top of the flood in the Senate it has already begun to ebb in the country. The Senate has been a stouter bulwark against agitation, not merely because a majority of the senators have always four years of membership before them, within which period public feeling may change, but also because the senators have been individually stronger men than the representatives. They are less democratic, not in opinion, but in temper, because they have more self-confidence, because they have more to lose, because experience has taught them how fleeting a thing popular sentiment is, and how useful a thing continuity in policy is. The Senate has therefore usually kept its head better than the House of Representatives. It has expressed more adequately the judgment, as contrasted with the emotion, of the nation. In this sense it does constitute a "check and balance" in the Federal government. Of the three great functions which the Fathers of the Constitution meant it to perform, the first, that of securing the rights of the smaller States, is no longer important, because the extent of State rights has been now well settled; while the second, that of advising or controlling the Executive in appointments as well as in treaties, has given rise to evils almost commensurate with its benefits. But the third duty is still well discharged, for "the propensity of a single and numerous assembly to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions" is restrained.

CHAPTER XIII

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

THE House of Representatives, usually called for shortness the House, represents the nation on the basis of population, as the Senate represents the States.

But even in the composition of the House the States play an important part. The Constitution provides1 that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers," and under this provision Congress allots so many members of the House to each State in proportion to its population at the last preceding decennial census, leaving the State to determine the districts within its own area for and by which the members shall be chosen. These districts are now equal or nearly equal in size; but in laying them out there is ample scope for the process called "gerrymandering," 2

1 Constitution, Art. i. § 2, par. 3; cf. Amendment xiv. § 2.

"2

2 So called from Elbridge Gerry, a leading Democratic politician in Massachusetts (a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and in 1812 elected Vice-President of the United States), who when Massachusetts was being re-districted contrived a scheme which gave one of the districts a shape like that of a lizard. A noted artist entering the room of an editor who had a map of the new districts hanging on the wall over his desk observed, "Why, this district looks like a salamander,” and put in the claws and eyes of the creature with his pencil. "Say rather a Gerrymander," replied the editor; and the name stuck. The aim of gerrymandering, of course, is so to lay out the one-membered districts as to

which the dominant party in a State rarely fails to apply for its own advantage. Where a State legislature has failed to redistribute the State into congressional districts, after the State has received an increase of representatives, the additional member or members are elected by the voters of the whole State on a general ticket, and are called "representatives at large." Very recently one State (Maine) elected all its representatives on this plan, while another (Kansas) elected three by districts and four by general ticket. Each district, of course, lies wholly within the limits of one State. When a seat becomes vacant the governor of the State issues a writ for a new election, and when a member desires to resign his seat he does so by letter to the governor.

The original House which met in 1789 contained only sixty-five members, the idea being that there should be one member for every 30,000 persons. As population grew and new States were added, the number of members was increased. Originally Congress fixed the ratio of members to population, and the House accordingly grew; but latterly, fearing a too rapid increase, it has fixed the number of members with no regard for any precise ratio of members to population. At present the total number of representatives is 325, being, according to the census of 1880, one member to 154,325 souls. Four States, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, and secure in the greatest possible number of them a majority for the party which conducts the operation. This is done sometimes by throwing the greatest possible number of hostile voters into a district which is anyhow certain to be hostile, sometimes by adding to a district where parties are equally divided some place in which the majority of friendly voters is sufficient to turn the scale. There is a district in Mississippi (the so-called Shoe String district) 500 miles long by 40 broad, and another in Pennsylvania resembling a dumb-bell. South Carolina furnishes some beautiful recent examples. And in Missouri a district has been contrived longer, if measured along its windings, than the State itself, into which as large a number as possible of the negro voters have been thrown.

Oregon, have only one representative each; four others have two each; while New York has thirty-four, and Pennsylvania twenty-eight. Besides these full members there are also eight Territorial delegates, one from each of the Territories, regions in the West enjoying a species of self-government, but not yet formed into States. These delegates sit and speak, but have no right to vote, being unrecognized by the Constitution. They are, in fact, merely persons whom the House under a statute admits to its floor and permits to address it.

The electoral franchise on which the House is elected is for each State the same as that by which the members of the more numerous branch of the State legislature are chosen. Originally electoral franchises varied very much in different States: now a suffrage practically all but universal prevails everywhere. A State, however, has a right of limiting the suffrage as it pleases, and many States do exclude persons convicted of crime, paupers, illiterates, etc. By the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution (passed in 1870) "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude," while by the fourteenth amendment (passed in 1868) "the basis of representation in any State is reduced in respect of any male citizens excluded from the suffrage, save for participation in rebellion or other crimes." Each State has therefore a strong motive for keeping its suffrage wide, but the fact remains that the franchise by which the Federal legislature is chosen may differ vastly, and does in some points actually differ in different parts of the Union.'

any

1 Rhode Island still retains a certain small property qualification for electors, and in some States payment of a poll tax is made a condition to the exercise of electoral rights. See chapter on State Legislatures in

Vol. II.

Members are elected for two years, and the election always takes place in the even years, 1884, 1886, 1888, and so forth. Thus the election of every second Congress coincides with that of a President; and admirers of the Constitution find in this arrangement another of their favourite "checks," because while it gives the incoming President a Congress presumably, though by no means necessarily, of the same political complexion as his own, it enables the people within two years to express their approval or disapproval of his conduct by sending up another House of Representatives which may support or oppose the policy he has followed. The House does not in the regular course of things meet until a year has elapsed from the time when it has been elected, though the President may convoke it sooner, i.e. a House elected in November 1888 will not meet till December 1889, unless the President summons it in extraordinary session" some time after March 1889, when the previous House expires. This summons has been issued ten times only since 1789; and has so often brought ill luck to the summoning President that a sort of superstition against it has now grown up.' The question is often mooted whether a new Congress ought not by law to meet within six months after its election, for there are inconveniences in keeping an elected House unorganized and Speakerless for a twelvemonth. But the country is not so fond of Congress as to desire more of it. It is a singular result of the present arrangement that the old House continues to sit for nearly four months after the members of the new House have been elected.

66

1 This ill luck is supposed (says Mr. Blaine in his Twenty Years in Congress) to attach especially to May sessions, which reminds one of the superstition against May marriages mentioned by John Knox apropos of the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and Darnley.