THE UNITED STATES SENATE AND THE EXECUTIVE.
TEM close of the fifty-seventh Congress of the United States, and of a Session which has been well-nigh barren, has given rise to a great deal of very free criticism in the American Press,—criticism which has been specially directed against the Senate. The Senate is represented as having during the last two years unjustly aggrandised itself, and as "levying blackmail on the House of Representa- tives, enforcing corrupt claims by the threat of stopping money Bills." At the same time, the Senate, it is generally agreed, even though it has gained in power, has not gained in prestige. The fact that there exists within it a species of liberum veto, and that any single Member of the body can if he chooses, and has the physical force necessary, defeat any measure, has caused a deep sense of indigna- tion. The Senate, it will be remembered, has no rules of procedure, and the presiding officer no authority or control over the debates. Hence no discussion can be closed or vote taken save by unanimous consent. The result is that any Senator who has determined that a Bill shall not pass has only got to talk it to death by means of persistent oratory. No vote can be taken till he has finished his speech, which may stretch over any number of adjourn- ments, for no one has the power to stop him. This is what has actually happened during the Session just closed. A Senator who was determined that the Panama Canal Bill should not pass deliberately vetoed it by a torrent of talk. In other words, there is no certainty as to legislation unless the Senate is unanimous. As in the old Polish Diet, the voice of a singleMember can shatter any and every project of legislation, no matter how beneficial and how much desired by the majority of the nation. For many years it was believed that public opinion could be relied on to keep the Senate in order; but even this uncertain safeguard has now failed, and the Senate, or, rather, the unreasonable and arbitrary individual Senators who, though in a minority, control that body, utterly disregard the wishes of the natioü as a whole. How strong is the feeling aroused against the Senate may be gathered from the fact that so sober a newspaper as the New York Evening Post writes as it does. After likening the so-called courtesy of the Senate to the methods of highwaymen, the Evening Post declares that its "arrogant disregard of the public interest is shameless, and the result of it so humiliating, even disastrous, as must soon become in- tolerable to the country." That view, adds the Times correspondent in New York, is expressed far and wide, but the Senate goes its own way, heedless of public opinion or of the general condemnation.
After making the necessary deduction for newspaper exaggeration, we cannot help feeling that such writing does to a very considerable extent represent the sentiment of thinking America as regards the action of the Senate. The feeling is intensified owing to the fact that Americans generally are, and ought to be, proud of the Senate. The Senate has played a very great part in American history, and, on the whole, the tremendous power and authority wielded by the Senate have hitherto been well exercised. Again, no one whose eyes are not blinded by momentary annoyance at the recent action of the Senate will deny that the majority of the Senators are statesmen of great political ability, as well as men of high character. There are few sights in the political world on either side of the Atlantic more impressive than the Senate in Session. The sense, not only of a very high standard of personal capacity, but of the immense powers which it wields, seems to pervade the Assembly. The smallness of their numbers, the fact that they are armed with authority which is executive as well as legislative, and the knowledge that they represent not mere localities but States in their corporate capacity, and States which are often as populous as European kingdoms, naturally fill each individual Senator with the sense of personal distinction. A United States Senator is a very great man, and he knows it ; and the Senate as a whole is intensely conscious and proud of the might, majesty, and dominion which it wields. To make a comparison. It matters very little what an individual Member of the British House of Commons thinks and means to do, still less what an individual British Peer thinks and means to do, on any given subject; but it matters a very great deal what a single United States Senator thinks and means to do. A Member of the House of Commons, and also of the American House of Representatives, has, that is to say, very little sense of power merely from his member- ship. It only comes to him when he knows that he can influence a number of other Members to act with him and under his leadership. The Senator, even though he knows that he stands alone and that he can persuade no other Senator to act with him, is still conscious simply from his position as a Senator that he is a power in the land. And in addition, the Senate, from tradition, and from an instinct which affects all bodies of its kind, is possessed of a strong sense of esprit de corps. No corpora- tion, no college, no club, no regiment, ever held together more strongly or was more keen to assert its privileges and its powers. We know how such esprit de corps will often enable a feeble and useless institution composed of most ordinary men to hold its own against attack from without. Imagine the strength of a body inspired with this sense of esprit de corps when its Members are all picked men, and more than half of them are among the ablest statesmen and men of affairs on the American Continent; and when the Constitution has given them collectively a veto over all the affairs of the American Republic. The Senate can veto every appointment made by the President, whether the man nominated for office be a Judge of the Supreme Court, or an Ambassador, or merely a Collector of Customs. Again, the Senate can, by refusing to pass it, veto any Bill sent up from the Lower House, no matter whether the Bill is concerned with the raising or spending of money or with alterations in the law. Lastly, not a majority, but any minority which numbers over a third of the &nate, can refuse to ratify any treaty presented for ratification by the President. Thus the Executive can make no binding Treaty, with any foreign Power unless it can obtain a two- thirds majority in the Senate. In other words, the Senate can say the final word, not only in regard to all legislation, but in regard to all finance, all appointments to high office, and to the foreign affairs of the nation. It is true that the House of Commons indirectly, though not directly, can also exercise all these powers ; but in the case of our sovereign Assembly there is a difference fraught with tremendous consequences. The House of Commons has immediate responsibility joined with power. The Senate has naked power unclothed by responsibility. Effective responsibility is secured with us by the fact that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet are in effect chosen by the House of Commons, and are responsible to it, and there- fore the House of Commons, as long as it has confidence in the Government, is bound to support them,—or rather, if it loses its confidence in them, they cease to be Ministers, and cease to exercise any authority in the State. In the case of the Senate there is no such connecting-link between the men in whom the right to say the ultimate word on so many great questions resides and the men who are responsible for the executive work,—i.e., the President and his Cabinet. The President and his Cabinet, when the Senate will not endorse their foreign policy as set forth in a Treaty, cannot resign and allow other Ministers to take their place. They can only recognise their im- potence and go on with the work of government. We admit, of course, that the case looks much worse on paper than in fact, and that, as always happens in Anglo-Saxon communities, the American Senate in matters of really great moment shows itself willing to help the Executive, and recognises the fact that the President's Government must be carried on. If the President lets the Senate know that he deems it of vital importance that sueh- and-such a Treaty should be ratified or such a person appointed, the thing will be done, even though the Senate does not altogether approve. A President, however, cannot always be making such appeals, and as the execu- tive action of the United States Government develops, as it is doing and is bound to do, the risk of the Senate spoiling the work of the national _Government because it has power divorced from true responsibility becomes very great We shall be told, perhaps, that the Senate feels the sense of responsibility, and so in a sense it no doubt does ; but it is merely a general moral responsibility, and not an executive responsibility. When it has rejected a Treaty, for example, it does not fall to it to consider in what other and new ways the embarrassments and diffi- culties which were the origin of the Treaty can be met. The sense of responsibility is, in fact, incomplete because the Senate does not fully feel the consequences of its acts. In justice, those who say " No " ought to be obliged forthwith to carry out the negative policy ; but the Senate not only says "No," but insists on putting" No " into the mouths of the people who wanted to say "Yes," and then bids them work out the consequences of " No " as best they can. No one is surprised that perplexed statesmen have some- times wondered whether it would not be wise to accredit their Ambassadors to the Senate as well as to the President of the United States for Treaty purposes, for after all they are the body on whom the fate of Treaties depends.
An Englishman cannot be brought face to face with a political anachronism without his asking : "What is the remedy ? " In this case, however, we doubt whether any immediate remedy is within sight. We have, of course, the general assurance that the good sense of the American people will prevent any actual catastrophe arising from the Senate's possession of executivepower with- out executive responsibility ; but beyond this it is really impossible to prophesy. No doubt if the Senate would consent to rules of procedure, and so allow the majority to rule, a good deal would be accomplished ; but something more would still be wanted. It might be possible also to alter the custom of the Constitution so as to allow the Presi- dent to nominate for his Cabinet Members of the Senate possessing the confidence of the majority of that body ; but even if this were done, it would not really help, because the House of Representatives might still be hostile, and its hostility could not be disregarded by a Ministry as can that of our House of Lords. Again, the President has too much independent power to make it possible for him to change his Ministers because they had lost the confidence of the Senate. Plans for "coupling up" the Cabinet and the Senate would fail because the real power does not, as with us, rest in the Commons alone, but is divided between the President and the two Houses. But though it looks as if there were no remedy possible, we feel con- vinced that as time goes on one of two things must happen. Either the powers of the President *ill grow until some- how or other they dominate those of the Senate, or else the Senate will draw to itself the powers of the President, and will control and direct the action of the Executive, and not merely veto it. Time, however, can alone show which will win, the Senate or the Presidency, for it is clear that the present divided control will not last for ever. The histories of all political communities prove that power tends to consolidate and to concentrate, not to spread. We may be wrong, but in the struggle we incline to back the Presi- dency; yet against that view is the fact that in the Anglo- Saxon world the Committee has generally in the end pre- vailed over the individual, though no doubt the Committee has in fact, though informally, been usually run by one man.
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