tion, of all parts of American society; it is far too dependent, and far too sensible that it is dependent, upon public opinion, to dream of legislating in the interest of the rich. The senators, however, indulge some social pretensions. They are the nearest approach to an official aristocracy that has yet been seen in America. They and their wives are allowed precedence at private entertainments, as well as on public occasions, over members of the House, and of course over private citizens. Jefferson might turn in his grave if he knew of such an attempt to introduce European distinctions of rank into his democracy; yet as the office is temporary, and the rank vanishes with the office, these pretensions are harmless; it is only the universal social equality of the country that makes them noteworthy. Apart from such petty advantages, the position of a senator, who can count on reelection, is the most desirable in the political world of America. It gives as much power and influence as a man need desire. It secures for him the ear of the public. It is more permanent than the presidency or any great ministerial office, requires less labor, involves less vexation, though still great vexation, by importunate office-seekers. The smallness and the permanence of the Senate have an important influence on its character. They contribute to one main cause of its success, the superior intellectual quality of its members. Every European who has described it has dwelt upon the capacity of those who compose it, and most have followed De Tocqueville in attributing this capacity to the method of double election. The choice of senators by the State legislatures is supposed to have proved a better means than direct choice by the people of discovering and selecting the fittest men. I have already remarked that practically the election of senators has become a popular election, the func tion of the legislatures being now little more than to register and formally complete a choice already made by the party managers, and perhaps ratified in the party convention. But apart altogether from this recent development, and reviewing the whole hundred years' history of the Senate, the true explanation of its intellectual capacity is to be found in the superior attraction which it has for the ablest and most ambitious men. A senator has more power than a member of the House, more dignity, a longer term of service, a more independent position. Hence every Federal politician aims at a senatorship, and looks on the place of representative as a steppingstone to what is in this sense an Upper House, that is, the House to which representatives seek to mount. It is no more surprising that the average capacity of the Senate should surpass that of the House, than that the average cabinet minister of Europe should be abler than the average member of the legislature. European writers on America have been too much inclined to idealize the Senate. Admiring its structure and function, they have assumed that the actors must be worthy of their parts. They have been encouraged in this tendency by the language of many Americans. As the Romans were never tired of repeating that the ambassador of Pyrrhus had called the Roman senate an assembly of kings, so Americans of refinement, who are ashamed of the turbulent House of Representatives, are wont to talk of the Senate as a sort of Olympian dwelling-place of statesmen and sages. It is nothing of the kind. It is a company of shrewd and vigorous men who have fought their way to the front by the ordinary methods of American politics, and on many of whom the battle has left its stains. There are abundant opportunities for intrigue in the Senate, because its most important business is done in the secrecy of committee rooms or of executive session; and many senators are intriguers. There are opportunities for misusing senatorial powers. Scandals have sometimes arisen from the practice of employing as counsel before the Supreme Court senators whose influence has contributed to the appointment or confirmation of the judges. There are opportunities for corruption and blackmailing, of which unscrupulous men are well known to take advantage. Such men are fortunately few; but considering how demoralized are the legislatures of some States, their presence must be looked for; and the rest of the Senate, however it may blush for them, is obliged to work with them and to treat them as equals. The contagion of political vice is nowhere so swiftly potent as in legislative bodies, because you cannot taboo a man who has a vote. You may loathe him personally, but he is the people's choice and he has a right to share in the government of the country. As respects ability, the Senate cannot be profitably compared with the English House of Lords, because that assembly consists of some twenty eminent and as many ordinary men, attending regularly, with a multitude of undistinguished persons who, though members, are only occasional visitors, and take no real share in the deliberations. Setting the Senate beside the House of Commons, one may say that the average natural capacity of its members is not above that of an equal number of the best men in the English House. There is more variety of talent in the latter, and a greater breadth of culture. On the other hand, the Senate excels in legal knowledge as well as in practical shrewdness. The House of Commons contains more men who could give a good address on a literary or historical subject, the Senate more who could either deliver a rousing popular harangue or manage the business of a great trading company, these being the forms of capacity commonest among Congressional politicians. The Senate has been and is, on the whole, a steadying and moderating power. One cannot say in the language of European politics that it has represented aristocratic principles, or anti-popular principles, or even conservative principles. Each of the great historic parties has in turn commanded a majority in it, and the difference between their strength has during the last decade been but slight. On none of the great issues that have divided the nation has the Senate been, for any long period, decidedly opposed to the other House of Congress. All the fluctuations of public opinion tell upon it, nor does it venture, any more than the House, to confront a popular impulse, because it is, equally with the House, subject to the control of the great parties, which seek to use while they obey the dominant sentiment of the hour. But the fluctuations of opinion tell on it less energetically than on the House of Representatives. They reach it slowly and gradually, owing to the system which renews it by one third every second year, so that it sometimes happens that before the tide has risen to the 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 Rep resentatives. 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 has been, in the main, well discharged, and "the propensity of a single and numerous assembly to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions" is usually restrained. CHAPTER X. 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 provides 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," which the dominant party |