Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2006
When I was looking for a quotation to garnish the introduction to mydoctoral dissertation on Senate committees, I turned, like hundredsof graduate students before and since, to Woodrow Wilson'sCongressional Government. “Congress in sessionis Congress on public exhibition,” he wrote (1885) and I quoted(1972), “whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress atwork.” But the book deserves better than simply to be mined forquotations. As Wilson's doctoral dissertation, it offers insightsinto his developing political thought. It illumines the operationsof the national government during what was indeed a period ofcongressional and standing-committee ascendancy, although Wilson'saccount was neither objective nor totally reliable. And it promptsreflection on certain recurring dilemmas in the practice of Americandemocracy.This essay is adaptedfrom a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Centerfor Scholars, November 14, 2005.