his overpowering admiration for them as effective instruments for the will of peoples. They are, it is true, the displacement of one kind of arbitrary power by another kind of arbitrary power. They are, in the form in which we best know them, the substitution of a king and his chosen advisers by a government and an assembly of popular representatives to which it is responsible. ”

“ The constitution deduced from these principles has at least the merit of simplicity. We are to have universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. He inclines to give a vote to women. [445] There is to be no king, no house of peers, no established church. Members of parliament are not to be re-eligible, till after an interval. Elaborate rules provide for their regular attendance and exclusive devotion to their masters' business. They are to be simply 'deputies,' not 'representatives.' They elect a prime minister who holds office for four years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the Legislative Assembly there are the Government party, consisting of the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney General, who prove their loyalty and devotion by adhering to His Excellency the Governor on every division, and (according to general belief) would rather vote against their own measures than against the representative of their Queen. Then there is the popular party, consisting of the popular member, who speaks at random on either side of the debate, but invariably votes against the Government, in order to maintain inviolate the integrity of his principles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have not, by abandoning their part in one legislature, obtained the power of constituting another, exclusive and independent, any more than the multitudes, who are now debarred from voting, have a right to erect a separate Parliament for themselves. ”

“ Curiously enough, in a country where the principle of popular election had long since taken such deep root, where the assemblies of the several states had been chosen by the people from the very beginning, there was some doubt as to whether the same principle could safely be applied to the national House of Representatives. ”

“ First, then, in every system of representation which can be conceived as perfect, every adult human being, [1] it appears to me, would have the means of exercising, through the electoral suffrage, a portion of influence on the management of public affairs. It may be said, that the largest, or a very large portion of the people, in this and other countries, are not fit for political influence; that they would make a bad use of it; that it is impossible to foresee a time when they could safely be trusted with it. ”

“ To capture Parliament and turn it into a popular but constitutional assembly is, I must conclude, the aspiration of the genuine Democrats wherever they may be found; that is their idea of the first step of the Democratic policy. ”

“ Therefore, as men must be had, the law giving justices the authority and power to impress any men they might select, with the exception of those who possessed a vote for members of parliament, was passed with the approval of parties on both sides of the House of Commons. ”

“ If we are to rely upon that feeling of the people—if we are to adopt this measure because it is the pleasure of the people, and because they are attached to the Government of King, Lords, and Commons, why do we not, at once, adopt the measure which we know the people prefer—I mean radical reform; that is to say, universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and annual parliaments? ”

“ They have about them none of the searching, critical, illuminating character of the higher order of parliamentary debate, in which men are pitted against each other as equals, and urged to sharp contest and masterful strife by the inspiration of political principle and personal ambition, through the rivalry of parties and the competition of policies. ”

“ We want all the sincere opinions and public purposes which are shared by a reasonable number of electors to be fairly represented here; and not only their opinions, but that they should be able to give effect by their vote to their confidence in particular men. Then why, because it is a novelty, refuse to entertain the only mode in which it is possible to obtain this complete reflection in the House of the convictions and preferences existing in the constituent body—to make the House, what we are so often told that it ought to be, the express image of the nation? ”

“ The legislative and executive are concentrated in the same persons. This, where real power exists, must eventuate in tyranny. 2. The representation of the States bears no proportion to their importance. This is an unreasonable subjection of the will of the majority to that of the minority. 3. The mode of election, and the liability of being recalled, may too often render the delegates rather partizans of their own States than representatives of the union. 4. Cabal and intrigue must consequently gain an ascendency in a course of years. ”

“ If the majority is to mould the policy of the party, if the demos is to be kept constantly awake and brought out to vote after the excitement of the hour has passed away, it is necessary that the party be organized. ”

“ The power of parliament is so great and extensive, that it makes, amends, reduces, revives, and abrogates laws, statutes, 111and ordinances, concerning matters ecclesiastical, civil, and military. None can begin, continue, or dissolve this council, but by the King’s authority. ”

“ There is some reason for regarding parliamentary government—at least under its classic and orthodox form of rivalry between two parties, who watch each other closely, in order to profit by the faults of their adversaries, who dispute with each other for power without the interests of the country, in the ardor of the encounter, being always considered—as a transitory form in the evolution of democracy. ”

“ We hold the free and honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the people to be the foundation of our republican government, and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority. ”

“ The right of the two Houses to count the electoral votes, and to declare that any person has a majority, is a matter of implication, precedent, and practice. But the right of the House of Representatives to supply the failure of a choice is a matter of positive and express constitutional provision. ”

“ The legislative power shall be vested in a senate and assembly, but the people reserve to themselves power, as herein provided, to propose laws and to enact or reject the same at the polls, independent of the legislature, and to approve or reject at the polls any law or any part of any law enacted by the legislature. ”

“ How they prayed for calmness, prudence, wisdom; begged that the legislators should not suffer themselves to be led into the temptation of partisan pride or party predilection; besought them to remember that their own just powers were loaned to them by the people at the polls, and that they must decide the people's will and not their own political preference ”

“ So complete through our telephone system has the most complicated sort of voting become, that the entire nation is organized so as to be able to proceed almost like one parliament if needful. Our representative bodies, corresponding to your former Congresses, Legislatures, and Parliaments, are under this system reduced to the exercise of the functions of what you used to call congressional committees. The people not only nominally but actually govern. We have a democracy in fact. ”

“ Congress, in truth, is now little more than a place for formally ratifying and recording the decisions at which the party having the majority has arrived in caucus, where the only real deliberation takes place. As the minority in caucus is bound by party law to vote with the majority in the legislative hall, it often happens that a small minority of the whole Legislature passes a law or carries an election. Take away party, and we see that the whole of the present system of parliamentary government would crumble. ”

“ How long will such legislation find favor in our halls of Congress? Just as long as your representatives think you want it—by you I mean the majority of their constituents—and no longer. Your representatives and senators are human. They seek to obtain political preferment at the polls, and desire to remain in office. They must have a majority of the votes to be elected, and naturally they will shape their course so as to meet your wishes, as they understand them, because by so doing they hope to retain your support. ”

“ The cardinal question on which the whole policy of the country is to turn—a question, too, which this very election must decide in one way or the other—is the interpretation to be put upon certain clauses of the Constitution. All the other parties equally assert their loyalty to that instrument. ”

“ Now, the basis of this representation is suffrage. The right to choose representatives is every man's part in the exercise of sovereign power; to have a voice in it, if he has the proper qualifications, is the portion of political power belonging to every elector. That is the beginning. That is the mode in which power emanates from its source, and gets into the hands of conventions, legislatures, courts of law, and the chair of the executive. It begins in suffrage. Suffrage is the delegation of the power of an individual to some agent. ”

“ But the people have been told, with great confidence, that the house cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character, is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which no human authority can depose him. ”

“ Should strong majorities favor the change, it generally is completed without much violence. In most states, where representation is not unequal, or the right of suffrage is not greatly restricted, the popular will can be felt and triumph through the popular vote and the delegates of the people in the legislature, and will thus lead soon, and peacefully, to legislative measures ending in reform, pursuant to legislative countenance and without the necessity of any stronger collateral course. ”

“ So we have demands for extended terms of office; we have opposition to the election of President and senators by popular vote; we have opposition to the selection of Federal judges other than by appointment of the President and Senate; we have, above all, opposition to direct popular voting upon questions of public policy, upon granting public franchises. ”

“ The party generally most powerful in the Legislative Assembly, and the members of which had been so long and so unconstitutionally excluded from holding offices under the government, at once obtained the position which they were entitled, and the people being thus given the power of governing by their majorities in Parliament, improvements of all kinds are steadily advancing up the present moment, and their prosperity and contentment have increased in an equal proportion. ”

“ And so with most constituencies, and the result is a legislative body consisting largely of men of unknown character and obscure aims, whose only credential is the wearing of a party label. They come into parliament not to forward the great interests they ostensibly support, but with an eye to the railway jobbery, corporation business, concessions and financial operations that necessarily go on in and about the national legislature. That in its simplest form is the dilemma of democracy. ”