zines, arsenals, dockyards, and other public structures. In the exercise of this authority over territories and districts, Congress combines the power of the Federal Government with that of a state government, subject to the fundamental limitations in the Constitution which forbid it to do some things that states are not forbidden to do - for example, establish a press censorship or official religion. The right to admit new states and supervise the organization of territories into states is also vested in Congress; and the process to be followed in the admission or organization of a new state is left to the determination of that body.2

VII. The direct power of Congress, as a body, over foreign relations is slight, because the President and Senate have the treaty-making power, and the President is our official spokesman in the conduct of all business with foreign countries. Congress, however, may, as we have seen, regulate foreign commerce, including the important branch of immigration; create consular and diplomatic posts abroad and provide the emoluments thereunto attached; define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations. Congress may also establish a uniform rule by which the subjects of foreign powers may become citizens of the United States. While this power of prescribing the conditions for naturalization is regarded as being vested exclusively in Congress, it must be remembered that the states may, and some of them do, confer on aliens the right to vote.3

VIII. Notwithstanding the theory of the separation of powers, Congress may to some extent control the various executive departments by statutes regulating even the minutest duties of the Cabinet officers. As we have seen, the Constitution merely hints at the existence of the executive departments; but the power to determine the number of such departments and to provide for the internal organization of each is, nevertheless, exercised by Congress. How far it may use this authority to control the President's high personal advisers is a matter of dispute that cannot be settled by any abstract definitions; but it may exercise a substantial dominion over executive departments under its power to fix salaries, define duties, and appropriate money for designated purposes.

IX. Congress may also exercise in practice a large power over the federal judiciary, notwithstanding the theoretical independence of that branch of the government; because it may determine the number of Supreme Court judges, fix their salaries, subject to certain limits, and define their appellate jurisdiction. The creation of inferior federal courts is subject to its power; it may define the jurisdiction and procedure of these courts and provide the methods by which cases may be drawn from the state courts into the federal courts. A notable example of the exercise of the power of Congress over our federal judicial system is afforded by the Judiciary Act of 1789, providing, among other things, the way in which state statutes could be brought into the federal courts, and their validity could be tested.1

Another important power vested in Congress is that of providing the precise manner in which the acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each state shall be given full faith and credit in every other state and the manner in which accused persons shall be returned from one state to another.2

X. In addition to controlling, to a limited extent, the federal judicial system, Congress itself enjoys the power of removing the civil officers of the United States by the process of impeachment, but in practice this power is of slight importance. In trying cases of impeachment, the Senate acts as the high court." When the President of the United States is being tried, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides. It requires a two thirds vote of the members present to convict.

The power of preferring and prosecuting charges against offenders is vested in the House of Representatives. In practice, whenever the House decides to bring any federal officer before the bar of the Senate, it adopts, by resolution, articles of impeachment charging the particular offender with certain high crimes and misdemeanors and enumerating with more or less detail his particular offenses. It thereupon chooses leaders to direct the prosecution before the Senate, and the case is then conducted very much in the form of a trial in an ordinary court. The prosecution states its case; witnesses for and against the accused are

1 On the power of Congress over the judiciary, see below, p. 284.

1 See above, p. 119.

On this subject see the careful survey. "The Law of Impeachment in the United States," by Professor D. Y. Thomas, Political Science Review for May, 1908, pp. 378 ff.

Technically, however, it only sits as the Senate. In 1868 it ceased to call itself "a high court of impeachment."

heard; and attorneys on both sides make their arguments. When the case is fully presented the Senators vote, and if two thirds of the members present concur in holding the accused guilty, he stands convicted; but in case of failure to secure the requisite two thirds, he is acquitted.

The penalties which the Senate can impose upon any person convicted in case of impeachment are strictly limited to the removal of the offender from office and the imposition of a disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. Any person convicted, however, is still liable, after his removal from office, to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment for his offense according to law. It is not obligatory upon the Senate to disqualify the convicted person for entering the federal service in the future, but in any case he must be immediately removed from office.

The jurisdiction of the Senate as a court of impeachment extends only over the President, Vice President, and the civil officers of the United States, and over the offenses of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. Treason is, of course, defined in the Constitution; and the meaning of the term "bribery" is clear to all. The phrase "other high crimes and misdemeanors," however, is somewhat vague, and Congress might give a loose interpretation to it, even going so far as to treat the neglect of official duty as a ground for impeachment. Nevertheless, a conservative interpretation has generally been placed upon this phrase, so as to limit the offenses, which render an officer liable to impeachment, to crimes and misdemeanors as understood in the ordinary law of the land.1

1 The Senate has sat as a Court of Impeachment in the cases of the following accused officials, with the result stated and for the periods named:

WILLIAM BLOUNT, a Senator of the United States from Tennessee; charges dismissed for want of jurisdiction, he having previously resigned; Monday, December 17, 1798, to Monday, January 14, 1799. JOHN PICKERING, judge of the United States district court for the district of New Hampshire; removed from office; Thursday, March 3, 1803, to Monday, March 12, 1804.

SAMUEL CHASE, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; acquitted; Friday, November 30, 1804, to March 1, 1805.

JAMES H. PECK, judge of the United States district court for the district of Missouri; acquitted; Monday, April 26, 1830, to Monday, January 31, 1831.

WEST H. HUMPHREYS, judge of the United States district court for the middle, eastern, and western districts of Tennessee; removed from office; Wednesday, May 7, 1862, to Thursday, June 26, 1862. ANDREW JOHNSON, President of the United States; acquitted; Tuesday, February 25, 1868, to Tuesday, May 26, 1868.

WILLIAM W. BELKNAP, Secretary of War; acquitted; Friday, March 3, 1876, to Tuesday, August 1, 1876.

CHARLES SWAYNE, judge of the United States district court for the northern district of Florida; acquitted; Wednesday, December 14, 1904, to Monday, February 27, 1905.

ROBERT W. ARCHBALD, associate judge, United States Commerce Court, removed from office, Saturday, July 13, 1912, to Monday, January 13, 1913. Congressional Directory (1913), p. 160.

Federal military officers are exempt from this jurisdiction, being subject to courts-martial. Members of Congress are also exempt, for they are not technically "civil officers," and furthermore they are under the control of their respective houses—each house having the power to determine its rules and proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

XI. In carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any department or office thereof, Congress may make all laws which shall be deemed "necessary and proper." The courts have, in general, given a liberal interpretation to this phrase. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declared that Congress possesses the right to use any means which it deems conducive to the exercise of any express power. Said the Court in the case of Juilliard v. Greenman :1 "The words 'necessary and proper' are not limited to such measures as are absolutely and indispensably necessary, without which the powers granted must fail of execution; but they include all the proper means which are conducive or adapted to the end to be accomplished and which, in the judgment of Congress, will most advantageously effect it."

1 110 U. S. 421; Readings, p. 245.

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CHAPTER XII

CONGRESS AT WORK

To the average observer, Congress is a vast and complicated legislative organ, with rules, committees, and methods, beyond the ken of ordinary mortals; but a somewhat careful examination of the procedure of that body from day to day reveals certain principles and practices which, when properly grasped, make the working scheme of the organization fairly clear at least clear enough for the citizen who does not intend to become a legislator but merely wishes to watch the operations of the national law-makers with a reasonable degree of understanding.

The Mass of Business before Congress

It

I. The first important fact to grasp is that the business before Congress is intricate in character and enormous in amount. involves every problem in political economy and international relations. Taxation in all its branches, the administration of the post-office, natural resources, and other property, technical questions of defense (guns, battleships, and airplanes), the regulation of railways, the government of the city of Washington these and a hundred other matters equally complex and involved are constantly pressed upon the attention of the members. The demand for new legislation from every quarter is steady and insistent. Large problems in policy and problems minutely special in nature call for judgment of the highest order and knowledge deep and wide-reaching..

In sheer bulk the business is immense. Each Congress in the course of its two years' life is confronted by about thirty thousand bills, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, simple resolutions, and reports. Any member may introduce as many bills as he likes by handing them to the clerk if they are of a private nature (such as a bill conferring a pension on some person) or to the presiding officer if they are public in character. He does not have to secure the permission of anyone in advance or assume any responsibility for them even if they carry a