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
the sake of the farmer, or the farmer for the sake of the wool-grower,
or the wool-grower for the behoof of the herder of short-horned cattle.
At least the Senate is quite as trustworthy in this regard as is the
House of Representatives.
Inasmuch as the Senate is thus separated from class interests and quite
as representative of the nation at large as is the House of
Representatives, the fact that it is less quickly sensitive to the hasty
or impulsive movements of public opinion constitutes its value as a
check, a steadying weight, in our very democratic system. Our English
cousins have worked out for themselves a wonderfully perfect scheme of
government by gradually making their monarchy unmonarchical. They have
made of it a republic steadied by a reverenced aristocracy and pivoted
upon a stable throne. And just as the English system is a limited
monarchy because of Commons and Cabinet, ours may be said to be a
limited democracy because of the Senate. This has in the trial of the
scheme proved the chief value of that upper chamber which was instituted
principally as an earnest of the abiding equality and sovereignty of the
States. At any rate, this is the most conspicuous, and will prove to be
the most lasting, use of the Senate in our system. It is valuable in our
democracy in proportion as it is undemocratic. I think that a
philosophical analysis of any successful and beneficent system of
self-government will disclose the fact that its only effectual checks
consist in a mixture of elements, in a combination of seemingly
contradictory political principles; that the British government is
perfect in proportion as it is unmonarchical, and ours safe in
proportion as it is undemocratic; that the Senate saves us often from
headlong popular tyranny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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