labor, it involves less vexation by office-seekers; but it is open to only a few. Of those who seek a political career the great majority must content themselves with the much less attractive work of the House.

Library References. Macy, chap. xxxiv; Macy, First Lessons, chap. xvii; Dawes, chaps. iv-v; Bryce, Vol. I, chaps. xii-xv, xix; Hinsdale, chap. xxiv; Wilson, §§ 1061-1062, 1071-1077, 1080-1081; Congressional Directory; Wilson, Congressional Government, chap. ii, pp. 168-169, 193-219, chap. vi; Harrison, chap. iii; Alton, chaps. v-vi, viii, xi, xv-xvi, xx-xxiii, xxv-xxviii, xxx-xxxii; Lalor, Article on Parliamentary Law; Woodburn, pp. 223-226, 230-231, 257–301, 313-315; Fiske, pp. 228-230.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT

1. What are legislative bills? under the national government? tween a bill and a law?

Where may they originate
What is the difference be-

2. State the provision of the Constitution regarding bills vetoed by the president. Give a reason for this provision. 3. Give the different steps by which a bill becomes a law. 4. What are legislative committees? What are their relations to legislation?

5. Explain the necessity of legislative committees. State two evils that may result from transacting business through such committees.

6. State the advantages of committees in legislative bodies. What is meant by committee of the whole"? State an advantage of considering a bill in committee of the whole.

7. What power has the Speaker of the House over legislation?

8. How is a bill introduced in the Senate? in the House? 9. If a committee attempts to smother a bill, how may Congress regain possession of it?

10. How is a vote on a bill taken? In cases of doubt, what means may be resorted to?

11. Explain the meaning and use of the following terms as applied to Congress: " caucus," "log rolling," " jobbery," " bolting," "special order," "counting a quorum,' filibustering."

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12. Which house of Congress is the more dignified, and why? Discuss fully.

13. Define the "cabinet, or ministerial, system" of government; the "congressional, or committee, system."

14. In how many ways may a committee kill a measure referred to it? In what other way may a committee shape legislation?

CHAPTER XXII

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT: PRESIDENT AND

VICE PRESIDENT

Executive Department. We come now to the consideration of another of the three great departments essential to every complete government the executive. We have seen how the Constitution provided for the creation and organization of a law-making department and endowed it with powers, and we have learned something of the way in which this branch of government has developed in actual practice and of the means by which it performs its functions. It is our task now to ask the same questions in regard to the law-enforcing department: How was it created? How is it organized? What may it do? How does it do it?

The Convention and the Presidency. The makers of our Constitution believed firmly in the separation and coordination of the three branches of government. To a greater or less extent this separation existed in the governments of the various states, and their undoubted superiority to the government of the Confederation, in which such executive functions as existed were united with the legislative, was attributed to this fact of separation. The desire to establish a similar separation of powers in the national government, with only so much interaction as was absolutely necessary in order to prevent the usurpation of power by any one of the three branches, is seen very clearly in the organization of all of them. It is seen particularly

in the creation of what had not before existed, namely, the office of president of the United States. The Congress of the Confederation had had a presiding officer whom they called a president, but aside from the duty of presiding at the meetings of Congress, his function differed not at all from those of his colleagues. He was in no sense the executive head of a government.

A Difficult Question. The problems with which the Convention struggled in creating and organizing a separate executive department seem to have been in some respects the most troublesome with which it had to deal. Almost every question that arose in connection with the matter called forth serious debate. Whether there should be a single executive or an executive body or council, what should be the length of the term, whether or not the executive should be reëligible, what should be the manner of choice on all these points widely different opinions were entertained in the Convention. One of them, the question as to the method of choice, is said to have occupied a seventh of the whole time of the Convention.

Plan Adopted. We are now so accustomed in all our governments, national, state, and local, to the practice of vesting executive authority in a single person, that the idea of a plural executive seems strange to us; yet in the Convention the plan of having a plural executive was warmly advocated. To many of the men of that period the idea of a single executive savored of monarchy, and monarchy they could not abide. It was argued in the Convention that the people would never ratify a constitution that provided for a single executive. On the other hand, the failure of the Confederation had convinced many that what the country needed above all things was a strong executive, capable of acting vigorously and promptly; and this, it was argued,