To my students of Smith College I owe a debt of gratitude for making it possible for me to develop the method I have used. In particular I wish to express my obligation to Professor G. H. Haynes, Professor E. D. Fite, and Professor E. J. Woodhouse, who have read portions of the manuscript and proof. Acknowledgment is also due to Honorable F. H. Gillett, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who most kindly read and criticized the chapters upon "Congress at Work." But for all statements of opinion and fact I am alone responsible. DECEMBER 1, 1919 EVERETT KIMBALL THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CHAPTER I CONSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND The Constitution of the United States was the work of the convention of 1787. This convention, called for "the sole purpose of revising the Articles of the Confederation," assembled at Philadelphia, and after nearly five months of painstaking labor produced, not a revision of the Articles of Confederation but an entirely new frame of government. Although eighteen amendments have been added to this instrument, its form has been vitally altered but few times. The first ten of these amendments, expressing the wish of a large proportion of the members of the convention and the overwhelming desire of the people, may be considered a portion of the original document. The Twelfth Amendment was adopted to remedy the dangerous defect in the process of the election of the president revealed by the elections of 1800 and, while altering the legal process, did but sanction the methods made necessary by the growth of parties. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were the result of the long struggle over slavery culminating in the Civil War and the consequent readjustments. These amendments, in addition to settling these controversies, vitally alter and change the balance between the federal and state governments as planned by the convention. The Eleventh Amendment, adopted in 1798, and the Sixteenth (1913) were caused by decisions of the Supreme Court which ran counter to popular approval and settled points which were either unconsidered or which were doubtful in the minds of the framers. The Seventeenth (1913) represents the rising strength of democracy, Background of framers Modifications by 1 impatient of the .cheeks.and balances which the men of 1787 thought necessary. The Eighteenth (1919) is an attempt to regulate by national authority matters originally left to the states, The form of the Constitution is thus emphatically the work of the convention of 1787. But nothing could be more false than to assume that the convention created de novo our present system of government. Among the fifty-five delegates who composed that body seven had served as governors of their respective states, twenty-eight had been delegates to the Continental Congress, many had had actual experience in the legislative assemblies of the colonies or states, and all were familiar with the problems of government which faced the nation. It was this practical experience gained in the successful working of the colonial and state constitutions and the bitter experience of the unsuccessful operations of the Confederation, rather than any sudden inspiration, which produced the Constitution. Furthermore, although the framework as designed by the convention has been but seldom altered, the actual working of the (1) legislation Constitution has been and is being greatly changed. Around the (2) judicial interpretation original document there is a mass of constantly changing legislation, adopted to give to the provisions of the instrument that effect desired at the particular moment. Hardly a clause or phrase of the instrument has escaped judicial review, which has almost invariably construed or interpreted them to meet such (3) party prac- needs as have been demanded by the people. The whole farreaching party system, little considered and less understood by the framers, has produced new processes of government and given new meanings to the system established by the framers. Finally, political habit and custom have erected limits and extended functions in a manner unthought of by the originators. tice ⚫(4) political habit Thus, in order to understand the Constitution and the system of government it establishes it is necessary to appreciate the experience at the command of the framers, to examine the legislation of Congress, to study most carefully the judicial interpretation by which the Supreme Court has extended or limited the powers of Congress and the functions and powers of the government. Above all, it is necessary to understand the workings of that vast extra-legal institution, the political party system, which |