Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/257

 Some Observations on the Proposition to Elect United States Senators by the People BY JOHN R. Dos Passos OF

HE

Constitution

of

THE

NEW

the United

States provides: — The Senate of the United States shall be com posed of two Senators from each state chosen by the legislature thereof for six years and each Senator shall have one vote.

YORK

BAR

ment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation on the federal govern ment as must secure the authority of the former and may form a convenient link between the two systems.

After an existence of nearly a century and a quarter as part of the organic law,

The debate in the Constitutional Convention upon this clause was thorough. It was necessarily entwined with the debate upon the method of electing the members of the House of Representatives. From the report that exists, it is signiﬁcant that the proposi tion to elect the Senators by the people

was distinctly presented, fully considered and overwhelmingly negatived. One must judge of the painstaking care given to this question not so much from the

debate upon it, as by the character of the men who composed the Convention, and who brought to the work as the re sult of years of study the most varied

and profound knowledge of the origin and

purposes

of

government.

Any

we are confronted with the most serious attempt ever made to change this clause, and place in the hands of the

people, instead of the legislature, the power of electing Senators. A majority of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate through its dis

tinguished and brilliant sub-Chairman, has submitted a report advocating this Amendment to the Constitution. The time has arrived when the question should be taken to heart and studied and disposed of with intelligence and patriotism. in my humble opinion unanswerable arguments have been made against changing the method of electing Senators by many members of that body, notably by Senator Hoar, since deceased, and ex-Senator Edmunds.

suggestion that this clause of the Con stitution did not receive full thought is But they have been forgotten and long therefore foundless. And Hamilton in since interred in that vast mausoleum his many explanatory and defensive of parliamentary literature into whose essays of the Constitution did not feel deep and musty caverns none ever it necessary to say more upon the penetrate except the student who seeks method of electing Senators than the to enforce his statements and principles following (p. 385, Federalist): — by the authority of great names. Un It is equally unnecessary to dilate on the fortunately, many prominent men on appointment of Senators by the state legislatures. both sides of politics have thoughtlessly Among the various modes which might have or hastily given their assent to the propo been devised for constituting this branch of the sition to change the Constitution, and government, that which has been proposed by the convention is probably the most congenial unless it be demonstrated that the sub with public opinion. It is recommended by the stitution of the people for the legislature is fraught with actual danger to our double advantage of favoring a select appoint