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recently, when Bismarck told the Reichstag in his usual blunt fashion, that he, the chancellor, really controlled legislation.*

The President of the United States has not, it is true, the right of initiating legislation by the submission of bills, as every member in the Senate and House has. He is confined to general recommendation of measures, which may or may not be heeded; but he is as much a part of the legislative as of the executive branch of the government through his qualified veto.

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In this view, he is clearly not confined, in a proper exercise of his power, to an examination merely of the con stitutionality of a measure before he signs the bill. is to "approve" or not to 'approve" the measure as he sees fit, and has the same range of considerations to review, before reaching a decision, as a member of either branch of Congress. He is, in effect, elected as a co-ordinate member of Congress for a term of four years, with a varying number of votes at his command; while the Senator is chosen for six, and the member of the House

*Bismarck made a speech in the Reichstag, in which he defined the position of the chancellor, in the Imperial system, and in doing so explained the system itself in a way that astonished even the natives. He said it is the duty of the chancellor to submit to the Reichstag the decisions of the Federal Council, and for the performance of his duty he is responsible; but he need not do it, if he does not think best. He may tell the Emperor that he does not think the bill a good one, and refuse to sign it; and the only way out of the difficulty for the Emperor is to get another chancellor. But the Emperor need not get another chancellor unless he pleases, and in this way may veto all legislation, for legislation must originate in the Federal Council. Thus it appears that the chancellor really controls legislation. He is not responsible to either house; no one but the Emperor can dismiss him.-See The Nation, No. 820, March 17, 1881, p. 179.

of Representatives for two years, with but one vote each.

In a moral point of view, he has no more right to use his power for bad purposes, or to be influenced by unworthy reasons, than the Senator or Representative, but constitutionally there is no limitation on the veto.

The three factors of legislation, then, the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, form and express the occasional will of the Union.

But why two Houses of Congress? Democracy being the basis of our institutions, and representatives being merely elected because of the physical impediments in the way of legislating en masse, it would seem natural, at first blush, that there should be but one National Assembly, proceeding directly from the people. There is a certain degree of plausibility in this view; it has a palpable logical completeness, which has always been attractive to idealists in government. The French Democrats, who are largely of this kind, always attempt the single assembly system when they have the upper hand, and always with a disastrous outcome. And though in the British system, one branch of the legislature is practically supreme, yet with all its limitations, the House of Lords is still a serious counterpoise to the Commons. It furnishes something of what Bagehot aptly terms the "dignified parts of the British constitution, which are as valuable as what he styles its "efficient parts." The principal reasons which controlled the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in providing for a Senate, were, the examples in the mother country, and most of the colonies, of an upper and lower house, one, more or less permanent in its constituents, and the other the product of general suffrage; further, because the equal votes of the States in this body is a recognition of their equality, and it was

anticipated that the supposed disposition of the larger States to oppress the smaller ones would thus be countervailed; and lastly, two houses would be a check upon hasty legislation, especially as it was believed that the Senate would be composed of picked men, of more enlarged experience in statesmanship, and certainly more conservative in consequence of their longer tenure of office and method of choice by the State legislatures.

The government established in the United States was a more or less ingenious adaptation of that of the mother country to the new circumstances arising out of the colonial growth. In England, at that day, the House of Lords was a more important factor in legislation than it is now, and especially it represented the aristocratic. idea, which even on this continent had a firm hold on our young society, until the death of Washington. The greater part of the framers of our constitution were in fact, really afraid of the people. They were conscious at the same time of the profound hold which the sentiment of equality had on the masses, especially in New England, and which had grown rapidly throughout the Middle, and Southern States, during the Revolutionary War. The problem with them was, to introduce a conservative element, as a check upon the passions of democracy, and this, it was believed, might be accomplished by a sort of artificial selection, of the conservative men for the Senate through a second vote, one remove from the people; as it was also thought, a more capable man could be chosen for President, through a similar removal of the electoral body one step from the voters. In both instances the results have been flat contradictions of their theories. The fear that the larger States would oppress the smaller is also proven to have been a phantom. These able men were as wise as any of their day; but

they, or the most of them, experienced the difficulty which is the greatest of all in statesmanship that of knowing the significance of contemporary events; of measuring and comprehending present social tendencies. It is easy to devise what should have been the laws two generations ago, but it requires more than ordinary insight to frame a constitution which fits in exactly with the social conditions of the present, and is equally well adapted to the inevitable future. The major part of the Convention of 1787 did not see that there was a young nation without their doors awaiting governmental organization; that there was a society which had grown over the narrow colonial limits, and was fused into one organic being. Hamilton almost alone, fully comprehended it. When a national government was furnished, State jealousy, and State pride had nothing to stand on. What afterwards occurred in the way of the hot controversy of the North and the South, was a social conflict originating in causes foreign to the form of the government, but in which the South seized upon, and artificially nourished the old colonial and early State jealousies, and finally turned them into articles of political faith.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BICAMERAL SYSTEM OF THE MODERN LEGISLATURE.

THE division of the legislature into two houses, as is the custom of most representative governments, rests on ideas of political organization, which were characteristic of the primitive Aryans, and which have become the common heritage of the Aryan stock. The full realization of these ideas was hindered in the middle ages by the existence of distinct social classes, which constituted the basis of the political organization of that period. The ideal legislature of the middle ages involved a distinct representation of each of the several classes. The upper house, in the bicameral system of modern times, represents either a privileged or a conservative element in the nation, or is a means of recognizing the individuality of the minor social groups which have joined to form the larger whole; while the lower house represents the great body of the people enjoying political rights, and is the exponent of the political unity of the nation.

The tendency of modern nations to maintain, or to return to, the essential features of the primitive Aryan government has already been briefly illustrated. After the fall of paganism and the rise of Christianity, the church, as the organized body of Christians, acquired an individual existence. The affairs of religion ceased to be merged in the affairs of the state. The ecclesiastics appeared as a class in society and demanded an equal

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