overborne by the larger. It is now the provision of the Constitution most difficult to change, for "no State can be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent," a consent most unlikely to be given. There has never, in point of fact, been any division of interests or consequent contest between the great States and the small ones. But the provision for the equal representation of all States had the important result of making the slave-holding party, during the thirty years which preceded the Civil War, eager to extend the area of slavery in order that by creating new Slave States they might maintain at least an equality in the Senate, and thereby prevent any legislation hostile to slavery.

The plan of giving representatives to the States as commonwealths has had several useful results. It has provided a basis for the Senate unlike that on which the other House of Congress is chosen. Every nation which has formed a legislature with two houses has experienced the difficulty of devising methods of choice sufficiently different to give a distinct character to each house. Italy has a Senate composed of persons nominated by the Crown. The Prussian House of Lords is partly nominated, partly hereditary, partly elective. The Spanish senators are partly hereditary, partly official, partly elective. In the Germanic Empire, the Federal Council consists of delegates of the several kingdoms and principalities. France appoints her senators by indirect election. In England the members of the House of Lords now sit by hereditary right; and those who propose to reconstruct that ancient body are at their wits' end to discover some plan by which it may be strengthened, and made practically useful, without

1 Hamilton perceived that this would be so; see his remarks in the Constitutional Convention of New York in 1788.-Elliot's Debates, p. 213. VOL. I

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such a direct election as that by which members are chosen to the House of Commons.1 The American plan, which is older than any of those in use on the European continent, is also better, because it is not only simple, but natural, i.e. grounded on and consonant with the political conditions of America. It produces a body which is both strong in itself and different in its collective character from the more popular house.

It also constitutes, as Hamilton anticipated, a link between the State Governments and the National Government. It is a part of the latter, but its members derive their title to sit in it from their choice by State legislatures. In one respect this connection is no unmixed benefit, for it has helped to make the national parties powerful, and their strife intense, in these lastnamed bodies. Every vote in the Senate is so important to the great parties that they are forced to struggle for ascendency in each of the State legislatures by whom the senators are elected. The method of choice in these bodies was formerly left to be fixed by the laws of each State, but as this gave rise to much uncertainty and intrigue, a Federal statute was passed in 1866 providing that each House of a State legislature shall first vote separately for the election of a Federal senator, and that if the choice of both Houses shall not fall on the same person, both Houses in joint meeting shall proceed to a joint vote, a majority of each House being present. Even under this arrangement, a senatorial election often leads to long and bitter struggles; the minority endeavouring to prevent a choice, and so keep the seat

1 Under a recent statute, two persons may be appointed by the Crown to sit in the House of Lords as Lords of Appeal, with the dignity of baron for life. The Scotch and Irish peers enjoy hereditary peerages, but are elected to sit in the House of Lords, the latter for life, the former for each parliament.

vacant.

Quite recently in Illinois, Indiana, and New Jersey, the legislatures fought for months together over the election of a senator.

The method of choosing the Senate by indirect election has excited the admiration of foreign critics, who have found in it a sole and sufficient cause of the excellence of the Senate as a legislative and executive authority. I shall presently inquire whether the critics are right. Meantime it is worth observing that the election of senators has in substance almost ceased to be indirect. They are still nominally chosen, as under the letter of the Constitution they must be chosen, by the State legislatures. The State legislature means, of course, the party for the time dominant, which holds a party meeting (caucus) and decides on the candidate, who is thereupon elected, the party going solid for whomsoever the majority has approved. Now the determination of the caucus has almost always been arranged beforehand by the party managers. Sometimes when a vacancy senatorship approaches, the aspirants for it put themselves before the people of the State. Their names are discussed at the State party convention held for the nomination of party candidates for State offices, and a vote in that convention decides who shall be the party nominee for the senatorship. This vote binds the party within and without the State legislature, and at the election of members for the State legislature, which immediately precedes the occurrence of the senatorial vacancy, candidates for seats in that legislature are generally expected to declare for which aspirant to the senatorship they will, if elected, give their votes.1

in a

1 The Constitution of the State of Nebraska (1875) allows the electors in voting for members of the State legislature to "express by ballot their preference for some person for the office of U.S. senator. The votes cast for such candidates shall be canvassed and returned in the same manner

1

Sometimes the aspirant, who is of course a leading State politician, goes on the stump in the interest of those candidates for the legislature who are prepared to support him, and urges his own claims while urging theirs. I do not say that things have, in all States, gone so far as to make the choice by the legislature of some particular person as senator a foregone conclusion when the legislature has been elected. Circumstances may change; compromises may be necessary; still, it is now generally true that in most States little freedom of choice remains with the legislature. The people, or rather those wire-pullers who manage the people and act in their name, have practically settled the matter at the election of the State legislature. So hard is it to make any scheme of indirect election work according to its original design; so hard is it to keep even a written and rigid constitution from bending and warping under the actual forces of politics.2

as for State officers." This is an attempt to evade and by a side wind defeat the provision of the Federal Constitution which vests the choice in the legislature.

1 This happened recently in Nebraska, and seems to be not uncommon. The famous struggle of Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln for the Illinois senatorship in 1858 was conducted in a stump campaign.

2 A proposal recently made to amend the Federal Constitution by taking the election of senators away from the legislatures in order to vest it in the people of each State is approved by some judicious publicists, who think that bad candidates will have less chance with the party at large and the people than they now have in bodies apt to be controlled by a knot of party managers. A nomination made for a popular election will at least be made publicly, whereas now a nomination for an election by a legislature may be made secretly. I subjoin the form which this proposal took in 1881 as a specimen of the form in which amendments to the Constitution may be submitted to Congress.

46th Congress, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

3rd Session.

31st January 1881.

Read twice, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Weaver introduced the following joint resolution :—

Members of the Senate vote as individuals, that is to say, the vote a senator gives is his own and not that of his State. It was otherwise in the Congress of the old Confederation before 1789; it is otherwise in the present Federal Council of the German Empire, in which each State votes as a whole, though the number of her votes is proportioned to her population.

Accordingly, in the American Senate, the two senators from a State may belong to opposite parties; and this often happens in the case of senators from States in which the two great parties are pretty equally balanced, and the majority oscillates between them.1 Suppose Ohio to have to elect a senator in 1886. The Democrats have a majority in the State legislature; and a Democrat is therefore chosen senator. In 1888 the other Ohio senatorship falls vacant. But by this time the balance of parties in Ohio has shifted. The Republicans control

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, providing for the election of Senators by vote of the people.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and when ratified by the Legislatures of threefourths of the several States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution, to wit:-

Article

That so much of section third, article first, of the Constitution of the United States as provides that the Senators of the United States shall be chosen by the Legislatures thereof shall be amended so that the same shall read as follows:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, to be chosen by the vote of the qualified electors in said States respectively, and at such time as shall be determined by Act of Congress."

Similar proposals have been repeatedly made in subsequent Congresses, but never accepted by either House.

1 It was arranged from the beginning of the Federal Government that the two senatorships from the same State should never be vacant at the same time.