The Spirit of American Government Part 8

Another practice which has augmented the authority and at the same time diminished the responsibility of the committees is the hurried manner in which the House disposes of the various measures that come before it.

The late Senator h.o.a.r has estimated that the entire time which the House allows for this purpose during the two sessions which make up the life of a Congress "gives an average of no more than two hours apiece to the committees of the House to report upon, debate, and dispose of all the subjects of general legislation committed to their charge. From this time is taken the time consumed in reading the bill, and in calling the yeas and nays, which may be ordered by one-fifth of the members present, and which require forty minutes for a single roll-call."[150]

Moreover, the member "who reports the bill dictates how long the debate shall last, who shall speak on each side, and whether any and what amendments shall be offered. Any member fit to be intrusted with the charge of an important measure would be deemed guilty of an inexcusable blunder if he surrendered the floor which the usages of the House a.s.sign to his control for an hour, without demanding the previous question."[151]

Nothing more would seem to be necessary to give the committee control of the situation. True the House may reject the bill which it submits, but the committee may easily prevent the House from voting upon a measure which a majority of that body desires to enact.

As there are many committees and the time which the House can give to the consideration of their reports is limited, it naturally follows that each committee is anxious to get all other business out of the way in order that it may have an opportunity to bring the measures which it has prepared to the attention of the House. This struggle between the various committees for an opportunity to report the bills which they have framed and have them considered by the House explains the acquiescence of that body in a system that so greatly restricts the freedom of debate. Very rarely will a committee encounter any formidable opposition in bringing the discussion of its measures to a close.

The speaker's power of recognition is another check upon the majority in the House. This power which he freely uses in an arbitrary manner enables him to prevent the introduction of an obnoxious bill by refusing to recognize a member who wishes to obtain the floor for that purpose.[152] Moreover, as chairman of the Committee on Rules he virtually has the power to determine the order in which the various measures shall be considered by the House. In this way he can secure an opportunity for those bills which he wishes the House to pa.s.s and ensure the defeat of those to which he is opposed by giving so many other matters the preference that they can not be reached before the close of the second session.

The power thus exercised by the speaker, coupled with that of the committees, imposes an effectual restraint not only on the individual members, but on the majority as well. A large majority of the bills introduced are vetoed by the committees or "killed" by simply not reporting them back to the House. There is no way in which the House can override the veto of a committee or that of the speaker, since even when the rules are suspended no measure can be considered that has not been previously reported by a committee, while the speaker can enforce his veto through his power of recognition. Both the committees and the speaker have what is for all practical purposes an absolute veto on legislation.

A motion to suspend the rules and pa.s.s any bill that has been reported to the House may be made on the first and third Mondays of each month or during the last six days of each session. "In this way, if two-thirds of the body agree, a bill is by a single vote, without discussion and without change, pa.s.sed through all the necessary stages, and made law so far as the consent of the House can accomplish it. And in this mode hundreds of measures of vital importance receive, near the close of exhausting sessions, without being debated, amended, printed, or understood, the const.i.tutional a.s.sent of the representatives of the American people."[153]

This system which so effectually restricts the power of the majority in the House affords no safeguard against local or cla.s.s legislation. By making it difficult for any bill however worthy of consideration to receive a hearing on its own merits, it naturally leads to the practice known as log-rolling. The advocates of a particular measure may find that it can not be pa.s.sed unless they agree to support various other measures of which they disapprove. It thus happens that many of the bills pa.s.sed by the House are the result of this bargaining between the supporters of various measures. Certain members in order to secure the pa.s.sage of a bill in which they are especially interested will support and vote for other bills which they would prefer to vote against. In this way many bills secure a favorable vote in the House when a majority of that body are really opposed to their enactment. It is entirely within the bounds of possibility that no important measure desired by the people at large and which would be supported by a majority of the House, can be pa.s.sed, since any powerful private interest opposed to such legislation may be able to have the measure in question quietly killed in committee or otherwise prevented from coming to a final vote in the House. But while legislation in the interest of the people generally may be defeated through the silent but effective opposition of powerful private interests, many other measures which ought to be defeated are allowed to pa.s.s. A system which makes it possible to defeat the will of the majority in the House by preventing on the one hand the enactment of laws which that majority favors, and by permitting on the other hand the enactment of laws to which it is opposed, certainly does not allow public opinion to exercise an effective control over the proceedings of the House.

As a foreign critic observes, "the House has ceased to be a debating a.s.sembly: it is only an instrument for hasty voting on the proposals which fifty small committees have prepared behind closed doors.... At the present time it is very much farther from representing the people than if, instead of going as far as universal suffrage, it had kept to an infinitely narrower franchise, but had preserved at the same time the freedom, fullness, and majesty of its debates."[154]

CHAPTER VIII

THE PARTY SYSTEM

The political party is a voluntary a.s.sociation which seeks to enlist a majority of voters under its banner and thereby gain control of the government. As the means employed by the majority to make its will effective, it is irreconcilably opposed to all restraints upon its authority. Party government in this sense is the outcome of the efforts of the ma.s.ses to establish their complete and untrammeled control of the state.

This is the reason why conservative statesmen of the eighteenth century regarded the tendency towards party government as the greatest political evil of the time. Far-sighted men saw clearly that its purpose was revolutionary; that if accomplished, monarchy and aristocracy would be shorn of all power; that the checks upon the ma.s.ses would be swept away and the popular element made supreme. This would lead inevitably to the overthrow of the entire system of special privilege which centuries of cla.s.s rule had carefully built up and protected.

When our Const.i.tution was framed responsible party government had not been established in England. In theory the Const.i.tution of Great Britain recognized three coordinate powers, the King, the Lords, and the Commons. But as a matter of fact the government of England was predominantly aristocratic. The landed interests exerted a controlling influence even in the House of Commons. The rapidly growing importance of capital had not yet seriously impaired the const.i.tutional authority of the landlord cla.s.s. Land had been until recently the only important form of wealth; and the right to a voice in the management of the government was still an incident of land ownership. Men as such were not ent.i.tled to representation. The property-owning cla.s.ses made the laws and administered them, officered the army and navy, and controlled the policy of the government in every direction.

"According to a table prepared about 1815, the House of Commons contained 471 members who owed their seats to the goodwill and pleasure of 144 Peers and 123 Commoners, 16 government nominees, and only 171 members elected by popular suffrages."[155]

As the real power behind the government was the aristocracy of wealth, the English system, though nominally one of checks and balances, closely resembled in its practical working an unlimited aristocracy.

The framers of our Const.i.tution, as shown in previous chapters, took the English government for their model and sought to establish the supremacy of the well-to-do cla.s.ses. Like the English conservatives of that time they deplored the existence of political parties and consequently made no provision for them in the system which they established. Indeed, their chief purpose was to prevent the very thing which the responsible political party aimed to establish, viz., majority rule.

"Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed union,"

wrote Madison in defense of the Const.i.tution, "none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction....

"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of pa.s.sion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community....

" ... But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.

Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different cla.s.ses actuated by different sentiments and views....

"If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by a regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Const.i.tution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling pa.s.sion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed."[156]

The very existence of political parties would endanger the system which they set up, since in their efforts to strengthen and perpetuate their rule they would inevitably advocate extensions of the suffrage, and thus in the end compet.i.tion between parties for popular support would be destructive of all those property qualifications for voting and holding office which had up to that time excluded the propertyless cla.s.ses from any partic.i.p.ation in public affairs. Hence Washington though a staunch Federalist himself saw nothing inconsistent in trying to blend the extremes of political opinion by giving both Hamilton and Jefferson a place in his Cabinet.

In England the party by the Reform bill of 1832 accomplished its purpose, broke through the barriers erected against it, divested the Crown of all real authority, subordinated the House of Lords, and established the undisputed rule of the majority in the House of Commons.

This accomplished, it was inevitable that the rivalry between political parties should result in extensions of the suffrage until the House should come to represent, as it does in practice to-day, the sentiment of the English people.

The framers of the American Const.i.tution, however, succeeded in erecting barriers which democracy has found it more difficult to overcome. For more than a century the const.i.tutional bulwarks which they raised against the rule of the numerical majority have obstructed and r.e.t.a.r.ded the progress of the democratic movement. The force of public sentiment soon compelled, it is true, the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment, which in effect recognized the existence of political parties and made provision for the party candidate for President and Vice-President. At most, however, it merely allowed the party to name the executive without giving it any effective control over him after he was elected, since in other respects the general plan of the Const.i.tution remained unchanged.

The political party, it is true, has come to play an important role under our const.i.tutional system; but its power and influence are of a negative rather than a positive character. It professes, of course, to stand for the principle of majority rule, but in practice it has become an additional and one of the most potent checks on the majority.

To understand the peculiar features of the American party system one must bear in mind the const.i.tutional arrangements under which it has developed. The party is simply a voluntary political a.s.sociation through which the people seek to formulate the policy of the government, select the officials who are to carry it out in the actual administration of public affairs, and hold them to strict accountability for so doing.

Under any government which makes full provision for the political party, as in the English system of to-day, the party has not only the power to elect but the power to remove those who are entrusted with the execution of its policies. Having this complete control of the government, it can not escape responsibility for failure to carry out the promises by which it secured a majority at the polls. This is the essential difference between the English system on the one hand and the party under the American const.i.tutional system on the other. The one well knows that if it carries the election it will be expected to make its promises good.

The other makes certain promises with the knowledge that after the election is over it will probably have no power to carry them out.

It is this lack of power to shape the entire policy of the government which, more than anything else, has given form and character to the party system of the United States. To the extent that the Const.i.tution has deprived the majority of the power to mold the policy of the government through voluntary political a.s.sociations, it has defeated the main purpose for which the party should exist.

The fact that under the American form of government the party can not be held accountable for failure to carry out its ante-election pledges has had the natural and inevitable result. When, as in England, the party which carries the election obtains complete and undisputed control of the government, the sense of responsibility is ever present in those who direct it. If in the event of its success it is certain to be called upon to carry out its promises, it can not afford for the sake of obtaining votes to make promises which it has no intention of keeping.

But when the party, even though successful at the polls may lack the power to enforce its policy, it can not be controlled by a sense of direct responsibility to the people. Promises may be recklessly and extravagantly made merely for the sake of getting votes. The party platform from the point of view of the party managers ceases to be a serious declaration of political principles. It comes to be regarded as a means of winning elections rather than a statement of what the party is obligated to accomplish.

The influence thus exerted by the Const.i.tution upon our party system, though generally overlooked by students and critics of American politics, has had profound and far-reaching results. That the conduct of individuals is determined largely by the conditions under which they live is as well established as any axiom of political science. This must be borne in mind if we would fully understand the prevailing apathy--the seeming indifference to corruption and ring rule which has so long characterized a large cla.s.s of intelligent and well-meaning American citizens. To ascribe the evils of our party system to their lack of interest in public questions and their selfish disregard of civic duties, is to ignore an important phase of the problem--the influence of the system itself. In the long run an active general interest can be maintained only in those inst.i.tutions from which the people derive some real or fancied benefit. This benefit in the case of the political party can come about only through the control which it enables those who compose it to exercise over the government. And where, as under the American system, control of the party does not ensure control of the government, the chief motive for an alert and unflagging interest in political questions is lacking. If the majority can not make an effective use of the party system for the attainment of political ends, they can not be expected to maintain an active interest in party affairs.

But although our const.i.tutional arrangements are such as to deprive the people of effective control over the party, it has offices at its disposal and sufficient power to grant or revoke legislative favors to make control of its organization a matter of supreme importance to office seekers and various corporate interests. Thus while the system discourages an unselfish and public-spirited interest in party politics, it does appeal directly to those interests which wish to use the party for purely selfish ends. Hence the ascendency of the professional politician who, claiming to represent the ma.s.ses, really owes his preferment to those who subsidize the party machine.

The misrepresentative character of the American political party seems to be generally recognized by those who have investigated the subject. It is only when we look for an explanation of this fact that there is much difference of opinion. The chief difficulty encountered by those who have given attention to this problem has been the point of view from which they have approached it. The unwarranted a.s.sumption almost universally made that the principle of majority rule is fundamental in our scheme of government has been a serious obstacle to any adequate investigation of the question. Blind to the most patent defects of the Const.i.tution, they have ignored entirely its influence upon the development and character of the political party. Taking it for granted that our general scheme of government was especially designed to facilitate the rule of the majority, they have found it difficult to account for the failure of the majority to control the party machine.

Why is it that under a system which recognizes the right and makes it the duty of the majority to control the policy of the government, that control has in practice pa.s.sed into the hands of a small minority who exercise it often in utter disregard of and even in direct opposition to the wishes and interests of the majority? On the a.s.sumption that we have a Const.i.tution favorable in the highest degree to democracy, how are we to explain the absence of popular control over the party itself?

Ignoring the obstacles which the Const.i.tution has placed in the way of majority rule, American political writers have almost invariably sought to lay the blame for corruption and machine methods upon the people.

They would have us believe that if such evils are more p.r.o.nounced here than elsewhere it is because in this country the ma.s.ses control the government.

If the a.s.sumption thus made concerning the nature of our political system were true, we would be forced to accept one of two conclusions: either that popular government inevitably results in the despotism of a corrupt and selfish oligarchy, or if such is not a necessary consequence, then at any rate the standard of citizenship in this country intellectually and morally is not high enough to make democracy practicable. That the ignorance, selfishness and incapacity of the people are the real source of the evils mentioned is diligently inculcated by all those who wish to discredit the theory of popular government. No one knows better than the machine politician and his allies in the great corporate industries of the country how little control the people generally do or can exercise over the party under our present political arrangements. To disclose this fact to the people generally, however, might arouse a popular movement of such magnitude as to sweep away the const.i.tutional checks which are the source of their power. But as this is the very thing which they wish to prevent, the democratic character of the Const.i.tution must be taken for granted; for by so doing the people are made to a.s.sume the entire responsibility for the evils which result from the practical operation of the system. And since the alleged democratic character of our political arrangements is, it is maintained, the real source of the evils complained of, the only effective remedy would be the restriction of the power of the people.

This might take the form of additional const.i.tutional checks which would thereby diminish the influence of a general election upon the policy of the government without disturbing the present basis of the suffrage; or it might be accomplished by excluding from the suffrage those cla.s.ses deemed to be least fit to exercise that right. Either method would still further diminish the influence of the majority, and instead of providing a remedy for the evils of our system, would only intensify them, since it would augment the power of the minority which is, as we have seen, the main source from which they proceed.

A government which limits the power of the majority might promote the general interests of society more effectually than one controlled by the majority, if the checks were in the hands of a cla.s.s of superior wisdom and virtue. But in practice such a government, instead of being better than those for whom it exists, is almost invariably worse. The complex and confusing system of checks, with the consequent diffusion of power and absence of direct and definite responsibility, is much better adapted to the purposes of a self-seeking, corrupt minority than to the ends of good government. The evils of such a system which are mainly those of minority domination must be carefully distinguished from those which result from majority control. The critics of American political inst.i.tutions have as a rule ignored the former or const.i.tutional aspect of our political evils, and have held majority rule accountable for much that our system of checks has made the majority powerless to prevent.

The evils of our party system, having their roots in the lack of popular control over the party machine, are thus largely a consequence of the checks on the power of the majority contained in the Const.i.tution itself. In other words, they are the outcome, not of too much, but of too little democracy.

The advocates of political reform have directed their attention mainly to the party machine. They have a.s.sumed that control of the party organization by the people would give them control of the government. If this view were correct, the evils which exist could be attributed only to the ignorance, want of public spirit and lack of capacity for effective political co-operation on the part of the people. But as a matter of fact this method of dealing with the problem is open to the objection that it mistakes the effect for the cause. It should be clearly seen that a system of const.i.tutional checks, which hedges about the power of the majority on every side, is incompatible with majority rule; and that even if the majority controlled the party organization, it could control the policy of the government only by breaking down and sweeping away the barriers which the Const.i.tution has erected against it. It follows that all attempts to establish the majority in power by merely reforming the party must be futile.

Under any political system which recognizes the right of the majority to rule, responsibility of the government to the people is the end and aim of all that the party stands for. Party platforms and popular elections are not ends in themselves, but only means by which the people seek to make the government responsive to public opinion. Any arrangement of const.i.tutional checks, then, which defeats popular control, strikes down what is most vital and fundamental in party government. And since the party under our system can not enforce public opinion, it is but natural that the people should lose interest in party affairs. This furnishes an explanation of much that is peculiar to the American party system. It accounts for that seeming indifference and inactivity on the part of the people generally, which have allowed a small selfish minority to seize the party machinery and use it for private ends.

The party, though claiming to represent the people, is not in reality a popular organ. Its chief object has come to be the perpetuation of minority control, which makes possible the protection and advancement of those powerful private interests to whose co-operation and support the party boss is indebted for his continuance in power.[157] To accomplish these ends it is necessary to give the party an internal organization adapted to its real, though not avowed, purpose. The people must not be allowed to use the party as a means of giving clear and definite expression to public opinion concerning the questions wherein the interests of the general public are opposed to the various private interests which support the party machine. For a strong popular sentiment well organized and unequivocally expressed could not be lightly disregarded, even though without const.i.tutional authority to enforce its decrees. To ensure successful minority rule that minority must control those agencies to which the people in all free countries are accustomed to look for an authoritative expression of the public will. The party machine can not serve the purpose of those interests which give it financial support and at the same time allow the people to nominate its candidates and formulate its political creed. Nevertheless, the semblance of popular control must be preserved. The outward appearance of the party organization, the external forms which catch the popular eye, must not reveal too clearly the secret methods and cunningly devised arrangements by which an effective minority control is maintained over the nomination of candidates and the framing of party platforms. The test of fitness for office is not fidelity to the rank and file of the people who vote the party ticket, but subserviency to those interests which dominate the party machine. The choice of candidates is largely made in the secret councils of the ruling minority and the party conventions under color of making a popular choice of candidates merely ratify the minority choice already made. Popular elections under such a system do not necessarily mean that the people have any real power of selecting public officials. They merely have the privilege of voting for one or the other of two lists of candidates neither of which may be in any true sense representative of the people or their interests.

But in nothing is the lack of popular control over the party more clearly seen than in the party platforms. These are supposed to provide a medium for the expression of public opinion upon the important questions with which the government has to deal. Under a political system which recognized the right of the majority to rule, a party platform would be constructed with a view to ascertaining the sense of that majority. Does the platform of the American political party serve this purpose? Does it seek to crystallize and secure a definite expression of public opinion at the polls, or is it so constructed as to prevent it? This question can best be answered by an examination of our party platforms.

The Const.i.tution, as we have seen, was a reaction against and a repudiation of the theory of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence, although this fact was persistently denied by those who framed it and urged its adoption. The high regard in which popular government was held by the ma.s.ses did not permit any open and avowed attempt to discredit it. The democracy of the people, however, was a matter of faith rather than knowledge, a mere belief in the right of the ma.s.ses to rule rather than an intelligent appreciation of the political agencies and const.i.tutional forms through which the ends of popular government were to be attained. Unless this is borne in mind, it is impossible to understand how the Const.i.tution, which was regarded at first with distrust, soon came to be reverenced by the people generally as the very embodiment of democratic doctrines. In order to bring about this change in the att.i.tude of the people, the Const.i.tution was represented by those who sought to advance it in popular esteem as the embodiment of those principles of popular government to which the Declaration of Independence gave expression. The diligence with which this view of the Const.i.tution was inculcated by those who were in a position to aid in molding public opinion soon secured for it universal acceptance. Even the political parties which professed to stand for majority rule and which should therefore have sought to enlighten the people have not only not exposed but actually aided in perpetuating this delusion.

In the Democratic platform of 1840 we find the following:

"Resolved, That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the Const.i.tution, which makes ours a land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith."

This was reaffirmed in the Democratic platforms of 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856.

Finding its advocacy of the Declaration of Independence somewhat embarra.s.sing in view of its att.i.tude on the slavery question, the Democratic party omitted from its platform all reference to that doc.u.ment until 1884, when it ventured to reaffirm its faith in the liberal principles which it embodied. Again, in its platform of 1900, it referred to the Declaration of Independence as "the spirit of our government" and the Const.i.tution as its "form and letter."

In the Republican platform of 1856 we read "That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Const.i.tution is essential to the preservation of our republican inst.i.tutions." This was repeated in the Republican platform of 1860, and the principles of the Declaration of Independence alleged to be embodied in the Const.i.tution were specified, viz., "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are inst.i.tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."