THE CONGRESS

Congress, like the state legislatures, consists of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate; this being another instance of “checks and balances.”

The creation of two chambers in the Congress made possible a satisfactory settlement of a dispute in the Constitutional Convention with regard to the basis of representation.  The larger states wanted representation proportional to their population, while the smaller states, insisted upon equal representation for all the states.  It was settled that there should be equal representation in the Senate, and proportional representation in the House of Representatives.  This is one of a series of compromises that had to be made between the two parties in the convention.  In fact, the Constitution is a series of compromises from beginning to end.  Only thirty-nine of the fifty-five delegates in the convention signed the Constitution, and it is probable that no one even of the thirty-nine was wholly pleased with it.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The number of representatives in the first Congress from each state was fixed in the Constitution, and provision made for a census in 1790 and every ten years thereafter, on the basis of which a reapportionment should be made.  At present there are 435 members of the House, one for about every 212,000 of the population.  They are elected by direct vote of the people, one from each of the congressional districts into which each state is divided, and for a term of two years.

THE SENATE

There are two senators from each state.  The Constitution provided that they were to be elected by the state legislatures, another evidence of distrust of the people.  In 1913, the seventeenth amendment to the Constitution was enacted, providing for the election of senators by popular vote, showing the growing spirit of democracy and the distrust of the state legislatures.  Senators are elected for six years, but the term of only one third of them expires at the same time, so that at least two thirds of the Senate have always had at least two years’ experience.  No citizen may become a senator until he is thirty years of age, while one may become a member of the lower house at twenty-five.

EXCLUSIVE POWERS OF EACH HOUSE

The House of Representatives has one important power not possessed by the Senate:  it alone can originate bills for raising revenue.  This is because the representatives were supposed to be more directly representative of the people than the senators.  However, the Senate may amend such bills, and often succeeds in forcing the House to accept such radical amendments as practically to destroy the advantage possessed by the latter in its power to originate the bills.