¹ The American Commonwealth, vol. i, pp. 156–157 Google Scholar.

² Compare Pelham, , Outlines of Roman History, pp. 159–161 Google Scholar.

³ Constitution of 1852, title iii, sec. 8; title vi, sec. 50.

⁴ This is true in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chili, Costa Rica, Colombia, Denmark, France, the German Empire, Great Britain, Greece, Gautemala, Honduras, Hayti, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Portugal, Prussia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Salvador. The Constitution of the Southern Confederacy seems to have contemplated the introduction of parliamentary methods since it authorized congress to grant the right to cabinet ministers to occupy seats in either house with the privilege of discussing any measure pertaining to their departments.

⁵ Page 75.

⁶ The English Constitution, 2d edition, pp. 200–201 Google Scholar.

⁷ Testimony of James Bryce before the committee of the house of representatives on various bills proposing the establishment of a congressional legislative reference bureau. Hearings, February 26, 1912, p. 8; cf., also, SirIlbert, Courtenay, Legislative Methods and Forms, p. 215 Google Scholar, for a table of statistics showing the number of government bills and private members' bills passed. For example, in 1900, forty-nine government bills were passed and only fifteen private members' bills.

⁸ The Federalist, No. 58, Ford's, ed., p. 389 Google Scholar.

⁹ Representative Government, (Universal Library edition), pp. 85, 95 Google Scholar. See p. 96 for his proposal that legislation should be delegated to a small permanent legislative commission. Compare also his autobiography pp. 264–265 where he says, “there is a distinction between the functions of making laws, for which a numerous popular assembly is radically unfit, and that of getting good laws made, which is its proper duty and cannot be satisfactorily performed by any other authority.”

¹⁰ See the annals of the first congress, pp. 66, 51, 684, 689.

¹¹ Ford, , Rise and Growth of American Politics, p. 81 Google Scholar.

¹² Ibid., p. 226.

¹³ Compare McConachie, , Congressional Committees, pp. 221 et seq.Google Scholar, also Follett, , The Speaker, pp. 319, 327, et seqGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Congressional Government, pp. 308–309.

¹⁵ The American Commonwealth, ed. of 1910, vol. i, 286 Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Madison stated in the Convention that Montesqieu was the “oracle always consulted,” (Federalist, Ford's, ed., p. 320 Google Scholar).

¹⁷ Madison himself pointed out that “on the slightest view of the British constitution” the departments were not separate and that the theory was subject to many exceptions and limitations. Ibid., p. 327.

¹⁸ Cf. Bryce, , American Commonwealth, vol. i, p. 288 Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Notably by Bryce, , “The American Commonwealth,” vol. i, chs. 14–15Google Scholar; 20–21, Wilson, Congressional Government, chs. 2, 5; also his Constitutional Government, chs. 3–4; Godkin, , Unforeseen Tendencies in Democracy, pp. 96–145 Google Scholar; Ford, Rise and Growth of American Politics, chs. 18–22; Macy, Party Organization and Machinery, chs. 3–4. Compare, also, the following remarks by Mr. Henry L. Stimson, criticizing the committee system, (The Independent, 1913, p. 1225 Google Scholar). “Tremendous powers are exercised in secret by men who, neither as committeemen nor as congressmen, are responsible to the country at large. Congress is at the mercy of any individual or private interest which can get before any of these committees, and on an ex parte hearing impress the committeemen with a desirability of an appropriation. Such legislative methods simply invite demands for improper favors.”

²⁰ Compare especially on this point, Wilson, Congressional Government, ch. ii.

²¹ Compare, Follett, , The Speaker, pp. 327–329 Google Scholar.

²² “The usage from the commencement of the government” said Mr. Cambreling, chairman of the ways and means committee in 1837, “has been for the committee through its chairman to consult the head of the department in regard to such measures as he may recommend for the consideration of Congress, for the secretary to attend upon and confer with the committee, if invited, and to furnish the drafts of bills embracing his own proposals, when requested to do so.” McConachie, , Congressional Committees, p. 223 Google Scholar.

²³ Compare Macy, op. cit., p. 25, and Wilson, , Constitutional Government, pp. 67, 202 Google Scholar.

²⁴ A rule adopted by the Illinois house of representatives at its last session reads as follows: “When any bill or resolution is introduced for the purpose of carrying into effect any recommendation of the governor, it may by executive message addressed to the speaker of the house be made an administrative measure. The administrative measure may be sent to the appropriate committee or it shall upon request of its introducer, be sent to committee of the whole House. When such a measure had been reported out of committee, it shall have precedence in the consideration of the house over all other measures except appropriation bills. The house shall sit in committee of the whole for the consideration of administration measures on Tuesday morning immediately after reading of the house journal.”

“The purpose of this rule” says Senator Hull, its author, “is obvious. It is intended to give assurance to the governor that measures which he recommends will be given fair consideration and by such assurances to impose upon him the obligation to have a legislative program. By so doing, it is hoped to give greater significance to party platforms and to make in some small degree for party responsibility and party government.” American Political Science Review, May, 1913, p. 239 Google Scholar.

²⁵ “Some of our Presidents” says Mr. Wilson, “have deliberately held themselves off from using the full power they might legitimately have used, because of conscientious scruples, because they were more theorists than statesmen. They have held the strict literary theory of the Constitution, the Whig theory, the Newtonian theory, and have acted as if they thought Pennsylvania Avenue should have been still longer than it is; that there should be no intimate communication of any kind between the capitol and the White House; that the President as a man was no more at liberty to lead the houses of congress by persuasion than he was at liberty as President to dominate them by authority—supposing that he had, what he has not, authority enough to dominate them.”

²⁶ Sec. 869. Speaking on this point, Judge Story said: “The heads of the departments are, in fact, thus precluded from proposing or vindicating their own measures in the face of the nation in the course of debate, and are compelled to submit them to other men who are either imperfectly acquainted with the measures or are indifferent to their success or failure. Thus that open and public responsibility for measures which properly belongs to the executive in all governments, and especially in a republican government, as its greatest security and strength, is completely done away. The executive is compelled to resort to secret and unseen influences, to private interviews, and private arrangements to accomplish its own appropriate purposes, instead of proposing and sustaining its own duties and measures by a bold and manly appeal to the nation in the face of its representatives. One consequence of this state of things is, that there never can be traced home to the executive any responsibility for the measures which are planned and carried at its suggestion. Another consequence will be (if it has not yet been) that measures will be adopted or defeated by private intrigues, political combinations, irresponsible recommendations, and all the blandishments of office, and all the deadening weight of silent patronage.”

²⁷ Congressional Record, January 13, p. 12. Recommending that cabinet members be allowed to attend the sessions of the house and senate and to take part in the debate, Mr. Taft said: “The rigid holding apart of the executive and the legislative branches of the government has not worked for the great advantage of either. There has been much lost motion in the machinery, due to the lack of coöperation and interchange of views face to face between the representatives of the executive and the members of the two legislative branches of the government. It was never intended that they should be separated in the sense of not being in constant effective touch and relationship to each. The legislative and the executive each performs its own appropriate function, but these functions must be coördinated. Time and time again debates have arisen in each house upon issues which the information of a particular department head would have enabled him, if present, to end at once by a simple explanation or statement. Time and time again a forceful and earnest presentation of facts and arguments by the representatives of the executive whose duty it is to enforce the law would have brought about a useful reform by amendment, which in the absence of such a statement has failed of passage. I do not think I am mistaken in saying that the presence of the members of the cabinet on the floor of each House would greatly contribute to the enactment of beneficial legislation. Nor would this in any degree deprive either the legislative or the executive of the independence which separation of the two branches has intended to promote. It would only facilitate their cooperation in the public interest.”

²⁸ Article on “The Presidency” in the Independent, 1913, p. 1197 Google Scholar. Cf., also, an editorial in the Nation for December 26, 1912.

²⁹ As an illustration of the inconveniences resulting from the present system which excludes cabinet members from occupying seats in congress the following passages may be cited from the Congressional Record of January 29, 1862 (vol. 46, pt. i, p. 549)Google Scholar. The house was considering a bill to authorize the issue of legal tender treasury notes.

Mr. Roscoe Conkling: “I understand the gentleman to say that no measure like that he is about to discuss was ever entertained in debate, or, if I understand him, ever recommended by any department of the government; and I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Pendleton), whether he is prepared to answer, and if not, of the chairman of the committee of ways and means, or the gentleman who reported this bill, whether the present secretary of the treasury is in favor of making paper a legal tender; and also whether he is prepared to recommend to congress the adoption of that measure? I will say, with the permission of the gentleman, that, for once, I should like very much to know what is the opinion of the secretary of the treasury, embracing not only the extent of the constitutional power but the economic and political extent, if that is involved in the proposed measure, of making paper a legal tender in payments of debts.”

Mr. Spaulding: “In reply to the question of my colleague, I will say that the Secretary of the Treasury has been called upon for his opinion in regard to the bill. We were assured that his reply would be sent to us yesterday, but we did not receive it. We expect his answer every hour.”

Mr. Roscoe Conkling: “I am not certain that I understand what my colleague said. Does he expect a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury which will contain his views on the financial question and also on the legal question?”

Mr. Spaulding: “Upon this bill specifically?”

Mr. Roscoe Conkling: “Containing the legal tender clause?”

Mr. Spaulding: “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Pendleton: “I can not answer the question of the gentleman, so far as the opinions of the present secretary of the treasury are concerned.”

³⁰ Compare Ilbert, Courtenay, Legislative Forms and Methods, pp. 40–41 Google Scholar.

³¹ Compare the testimony of James Bryce in the hearings before the house committee on library on various bills proposing the establishment of a congressional reference bureau, February 26,1912. pp. 14, 20.

³² The Government of England, vol. i, p. 366 Google Scholar.

³³ Compare an article by Mr. Mathews, J. M. entitled “The new Rôle of the Governor” in The American Political Science Review, May, 1912, pp. 216 et seqGoogle Scholar.

³⁴ World's Work, November, 1913, p. 11 Google Scholar; cf., also, a recent editorial in the Nation, vol. 96, p. 380 Google Scholar.

³⁵ Constitutional Government, p. 75.