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The Senate and American Federalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

William H. Riker
William H. Riker
Affiliation:
Lawrence College
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Extract

At Philadelphia in 1787 the authors of the Constitution invented a new kind of federalism. In previous federal governments, the participating states were no more intimate than permanent allies, and citizens retained a primary loyalty to local governments. The federalism of 1787 achieved a converse effect, however, for it subordinated the member governments and created a nation. Likewise, while the earlier federalisms were notoriously prone to muddles in policy and stalemates in action, the American form turned out to give reasonably effective government, even in the short run. For both its nationalism and its effectiveness, therefore, it found favor with constitution makers elsewhere: in the larger Latin American states, in most of the new nations of the British Commonwealth, in the Germany of Weimar and Bonn, even, on paper at least, in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Probably the clearest demonstration of the prestige and utility of the American invention was the revision (in 1848) of the Swiss Confederation into a federalism patterned after the United States. The cantons thereby abandoned the one remaining survivor of the alliance type of federalism, represented in the middle ages by the Swabian, Rhenish, and Lombard leagues, as well as by the Swiss. And so it happens that about half the earth is presently ruled by federal governments—all of them reminiscent in one way or another of the Philadelphia invention.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , June 1955 , pp. 452 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1955

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References

1 The electoral college should probably be interpreted as another peripheralizing institution, inasmuch as its authors probably expected that state legislatures would choose the electors. But it was largely accidental that the electoral college had this peripheralizing form; indeed the framers adopted it only because they thought there were worse disadvantages in all the other forms suggested. Although the state legislatures did usually choose the electors in the early years of the Republic, still the Constitution did not formally invest them with the duty. It merely said: “Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors …” (Art. II, Sec. 1). Hence, because the form was accidental and the wording imprecise, the electoral college was quickly deprived of whatever peripheralizing character may have been intended. Another part of the Constitution that might have turned out to be peripheralizing was the ambivalent provision on state courts in the supremacy clause. But the series of decisions, beginning with Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304 (1816), which deprived state courts of any authoritative role in interpreting national law, eliminated that danger. The Second, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Amendments were also quite clearly intended to peripheralize. They were not, of course, the framers' work and are not, indeed, in harmony with the original Constitution. By reason of the disharmony, perhaps, they (especially the Tenth and Second) have been more effective for peripheralizing than provisions of the original Constitution itself.

2 The Federalist, paper no. 62.

3 Almost the only general discussions are: Haynes, George H., The Senate of the United States: Its History and Practice, 2 vols. (Boston, 1938), Vol. 2, pp. 1024–34Google Scholar; and Dodd, William E., “The Principle of Instructing United States Senators,” South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 1, pp. 326–32 (1902)Google Scholar. The latter is largely theoretical; the former gives a few examples.

4 Colegrove, Kenneth, “New England Town Mandates,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. 12, pp. 411–49 (1920)Google Scholar; Colegrove notes that even in 1851 Fall River broke a senatorial election deadlock by instructing its representative to vote for Charles Sumner (p. 449).

5 Ibid., p. 443; Ambler, Charles Henry, Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics (Richmond, 1913), pp. 163–64Google Scholar.

6 Annals of Congress, Vol. 1, pp. 733–47Google Scholar, 1st Cong., 1st sess. (August 15, 1789). Seventeen state constitutions, mostly in New England and the Midwest, did eventually come to guarantee the right to instruct (Colegrove, p. 443); but, of course, this guarantee meant nothing if the national government refused to recognize it.

7 The Journal of William McClay, ed. McClay, Edgar S. (New York, 1927), pp. 387–89Google Scholar (entry of Feb. 24, 1791); see also p. 188 (entries of Feb. 6 and 7, 1790).

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13 The Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Ford, Worthington C., 12 vols. (New York, 1914 ff.)Google Scholar, Vol. 3, pp. 269–70 (letter to Joseph Anderson, Dec. 15, 1808). Adams also wrote in this vein to Senator Giles of Virginia.

14 Details of the resignations and the arguments for and against instructions are set forth in Anderson, Dice Robbins, William Branch Giles: A Study in the Politics of Virginia and the Nation from 1790 to 1830 (Menasha, Wisconsin, 1914), pp. 166 ff.Google Scholar; The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 1, pp. 273–75Google Scholar; and Hoyt, William Henry, The Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, 2 vols. (Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, Raleigh, 1914), Vol. 2, pp. 1–6Google Scholar.

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18 As the vote on the resolution to expunge indicates, the substitute for recall did sometimes work. Aside from the forced resignations already mentioned (Adams, 1808; Stone, 1814; Giles, 1815; Rives, 1834; Tyler, 1836; Leigh, 1836; Mangum, 1836), these resignations were also forced: Tazewell of Virginia, 1832; King of Georgia, 1837; Foster of Tennessee, 1839; White of Tennessee, 1840; Brown of North Carolina, 1840; Strange of North Carolina, 1840; Preston of South Carolina, 1842; Haywood of North Carolina, 1846. Several other resignations, submitted in similar circumstances, should be classed as “almost forced”: Sprague of Maine, 1835; Porter of Louisiana, 1837; Black of Mississippi, 1838; Rhett of South Carolina, 1852; Berrien of Georgia, 1852; and Everett of Massachusetts, 1854.

19 Congressional Globe, Vol. 3, p. 159 (Feb. 1, 1836)Google Scholar.

20 Hampden, John Pleasants to Tyler, John, Jan. 13, 1836; quoted in The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. 1, pp. 524–25Google Scholar.

21 Jackson to Van Buren, August 12, 1839, Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress; quoted in McCormac, Eugene Irving, James K. Polk: A Political Biography (Berkeley, California, 1922), p. 152Google Scholar. See also pp. 165–69.

22 Hamilton, J. G. DeRoulhac, “Party Politics in North Carolina, 1835–1860,” James Sprunt Historical Publications, Vol. 15, p. 51 (1916)Google Scholar.

23 Congressional Globe, Vol. 7, pp. 110–11 (Jan. 14, 1839)Google Scholar; Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 51–70.

24 The Diary of James K. Polk, ed. Quaife, , 4 vols. (Chicago, 1910), Vol 2, p. 24Google Scholar (entry for July 13, 1846); Vol. 2, p. 49 (entry for July 25, 1846).

25 Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 51–52.

26 Benton's, instructions: Congressional Globe, Vol. 21, p. 98 (Jan. 3, 1850)Google Scholar; Cass', instructions: Congressional Globe, Vol. 20, p. 432 (Feb. 2, 1849)Google Scholar; rescinded, Congressional Globe, Vol. 21, pp. 702–3 (April 11, 1850)Google Scholar; Bell's, instructions: Congressional Globe, Vol. 27, p. 805 (Feb. 23, 1858)Google Scholar. Bell's speech and Andrew Johnson's reply well summarize the arguments for and against instructions.

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28 Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774–1949, H. Doc. 607, 81st Cong., 2nd sess. (1950), p. 952; Nichols, Roy Franklin, Franklin Pierce (Philadelphia, 1931), pp. 106–8Google Scholar.

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30 Quoted from the Nashville, Union, April 1, 1841, in McCormac, , p. 183Google Scholar.

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42 Details of the Oregon system are set forth in The Code of the People's Rule, S. Doc. 603, 61st Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 33 ff. Details on its operation are readily available in Congressional Record, Vol. 45, p. 5827 (May 5, 1910)Google Scholar, in a speech by SenatorBourne, Jonathan, which is reprinted under the title “Popular Government in Oregon,” Outlook, Vol. 96, pp. 321–30 (Oct. 8, 1910)Google Scholar.

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44 Congressional Record, Vol. 46, p. 2244 (Feb. 10, 1911)Google Scholar.

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