Congressional government : $b a study in American politicsWilson, Woodrow
History
Congressional government : $b a study in American politics
Wilson, Woodrow
Executive power -- United States; United States -- Politics and government; United States. Congress
In his view "the evil of two coequal Houses of distinct natures is
obvious." "Most constitutions," he declares, "have committed this
blunder. The two most remarkable Republican institutions in the world
commit it. In both the American and Swiss Constitutions the Upper House
has as much authority as the second; it could produce the maximum of
impediment--a dead-lock, if it liked; if it does not do so, it is owing
not to the goodness of the legal constitution, but to the discreetness
of the members of the Chamber. In both these constitutions this
dangerous division is defended by a peculiar doctrine.... It is said
that there must be in a federal government some institution, some
authority, some body possessing a veto in which the separate States
comprising the Confederation are all equal. I confess this doctrine has
to me no self-evidence, and it is assumed, but not proved. The State of
Delaware is not equal in power or influence to the State of New York,
and you cannot make it so by giving it an equal veto in an Upper
Chamber. The history of such an institution is indeed most natural. A
little State will like, and must like, to see some token, some memorial
mark, of its old independence preserved in the Constitution by which
that independence is extinguished. But it is one thing for an
institution to be natural, and another for it to be expedient. If indeed
it be that a federal government compels the erection of an Upper Chamber
of conclusive and coordinate authority, it is one more in addition to
the many other inherent defects of that kind of government. It may be
necessary to have the blemish, but it is a blemish just as much."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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