I literally just finished reading John Niven's, "John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union," but I want to read a famous essay about Calhoun by Richard Hoftstader before writing about the book and its subject. One thing that stood out for me, however, from both this book and Robert Remini's biography of Henry Clay is the relative ease with which prominent men like Calhoun and Clay moved in and out of the United States Senate.
Part of that, of course, is something that most of us have either forgotten or didn't know. The framers of the constitution set up the Senate so that Senators were not elected directly by the people, but indirectly by state legislatures. For example, when Abraham Lincoln lost the 1858 Illinois Senate race to Stephen Douglas, it was by a vote of the legislature, not the people of Illinos. With a limited number of people voting and the ability to have an election at any time to fill a vacancy prominent men could be and were elected without much difficulty. Calhoun's final election to the Senate came when an incumbent fulfilled a long time commitment simply to resign when Calhoun was ready to come back to the Senate.
Thinking about this reminded me of something else that we often lose track of today, the importance of an upper chamber. A chamber consisting of those who are only up for election every six years and can take a longer term view of problems and issues. Multiple examples of how such an arrangement has helped the country as well as a solid history of the Senate can be found in Robert Caro's "Master of the Senate. It is over a 1000 pages long, but in many places reads like a novel. I would recommend it to anyone regardless of their feelings about Johnson himself.
I think we saw another example of this recently in the case of the plan to bail out the banking industry. The first version of the plan started in the House and was defeated. In much of what I read the defeat was attributed to representatives unwillingness to vote a huge potential expenditure of tax payer money so close to election day. It was only when the second version of the plan started in the Senate that a modified package was passed. At least two-thirds of the Senators are not up for re-election and could take a longer term view. Regardless of whether the bail out of the banking industry is a good plan or a bad one, it is another example of why it makes sense to have a bicameral legislature. It enables the legislature to take both the short and the long term view.
Part of that, of course, is something that most of us have either forgotten or didn't know. The framers of the constitution set up the Senate so that Senators were not elected directly by the people, but indirectly by state legislatures. For example, when Abraham Lincoln lost the 1858 Illinois Senate race to Stephen Douglas, it was by a vote of the legislature, not the people of Illinos. With a limited number of people voting and the ability to have an election at any time to fill a vacancy prominent men could be and were elected without much difficulty. Calhoun's final election to the Senate came when an incumbent fulfilled a long time commitment simply to resign when Calhoun was ready to come back to the Senate.
Thinking about this reminded me of something else that we often lose track of today, the importance of an upper chamber. A chamber consisting of those who are only up for election every six years and can take a longer term view of problems and issues. Multiple examples of how such an arrangement has helped the country as well as a solid history of the Senate can be found in Robert Caro's "Master of the Senate. It is over a 1000 pages long, but in many places reads like a novel. I would recommend it to anyone regardless of their feelings about Johnson himself.
I think we saw another example of this recently in the case of the plan to bail out the banking industry. The first version of the plan started in the House and was defeated. In much of what I read the defeat was attributed to representatives unwillingness to vote a huge potential expenditure of tax payer money so close to election day. It was only when the second version of the plan started in the Senate that a modified package was passed. At least two-thirds of the Senators are not up for re-election and could take a longer term view. Regardless of whether the bail out of the banking industry is a good plan or a bad one, it is another example of why it makes sense to have a bicameral legislature. It enables the legislature to take both the short and the long term view.
No comments:
Post a Comment