The North-Carolina standard., 1842-06-08
CONGRESSIONAL.

CONGRESSIONAL
In Senate, on Friday the 9th May the Appor-
tionment Bill was discussed and various amend
ments proposed, but the bill was not finally acted
on. The Senate went into Executive business
for short time, and then adjourned till Mon
day. -
In the House. on the 9th, resolution to re-
duce the regular army was laid on the table
The House resolved itself into Committee of the
Whole on private bills.
The Senate did not sit on Saturday the 28th.
In the House, on the 2Sth, the Speaker present
ed various communications from the Heads of De
partments, among which were the following
A letter from the Secretary of the Treasury,
Transmitting in obedience to the order ofthe House
of the 18th instant the information required in re-
lation to the payments made to James D. Doty,
out of the appropriation for the erection of public
buildings in the Territory of Wisconsin; which
was referred to the Committee on the Terrific
ries. ....
A letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, in
obedience to the resolution ofthe House of the 23d
February last, transmitting tabular statements
showing the exports and imports of tobacco, to-
gether with the imports into Great Britain, and
estimates of the consumption of tobacco in the Uni
ted States which were ordered to lie on the table,
and 5000 extra copies were ordered to be print
ed
A letter from the Secretary of the Navy, trans
mitting a copy of a letter from the Commissioner
of Pensions of the 18th instant, upon the subject
of navy pensions, to be appended to the answer of
the Navy Department to the resolution of the
House of the 18th ultimo which was ordered to
lie on the table
letter from the Secretary of the Navy trans
hitting, in compliance with resolution of the
House of the 18th ultimo, statement embracing
the names of all navy pensioners under the act OF
I'd March, 1887, together with the aggregate
amount each has received up to the first day of
January last; which was ordered to lie on the
table
In Senate, on Monday, May 3Oth, the Appor-
tionment Bill was taken up, concerning which
the Globe says:
The Senate made today radical change in the
apportionment bill of the House. The House in
creased the ratio of representation from fortyseven
to little upwards of fifty thousand; which, al
though it diminshes the number of Members one
fifth, for the new census, from what it would have
been ifthe old ratio had remained nevertheless ad
ded some sixty-odd members to the House. This
saved the representation ofevery State The vote
of the Senate today reduced the present number of
the House, by about thirty-fve members; raising
the present ratio up to SEVENTY THOUSAND SIX
HUNDRED AND EIGHTY.
proposition cutting down the representative
as will be by the vote not at all party ques
ton 1t seemed to us that both sides were right in
their views, although they differed so much in
their conclusions; each looked at the Representa-
tive body with an eye to different functions.
The unwieldiness ofa large representative body
its tendency to excitement and confusion in
aptitude for deliberate and yet prompt Legislative
action-the danger of its falling into factions and
the conduct of its functions to lead
hot
side which looked to the House with an eye par
ticularly to its Legislative faculties
On the other hand, those who beheld in the
House great political council of the nation-a
body designed to preserve popular institutions,
rather than to enact municipal laws-urged the
importance of having it so constituted as to have
intimate sympathies with the people They in
sisted that the constituency ought not to be so far ex
tended asto render it impossible to know their Rep
resentativethat the Representative body should be
numerous enough to bring together, and under
review in the national councils, all the information
and intellgence-aH the peculiar interests, feel
ings and wishes of the neighboring counties and
towns of every State in the Union that the Rep
resentative body should, in fact be the nation in
miniature. They insisted that in thus bringing
the nation together, an interchange of sentiment,
of ideas, of schemes of policy was brought about,
which vastly increased the volume acknowledge,
and ability of the body representing the
people; and that while it was great school for
the statesmen of the Republic, it disseminated a.
mong the people themselves, by their intercourse
with them as constituents much newly-acquired
information in regard to their own rights and in
terests, and the modes of maintaining them. 1t
was argued with great force, that the concentra-
ton of the powers of this great Confederacy in
the hands of single Chief Magistrate lin Sen
ate of ftytwo members, irresponsible for SIX years
in Supreme Court of nine members upon a
life establishment, without the counterpoise of a
numerous imposing, and powerful popular rep
resentation, would be an abandonment ofthe De
mocratic principle in our National Government,
and end in converting it into an aristocracy:
The value of numerous representative body,
in binding the Union together, by the personal in
terest which each member would have in the pres
ervation of system in which his own personal
distinction, as we'll as interests, nearly
cerned seems not to have been at all impressed on
the Senate in the debate To us it appears mat
ter of great moment considering the House as
political body one outweighfng all the conve-