It is enjoined that no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. At first sight such a rule as this appears to be good in its nature; but a comparison of the practice of the United States government with that of our own makes me think that this embargo on members of the legislative bodies is a mistake. It prohibits the President's ministers from a seat in either house, and thereby relieves them from the weight of that responsibility to which our ministers are subjected. It is quite true that the United States ministers cannot be responsible as are our ministers, seeing that the President himself is responsible, and that the Queen is not so.
Indeed, according to the theory of the American Constitution, the President has no ministers. The Constitution speaks only of the principal officers of the executive departments. "He" (the President) "may require the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments." But in practice he has his cabinet, and the irresponsibility of that cabinet would practically cease if the members of it were subjected to the questionings of the two Houses. With us the rule which prohibits servants of the State from going into Parliament is, like many of our constitutional rules, hard to be defined, and yet perfectly understood. It may perhaps be said, with the nearest approach to a correct definition, that permanent servants of the State may not go into Parliament, and that those may do so whose services are political, depending for the duration of their term on the duration of the existing ministry. But even this would not be exact, seeing that the Master of the Rolls and the officers of the army and navy can sit in Parliament. The absence of the President's ministers from Congress certainly occasions much confusion, or rather prohibits a more thorough political understanding between the executive and the legislature than now exists. In speaking of the government of the United States in the next chapter, I shall be constrained to allude again to this subject.** It will be alleged by Americans that the introduction into Congress of the President's ministers would alter all the existing relations of the President and of Congress, and would at once produce that parliamentary form of government which England possesses, and which the States have chosen to avoid. Such a change would elevate Congress and depress the President. No doubt this is true. Such elevation, however, and such depression seemed to me to be the two things needed.
The duties of the House of Representatives are solely legislative.
Those of the Senate are legislative and executive, as with us those of the Upper House are legislative and judicial. The House of Representatives is always open to the public. The Senate is so open when it is engaged on legislative work; but it is closed to the public when engaged in executive session. No treaties can be made by the President, and no appointments to high offices confirmed, without the consent of the Senate; and this consent must be given--as regards the confirmation of treaties--by two-thirds of the members present. This law gives to the Senate the power of debating with closed doors upon the nature of all treaties, and upon the conduct of the government as evinced in the nomination of the officers of State. It also gives to the Senate a considerable control over the foreign relations of the government. I believe that this power is often used, and that by it the influence of the Senate is raised much above that of the Lower House. This influence is increased again by the advantage of that superior statecraft and political knowledge which the six years of the Senator gives him over the two years of the Representative. The tried Representative, moreover, very frequently blossoms into a Senator but a Senator does not frequently fade into a Representative. Such occasionally is the case, and it is not even unconstitutional for an ex-President to reappear in either House. Mr. Benton, after thirty years' service in the Senate, sat in the House of Representatives. Mr. Crittenden, who was returned as Senator by Kentucky, I think seven times, now sits in the Lower House; and John Quincy Adams appeared as a Representative from Massachusetts after he had filled the presidential chair.
And, moreover, the Senate of the United States is not debarred from an interference with money bills, as the House of Lords is debarred with us. "All bills for raising revenue," says the seventh section of the first article of the Constitution, "shall originate with the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills." By this the Senate is enabled to have an authority in the money matters of the nation almost equal to that held by the Lower House--an authority quite sufficient to preserve to it the full influence of its other powers. With us the House of Commons is altogether in the ascendant, because it holds and jealously keeps to itself the exclusive command of the public purse.
