The Spirit of American Government

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... 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, passed 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 constitutional assent of the representatives of the American people."1 This system which so effectually restricts the power of the majority in the House affords no safeguard against local or class legislation. By 1 Senator Hoar's Article. 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 passed unless they agree to support various other measures of which they disapprove. It thus happens that many of the bills passed by the House are the result of this bargaining between the supporters of various measures. Certain members in order to secure the passage 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 passed, since any powerful private interest opposed to such legislation may be able to have the measure in question...