CHAPTER II.

THE LEGISLATURES-CONGRESS.

THERE are three distinct kinds of legislatures in the United States-the National Legislature, sitting at Washington; the State Legislatures, sitting in the capital cities of the several States; and the Territorial Legislatures, sitting in the capitals of the Territories. As contrasted with our own Legislature, these are all limited in power; not one of them is like the British Parliament omnipotent. Congress, as we have seen, is limited by the provisions of the Federal constitution. A State Legislature is limited in one direction by that constitution, and in another by the constitution of the State to which it belongs. A Territorial Legislature is not only limited by the organic law under which it exists, but may by a change in that organic law lose such power as it possesses or cease altogether to exist. Practical freedom it no doubt possesses, but in theory, which may at any moment be realised in fact, the Territorial Legislature is entirely dependent on the Congress of the United States. The laws of every one of these Legislatures are liable

to be declared void by external tribunals in any proper case of which such tribunals have jurisdiction. All of these Legislatures are limited also by the power of the executive-by the veto of a President or Governor, whom they do not appoint and whom they cannot dismiss.

The theory underlying all these limitations is, that sovereign power belongs only to the people. By the people is meant, in national affairs, the whole of the inhabitants of the States; in State affairs, the whole of the inhabitants of the State. The people is a roi faineant, difficult to set in motion in the State, almost immovable in the nation as a whole. But the Legislature is always its subordinate agent, holding only what power may be delegated to it; and the constitution, in nation or State, exists to define that power.

The external form of all the Legislatures, National, State, and Territorial, is the same. The bicameral system prevails throughout. There is an Upper House or Senate; a Lower House or Assembly, with co-ordinate powers in general legislation, and certain specific powers peculiar to each. The Senate is the smaller in point of numbers, and the more permanent in tenure. The executive veto, to which all are subject, is always supersedible by the two-thirds majority, except in the case of some of the Territories.

The type may be best studied in the great Federal Legislature, although the composition of that Legislature is in some respects peculiar. Many of its

peculiarities relate back to the circumstances of its origin. The Union had to be created out of thirteen sovereign States, of varying degrees of wealth, population, and importance. All sovereigns are equal, and the Union had to make a show of preserving that equality. But some States were greater and weightier than others, and that fact too had to be recognised. The structure of the Legislature, and indeed the whole scheme of the constitution, endeavours to reconcile these opposing principles in a highly ingenious manner. Down to the minutest details we find the sovereignty of the State and the sovereignty of the nation alternately asserted and modified.

THE SENATE, Consisting of two senators from each State, whether large or small, new or old, represents the principle of equality, which is the badge of State sovereignty. Indeed this formal equality of the Senate might be described as the last relic of the independent sovereignty of the States. THE LOWER HOUSE, the House of Representatives, on the other hand, has its membership apportioned directly according to population. There is a periodical revision of its membership after every census. Congress decides what the total number of representatives shall be; and to each State it awards the number of representatives to which its population, in due proportion, is entitled.

The structure of the Senate will strike an Englishman more forcibly even than an American as a remarkable violation of representative principles, as understood in these democratic days. The Senate

of the United States is, for its size, the most influential political assembly in the world. In no other assembly is the political power of each individual member so great. Yet a state like Nevada, with a population no larger than that of many an English county, has exactly the same number of votes as the great State of New York, which in wealth, population, and resources may rank with a European nation. The contrast is rendered still more striking when we consider the case of a Territory demanding admission into the Union as a State. When such a Territory-Washington, Montana, Dakota, or any other-seeks admission, New York and Pennsylvania are called upon to reckon a thousand Western settlers as equivalent to tens of thousands of their own people. In one of the Territories just mentioned, Dakota, the people not only want admission to the Union, but demand to be admitted as two States; so that in this case, so far as the Senate is concerned, New York is called upon to give twice its own share of power to a community which is out of all comparison with it in importance, and at present possesses no political power whatever.

While Congress determines the number of representatives to be allowed to each State, it leaves to the State the local distribution of that representation. The fourteenth amendment to the constitution provides that representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers; but when the right to vote in Presidential, Con

gressional, or State elections is denied to any of the male inhabitants, being of full age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, the basis of representation shall be proportionately reduced. Each State, however small, has one member of the House of Representatives. Congress has required that each State shall be divided into districts of contiguous territory, and equal as nearly as may be in numbers; but the division of the State into districts is left to the State Legislature. In the arrangement of the districts there is room for a great deal of manipulation designed to promote party purposes, and known as "gerrymandering." "Thus the noted 'shoe-string' district of Mississippi is 500 miles long and about 110 miles broad: it contains no considerable town save Vicksburg, and is almost wholy rural. Another instance is the 'dumb-bell' district of Pennsylvania, which resembles the shape of that object.” * A district in South Carolina is divided at high water into two separate territories and the principle of "contiguity" is only maintained at low water. Where an additional member is allotted to a State, and the Legislature fails to make a new districting, the additional member is voted for by the whole State, and is termed a Congress-man at large.

The LOWER HOUSE is thus intended to be directly and proportionately representative of the whole people. The Senate is constituted on a wholly different principle. Senators are elected, not by the people of the

Ford's "American Citizen's Manual."