The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-09-12
MOnarchical DemOcracy---Republican
Conservatism.

MOnaTcnlCdl democracy -'-hepUDllcan
Conservatism.
Judge j. NJ. Lowe, in The Forum for
August, shows how a republican gov
eminent may be more conservative than
a monarchy. He says: 1T is curl
GUS political phenomenon that our fed
eral government is, under republican
forms, more conservative and less dem
ocratic in its actual working than the
government of Great Britain. With a
fuller recognition of the theory of pop
ular government in our system, the
federal government is less exposed to
the fluctuations of popular opinion than
that of the mother country. Nor is it
difficult to explain this apparent para
dox. Undoubtedly the authors of the
federal constitution framed that instru-
ment largely upon the model of that of
Great Britain. Thus they provided for
two legislative bodies, with a complete
negative upon each other; and they
gave to the executive a qualified veto
on the action of both houses. They
sought to erect barriers, on the one side
against the dreaded violence of popular
prejudice and passion and on the other
against the apprehended tendency of
executive encroachment upon popular
| liberty. In word, they aimed to es-
tablish in our system the same balance
which they supposed to exist in the
British constitution. But while in En-
gland all barriers have been Frustrated
before the power of the house of COM
mons, the balance of the American
constitution has been fully preserved.
Thus our house of representatives is
not by any means the government of
the United States. Neither the presi-
dent nor the senate habtually bends to
the supposed voice of the people ex-
pressed, how vehemently soever, in the
lower house of congress. The president
does not hesitate to use the veto. The
senate is, to all intents and purposes,
not only coordinate but co-equal
branch of the legislature. We do not
see the senate bowling submissively,
like the house of lords, to the behests
of the popular branch. One reason of
this political phenomenon doubtless is
that the ministers of the crown may, in
obedience to the will of the commons
and with the compelled consent of the
king, change the majority of the upper
house by increasing its membership. 1t
is needless to say that our house of rep
resentatives has no such means-nor,
indeed, any means whatever-of CO.
ercing the senate to compliance with
what it assumes to be the will of the
people. We do not see in this country
the frequent spectacle of the whole
executive administration changing front
in obedience to the fluctuating will of
the people as expressed in the lower
house of congress. On the contrary, we
often find one political party, though
dominant for years in the house of rep
resentatives, completely checked and
thwarted by their adversaries by means
of their control of the senate; and we
not seldom see the president, by the
exercise of the veto power, defeating
the will of both houses, expressed by
large majorities, thus exercising a con-
stitutional prerogative which no king
of England has ventured to use for two
centuries. The reason of this is that
the executive and senate are representa-
tive powers in our system. The pres
ident is elected by the whole people.
He, in one sense, more directly repre-
sents the whole people than the lower
house of congress. The president is
not, like an hereditary king, without
any popular constituency. The whole
people are his constituents. To them
he takes his appeal from the decision
of both houses when he exercises the
veto power. The senate is also rep
resentative body. 1t represents the
states-a great power in our system.
A senator is not, like member of the
house of lords, without constituency.
The people of his state are his constit-
uents, and so long as his state sustains
him he stands firm against the will and
power of the lower house, even though
that body speak the voice of a vast ma
jority of the whole people. So long as
a senator from Massachusetts or Rhode
Island or Delaware or Carolina is in
harmony with his state, it matters little
to him how great majority may be
against him elsewhere. There is another
thing in the very constitution of the
senate that gives that body weight in
our legislative system even greater than
that of the lower house. Senators are
elected by the legislatures of the states
from the whole body of their citizens.
The men thus chosen are generally of
mature age, experience and ability.
They are seldom without great local
influence and support. All this being
universally recognized gives to SEN
ators manifest superiority over the
younger and less experienced members
of the lower house and great weight in
public opinion. A senator is not, like
an English peer, the accident of an
accident an hereditary legislator,
possibly without fitness for his high
duties and therefore often an object of
popular contempt. Moreover, men,
Der of the senate is not placed illog-
ically in representative legislature, as
is born legislator. He is indirectly
chosen by the people of the state to
which he belongs. We often
hear it said that ours is government
of the people, meaning q majority of
the people; but this is far from being
true of our system. We are under a
government Of law, and the majority
are just as much bound and restrained