course also to keep a majority, i.e. to have within reach a number of supporters sufficient to give the ministry a majority on any ministerial division. Without the constant presence and activity of the ministerial whip the wheels of government could not go on for a day, because the ministry would be exposed to the risk of casual defeats which would destroy their credit and might involve their resignation. Similarly the Opposition, and any third or fourth party, find it necessary to have a whip, because it is only thus that they can act as a party, guide their supporters, and bring their full strength to bear on a division. Hence when a new party is formed, its first act, that by which it realizes and proclaims its existence, is to name a whip, to whom its adherents may go for counsel, and who may in turn receive their suggestions as to the proper strategy for the party to adopt.2 So essential are these officers to the discipline of English parliamentary armies that an English politician's first question when he sees Congress is, "Where are the whips?" his next, "How in the world do you get on without them?"

The answer to this question is threefold. Whips are not so necessary at Washington as at Westminster. A sort of substitute for them has been devised. Congress does suffer from the want of them, that is, it suffers from the inadequacy of the substituted device.

A division in Congress has not the importance it has in the House of Commons. There it may throw out the ministry. In Congress it never does more than affirm or negative some particular bill or resolution. Even a division in the Senate which involves the rejection of a treaty or of an appointment to some great office, does not disturb the tenure of the executive. Hence it is not essential to the majority that its full strength

1 That which was at one time the chief function of the ministerial whip, viz. to pay members for the votes they gave in support of the government, has been extinct for about a century. He is still, however, the recognized organ for handling questions of political patronage, and is therefore called the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury. People who want places for their friends, or titles for themselves, still address their requests to him, which he communicates to the prime minister with his opinion as to whether the applicant's party services justify the request. Nowadays this patronage has no great political importance. 2 Even parties formed with a view to particular, and probably transitory issues, such as that of the English Anti-Home-Rule Liberals in the House of Commons at this moment (1888), appoint one or more of their members as whips, because they could not otherwise act with that effect which only habitual concert gives. Each party has its whips in the House of Lords also, but as divisions there have less political significance their functions are less important.

should be always at hand, nor has a minority party any great prize set before it as the result of a successful vote.

Questions, however, arise in which some large party interest is involved. There may be a bill by which the party means to carry out its main views of policy or perhaps to curry favour with the people, or a resolution whereby it hopes to damage a hostile executive. In such cases it is important to bring up every vote. Accordingly a meeting of the party is convened, called a senatorial caucus or congressional (i.e. House) caucus (as the case may be).1 The attitude to be assumed by the party is debated with closed doors, and a vote taken as to the course to be adopted. By this vote every member of the party is deemed bound, just as he would be in England by the request of the leader conveyed through the whip. Disobedience cannot be punished in Congress itself, except of course by social penalties; but it endangers the seat of the too independent member, for the party managers at Washington will communicate with the party managers in his district, and the latter will probably refuse to re-nominate him at the next election. The most important caucus of a Congress is that held at the opening to select the party candidate for the speakership, selection by the majority being of course equivalent to election. As the views and tendencies of the Speaker determine the composition of the committees, and thereby the course of legislation, his selection is a matter of supreme importance, and is preceded by weeks of intrigue and canvassing.

This process of "going into caucus" is the regular American substitute for recognized leadership, and has the advantage of seeming more consistent with democratic equality, because every member of the party has in theory equal weight in the party meeting. It is used whenever a line of policy has to be settled, or the whole party to be rallied for a particular party division. But of course it cannot be employed every day or for every bill. Hence when no party meeting has issued its orders, a member is free to vote as he pleases, or rather as he thinks his constituents please. If he knows nothing of the matter, he may take a

1 At the beginning of a session each party in the Senate and in the House elects a chairman of the party caucus; and it is the duty of this person to convoke a caucus of his party when the need arises. An experienced senator told me that the Senate caucus of his party used to meet on an average twice a month, the House caucus less frequently. General meetings of a party in Parliament are much less common in England.

friend's advice, or vote as he hears some prominent man on his own side vote. Anyhow, his vote is doubtful, unpredictable; and consequently divisions on minor questions are uncertain. This is a further reason, added to the power of the standing committees, why there is a want of consistent policy in the action of Congress. As its leading men have comparatively little authority, and there are no means whereby a leader could keep his party together on ordinary questions, so no definite ideas run through its conduct and express themselves in its votes. It moves in zig-zags.

The freedom thus enjoyed by members on minor questions has the interesting result of preventing dissensions and splits in the parties. There are substances which cohere best when their contact is loose. Fresh fallen snow keeps a smooth surface even on a steep slope, but when by melting and regelation it has become ice, cracks and rifts begin to appear. A loose hung carriage will hold together over a road whose roughness would strain and break a more solid one. Hence serious differences of opinion may exist in a congressional party without breaking its party unity, for nothing more is needed than that a solid front should be presented on the occasions, few in each session, when a momentous division arrives. The appearance of agreement is all the more readily preserved because there is little serious debating, so that the advocates of one view seldom provoke the other section of their party to rise and contradict them; while a member who dissents from the bulk of his party on an important issue is slow to vote against it, because he has little chance of defining and defending his position by an explanatory speech.

The congressional caucus is more or less called into action according to the number and gravity of the party issues that come before Congress. In troublous times it has to be supplemented by something like obedience to regular leaders. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, for instance, led with recognized authority the majority of the House in its struggle with President Andrew Johnson. The Senate is rather more jealous of the equality of all its members. No senator can be said to have any authority beyond that of exceptional talent and experience; and of course a senatorial caucus, since it rarely consists of more than forty persons, is a better working body than a House caucus, which may reach two hundred.1

1 At one time the congressional part which it has now renounced.

caucus played in American history a great From 1800 till 1824 party meetings of

The European reader may be perplexed by the apparent contradictions in what has been said regarding the party organization of Congress. "Is the American House after all," he will ask, "more or less a party body than the British House of Commons? Is the spirit of party more or less strong in Congress than in the American people generally?"

I answer firstly that the House of Representatives is for the purpose of serious party issues fully as much a party body as the House of Commons. A member voting against his party on such an issue is more certain to forfeit his party reputation and his seat than is an English member. This is true of both the Senate and the House. But for the purpose of ordinary questions, of issues not involving party fortunes, a representative is less bound by party ties than an English member, because he has neither leaders to guide him by their speeches nor whips by their private instructions. The apparent gain is that a wider field is left for independent judgment on non-partisan questions. The real loss is that legislation becomes weak and inconsistent. This conclusion is not encouraging to those who expect us to get rid of party in our legislatures. A deliberative assembly is, after all, only a crowd of men; and the more intelligent a crowd is, so much the more numerous are its volitions; so much greater the difficulty of agreement. Like other crowds, a legislature must be led and ruled. Its merit lies not in the independence of its members, but in the reflex action of its opinion upon the leaders, in its willingness to defer to them in minor matters, reserving disobedience for the issues in which some great principle overrides both the obligation of deference to established authority and the respect due to special knowledge.

The above remarks answer the second question also. The spirit of party may seem to be weaker in Congress than in the people at large. But this is only because the questions which the people decide at the polls are always questions of choice between candidates for office. These are definite questions, questions eminently of a party character, because candidates represent in the America of to-day not principles but parties. Whenever a vote upon persons occurs in Congress, Congress

senators and representatives were held which nominated the party candidates for the presidency, who were then accepted by each party as its regular candidates. In 1828 the State legislatures made these nominations, and in 1832 the present system of national conventions (see post, in Vol. II.) was introduced.

gives a strict party vote. Were the people to vote at the polls on matters not explicitly comprised within a party platform, there would be the same uncertainty as Congress displays. The habit of joint action which makes the life of a party is equally intense in every part of the American system. But in England the existence of a Ministry and Opposition in Parliament sweeps within the circle of party action many topics which in America are left outside, and therefore Congress seems, but is not, less permeated than Parliament by party spirit.