Viewed as an ideal polity, the scheme has attractive features. In
practice, however, it is attended with great disadvantages.
Although the system was originally introduced with the idea that
it would give the House of Representatives control over
legislative business, the actual result has been to reduce this
body to an impotence unparalleled among national representative
assemblies in countries having constitutional government. In a
speech delivered on December 10, 1885, William M. Springer of
Illinois complained: "We find ourselves bound hand and foot, the
majority delivering themselves over to the power of the minority
that might oppose any particular measures, so that nothing could
be done in the way of legislation except by unanimous consent or
by a two-thirds vote." As an instance of legislative paralysis,
he related that "during the last Congress a very important bill,
that providing for the presidential succession... was reported
from a committee of which I had the honor to be a member, and was
placed on the calendar of the House on the 21st day of April,
1884; and that bill, which was favored by nearly the entire
House, was permitted to die on the calendar because there never
was a moment, when under the rules as they then existed, the bill
could be reached and passed by the House." During the whole of
that session of Congress, the regular calendar was never reached.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91