V

THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

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DIFFICULTY OF FORMULATING A FEDERAL CONSTITUTION THE CONVENTION OF 1787 SEES THE NECESSITY FOR A GENERAL GOVERNMENT WITH PLENARY POWERS JEALOUSY OF THE SMALLER TOWARD THE LARGER STATES - BRITISH PARLIAMENT TAKEN, WITH QUALIFICATIONS, AS THE MODEL FOR THE HOUSES OF CONGRESS - EQUAL STATE REPRESENTATION IN THE SENATE NON-EXISTENCE OF ANY METHOD FOR TERMINATING DEBATES IN THE SENATE · POTENCY OF THE PRESI

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DENT'S VETO ABUSE OF THE CLÔTURE IN THE HOUSE

PROCEDURE IN THE EVENT OF THE FAILURE OF THE PEOPLE TO ELECT A PRESIDENT OR A VICE-PRESIDENT THE HAYESTILDEN CONTEST-DANGER OF USURPATION OF POWER BY THE EXECUTIVE - THE SENATE AS A HIGH COURT OF IMPEACHMENT -TRIAL OF CHASE OF MARYLAND TRIAL OF BELKNAP, SECRETARY OF WAR - TRIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON.

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T is a well-known fact in our political history that the convention which formulated our Federal Constitution greatly exceeded the powers delegated to its members by their respective States. It was the supreme moment, and upon the action of the historic assemblage depended events of far-reaching consequence. The Constitution of the United States is the enduring monument to the courage, the forecast, the wisdom of the members of the Convention of 1787. It was theirs to cut the Gordian knot, to break with the past, and, regardless of the jealousies and antagonisms of individual States, to establish the more perfect union, which has been declared by an eminent British statesman "the greatest work ever struck off at a given time from the brain and purpose of man."

The oft-quoted expression of Gladstone is, however, more rhetorical than accurate. The Constitution of the United States was not "struck off at a given time," but as declared by Bancroft, "the materials for its building were the gifts of the ages." In the words of Lieber, "What the ancients

said of the avenging gods, that they were shod with wool, is true of great ideas in government. They approach slowly. Great truths dwell a long time with small minorities."

The period following the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, which terminated the War of the Revolution, has been not inaptly designated "the critical period of American history." The Revolutionary Government, under which Washington had been chosen to the chief command of the colonial forces, the early battles fought, and the Declaration of Independence promulgated, had been superseded in 1781 by a Government created under the Articles of Confederation. The latter Government, while in a vital sense a mere rope of sand, was a long step in the right direction; the earnest of the more perfect union yet to follow.

Under the Government, more shadowy than real, thus created, the closing battles of the Revolution were fought, independence achieved, a treaty of peace concluded, and our recognition as a sovereign Republic obtained from our late antagonist and other European nations.

The Articles of Confederation, submitted for ratification by the Colonial Congress to the individual States while the country was yet in the throes of a doubtful struggle, fell far short of establishing what in even crude form could properly be designated a Government. The Confederation was wholly lacking in one essential of all Governments: the power to execute its own decrees. Its avowed purpose was to establish "a firm league of friendship," or, as the name indicates, a mere confederation of the colonies. The parties to this league were independent political communities, and by express terms, each State was to retain all rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction not expressly delegated to the Confederation. In a Congress consisting of a single House were vested the powers thus grudgingly conferred. Its members were to be chosen by the States as such; upon every question the vote was given by the States, each, regardless of population, having but a single vote. The revenues and the regulation of foreign commerce were to remain under the control of the respective States, and no provision was made for borrow

ing money for the necessary maintenance of the general Government. In a word, in so far as a Government at all, it was in the main one of independent States, and in no sense that with which we are familiar, a Government of the entire people. Whatever existed of executive power was in a committee of the Congress; the only provision for meeting the expenses of the late war and the interest upon the public debt was by requisition upon the States, with no shadow of power for its enforcement.

Under the conditions briefly mentioned, with the United States of America a byword among the nations, the now historic Convention of 1787 assembled in Philadelphia, in the room where eleven years earlier had been promulgated the Declaration of Independence. It consisted of fifty-five members; and without a dissenting voice, Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected its President. Not the least of his public services was now to be rendered in the work of safeguarding the fruits of successful revolution by a stable Government. Chief among the associates with whom he was daily in earnest, anxious counsel in the great assemblage, were men whose names live with his in history. If Franklin, Wilson, Sherman, King, Randolph, Rutledge, Mason, Pinckney, Hamilton, Madison, and their associates. had rendered no public service other than as builders of the Constitution, that alone would entitle them to the measureless gratitude of all future generations of their countrymen.

When they were assembled, the startling fact was at once apparent that, under the Confederation, with its constituent States at times in almost open hostility to one another, the country was gradually drifting into a condition of anarchy.

It is our glory to-day, and will be that of countless oncoming generations, that the men of '87 were equal to the stupendous emergency. Regardless of instructions, expressed or implied, the master spirits of the Convention, looking beyond local prejudices and State environment, and appealing to time for vindication, with a ken that now seems more than human, discerned the safety, the well-being, the glory of

their countrymen, bound up in a general Government of plenary powers, a Government "without a seam in its garment, to foreign nations."

To this end the proposition submitted by Paterson of New Jersey, in the early sittings of the Convention, for a mere enlargement of the powers of the Confederation, was decisively rejected. With the light that could be gleaned from the pages of Montesquieu, the suggestive lessons to be drawn from the fate of the short-lived republics whose wrecks lay along the pathway of history, and from the unwritten Constitution of the mother country, as their only guides, the leaders of the Convention were at once in the difficult role of constructive statesmen. The Herculean task to which with unwearied effort they now addressed themselves was that of "builders" of the Constitution; the establishers, for the ages, of the fundamental law for a free people.

One of the perils which early beset the Convention, and whose spectre haunted its deliberations till the close, was the hostility engendered by the dread and jealousy of the smaller toward the larger States. This fact will in some measure explain what in later years have been denominated the anomalies of the Constitution. To a correct understanding of the motives of the builders, and an appreciation of their marvellous accomplishment, it must not be forgotten that "the foundations of the Constitution were laid in compromise." The men of '87 had but recently emerged from the bloody conflict through which they had escaped the domination of kingly power. With the tyranny of George the Third yet burning in their memories, it is not to be wondered that the Revolutionary patriots of the less populous States were loath to surrender rights, deemed, by them, secure under their local governments; that they dreaded the establishment of what they apprehended might prove an overshadowing - possibly unlimited central authority.

The creation of a general Government, with its three separate and measurably independent departments, happily concluded, with the delegated powers of each distinctly enumerated, the salient question as to the basis of representation

in the Congress at once pressed for determination. Upon the question of provision for a chief executive, and his investment with the powers necessarily incident to the great office, there was after much debate a practical consensus of opinion. And practical unanimity in the end prevailed regarding the judicial department, with its great court without a prototype at its creation, and even yet without a counterpart in foreign Governments.

The rock upon which the Convention barely escaped early dissolution, was the basis of representation in the Congress created under the great coördinate legislative department. The model for our Senate and House of Representatives was unquestionably the British Parliament. This statement is to be taken with weighty qualifications; for hereditary or ecclesiastical representation, as in the House of Lords, is wholly unknown in our system of government. The significant resemblance is that of our Lower House to the British Commons. In these respective chambers, the people, as such, have representation.

The earnest, at times violent, contention of the smaller States, in our historic Convention, was for equal representation in both branches of the proposed national legislature. This was strenuously resisted by the larger States under the powerful leadership of Madison of Virginia, and Wilson of Pennsylvania. Their equally earnest, and by no means illogical contention was for popular representation in each House, as outlined in the Virginia plan which had been taken as the framework of the proposed Constitution. The opposing views appeared wholly irreconcilable, and for a time the parting of the ways seemed to have been reached. Threats of dissolution were not uncommon in the Chamber, and for many days the spirit of despair brooded over the Convention. A delegate from Maryland vehemently declared: "The Convention is on the verge of dissolution, scarcely held together by the strength of a hair." Well has it been said: "In even the contemplation of the fearful consequence of such a calamity, the imagination stands aghast."