member of the party is deemed bound, just as he would be in England by the request of the leader conveyed through the whip. Disobedience cannot be punished in Congress itself, except of course by social penalties; but it endangers the seat of the too independent member, for the party managers at Washington will communicate with the party managers in his district, and the latter will probably refuse to re-nominate him at the next election. The most important caucus of a Congress is that held at the opening to select the party candidate for the speakership, selection by the majority being of course equivalent to election. As the views and tendencies of the Speaker determine the composition of the committees, and thereby the course of legislation, his selection is a matter of supreme importance, and is preceded by weeks of intrigue and canvassing.

The process of "going into caucus" is the regular American substitute for recognized leadership, and has the advantage of seeming more consistent with democratic equality, because every member of the party has in theory equal weight in the party meeting. It is used whenever a line of policy has to be settled, or the whole party to be rallied for a particular party division. But of course it cannot be employed every day or for every bill. Hence when no party meeting has issued its orders, a member is comparatively free to vote as he pleases, or rather as he thinks his constituents please. If he knows nothing of the matter, he may take a friend's advice, or vote as he hears some prominent man on his own side vote. Anyhow, his vote is doubtful, unpredictable; and consequently divisions on minor questions are uncertain. This is a further reason, added to the power of the standing committees, why there is a want of consistent policy in the action of Congress. As its leading men have comparatively little authority, and there are no means whereby a leader could keep his party together on ordinary questions, so no definite ideas run through its conduct and express themselves in its votes. It moves in zig-zags.

The freedom thus enjoyed by members on minor questions has the interesting result of preventing dissensions and splits in the parties. There are substances which cohere best when their contact is loose. Fresh fallen snow keeps a smooth surface even on a steep slope, but when by melting and regelation

it has become ice, cracks and rifts begin to appear. A loose hung carriage will hold together over a road whose roughness would strain and break a more solid one. Hence serious differences of opinion may exist in a congressional party without breaking its party unity, for nothing more is needed than that a solid front should be presented on the occasions, few in each session, when a momentous division arrives. The appearance of agreement is all the more readily preserved because there is little serious debating, so that the advocates of one view seldom provoke the other section of their party to rise and contradict them; while a member who dissents from the bulk of his party on an important issue is slow to vote against it, because he has little chance of defining and defending his position by an explanatory speech.

The congressional caucus has in troublous times to be supplemented by something like obedience to regular leaders. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, for instance, led with recognized authority the majority of the House in its struggle with President Andrew Johnson. The Senate is rather more jealous of the equality of all its members. No senator can be said to have any authority beyond that of exceptional talent and experience; and of course a senatorial caucus, since it rarely consists of more than fifty persons, is a better working body than a House caucus, which may exceed two hundred.1

The European reader may be perplexed by the apparent contradictions in what has been said regarding the party organization of Congress. "Is the American House after all," he will ask, "more or less a party body than the British House of Commons? Is the spirit of party more or less strong in Congress than in the American people generally?"

For the purpose of serious party issues the House of Representatives is nearly as much a party body as the House of Commons. A member voting against his party on such an issue is as likely to forfeit his party reputation and his seat as is an English member. But for the purpose of ordinary questions, of issues not involving party fortunes, a representative

1 At one time the congressional caucus played in American history a great part which it has now renounced. From 1800 till 1824 party meetings of senators and representatives were held which nominated the party candidates for the presidency, who were then accepted by each party as its regular candidates. In 1828 the State legislatures made these nominations, and in 1832 the present system of national conventions (see post, in Vol. II.) was introduced.

is less bound by party ties than an English member, because he has neither leaders to guide him by their speeches nor whips by their private instructions.1 The apparent gain is that a wider field is left for independent judgment on non-partisan questions. The real loss is that legislation becomes weak and inconsistent. This conclusion is not encouraging to those who expect us to get rid of party in our legislatures. A deliberative assembly is, after all, only a crowd of men; and the more intelligent a crowd is, so much the more numerous are its volitions; so much greater the difficulty of agreement. Like other crowds, a legislature must be led and ruled. Its merit lies not in the independence of its members, but in the reflex action of its opinion upon the leaders, in its willingness to defer to them in minor matters, reserving disobedience for the issues in which some great principle overrides both the obligation of deference to established authority and the respect due to special knowledge.

The above remarks answer the second question also. The spirit of party may seem to be weaker in Congress than in the people at large. But this is only because the questions which the people decide at the polls are always questions of choice between candidates for office. These are definite questions, questions eminently of a party character, because candidates. represent in the America of to-day not principles but parties. When a vote upon persons occurs in Congress, Congress usually gives a strict party vote. Were the people to vote at the polls on matters not explicitly comprised within a party platform (as they do now in States which have adopted the Initiative and Referendum), there would be a much greater uncertainty than Congress displays. The habit of joint action which makes the life of a party is equally intense in every part of the American system. But in England the existence of a Ministry and Opposition in Parliament sweeps within the circle of party action many topics which in America are left outside, and therefore Congress seems, and for some purposes is, less permeated than Parliament by party spirit.

1 For an interesting comparison of party voting in Congress and in the British House of Commons, see Mr. A. Lawrence Lowell's Government of England.

CHAPTER XX

THE RELATIONS OF CONGRESS TO THE PRESIDENT

1

So far as they are legislative bodies, the House and the Senate have similar powers and stand in the same relation to the executive. We may therefore discuss them together, or rather the reader may assume that whatever is said of the House as a legislature applies to the Senate."

Although the Constitution forbids any Federal official to be a member of either the House or the Senate, there is nothing in it to prevent officials from speaking there; as indeed there is nothing to prevent either House from assigning places and the right to speak to any one whom it chooses. In the early days Washington came down and delivered his opening speech. Occasionally he remained in the Senate during a debate, and even expressed his opinion there. When Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, prepared his famous report on the national finances, he asked the House whether they would hear him speak it, or would receive it in writing. They chose the latter course, and the precedent then set has been followed by subsequent ministers, while that set in 1801 by President

1 The relations of the various organs of government to one another in the United States are so interesting and so unlike those which exist in most European countries, that I have found it necessary to describe them with some minuteness, and from several points of view. In this chapter an account is given of the actual working relations of the President and Congress; in the next chapter the general theory of the respective functions of the executive and legislative departments is examined, and the American view of the nature of these functions explained; while in Chapter XXV. the American system as a whole is compared with the so-called "cabinet system" of Britain and her colonies.

The House has the exclusive initiative in revenue bills; but this privilege does not affect what follows.

The executive functions of the Senate have been discussed in Chapter XI. 4 A committee of the Senate reported in favour of giving the right of speech to ministers (see note to Chapter IX. ante); and this was provided in the Constitution of the Southern Confederacy (see note to Chapter XXVI. at the end of this volume). The President may of course come into the Senate. None had, however, entered the House of Representatives until in 1913 President Wilson went there and instead of sending a written message delivered a speech

Jefferson when he transmitted his message in writing instead of delivering a speech, has been similarly respected by all his successors. Thus neither House now hears a member of the executive; and when a minister appears before a committee, he appears primarily as a witness to answer questions, rather than to state and argue his own case. There is therefore little direct intercourse between Congress and the administration, and no sense of interdependence and community of action such as exists in other parliamentary countries. Be it remembered also that a minister may never have sat in Congress, and may therefore be ignorant of its temper and habits. Six members of Mr. Cleveland's cabinet, in 1888, and seven of Mr. Taft's in 1909, had never had a seat in either House. The President himself, although he has been voted into office by his party, is not necessarily its leader, nor even one among its most prominent leaders. Hence he may not sway the councils and guide the policy of those members of Congress who belong to his own side. No duty lies on Congress to take up a subject to which he has called attention as needing legislation; and the suggestions which he makes, year after year, may be neglected, even when his party has a majority in both Houses, or when the subject lies outside party lines. Members have sometimes complained of his submitting draft bills, although there are plenty of precedents for his doing so.

The President and his cabinet have no recognized spokesman in either House. A particular senator or representative may be in confidential communication with them, and be the instrument through whom they seek to act; but he would probably disavow rather than claim the position of an exponent of ministerial wishes. The President can of course influence members of Congress through patronage. He may give places to them or their friends; he may approve or veto bills in which

to the Senate and the House together. No English king has entered the House of Commons, except Charles I. in 1642, on the occasion of his attempt to seize the five members, when, says the Journal, "His Majesty came into the House and tec Mr. Speaker's chair: 'Gentlemen, I am sorry to have this occasion to come unto you.'" The results did not encourage his successors to repeat the visit. But Charles II. was sometimes present during debates in the House of Lords, and even exhorted the Lords to be more orderly; Anne sometimes appeared; and there would not, it is conceived, be anything to prevent the Sovereign from being present now while debate is proceeding.

1 The House once passed a bill for transferring Indian affairs from the Secretary of the Interior to the Secretary of War without consulting either official.