By contributing writer Ryan Smith
Article
I, Section 1:
“All
legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of
the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives.”
The Constitution begins with an
overall description of the legislative body of the United States
which is a Congress made up of two distinct bodies: the Senate and
the House of Representatives. Both of these bodies will themselves be
described in greater detail as the Constitution unfolds. The main
purpose of this section is to describe the fact that the Congress
would be a bicameral body (that is made up of two houses).
The
original Congress under the Articles of Confederation had in fact
been a one-house body with each State in the Union being represented
by only one vote. The proposal was to create a body similar to the
parliament in England which was itself a bicameral body. It is
interesting to note that originally not all of the framers were in
favor of a bicameral legislature, though most were. Most of the
opposition came from the state of Pennsylvania. According to James
Madison's Constitutional Convention notes for May 31st
1787: “The 3rd
Resolution 'that the national Legislature ought to consist of two
branches' was agreed to without debate or dissent, except that of
Pennsylvania, given probably from complaisance to Dr. Franklin who
was understood to be partial to a single House of Legislation.”
Part
of the reason for the desire to split Congress into two distinct
bodies was to enable Congress to be entrusted with greater powers.
Under the then current Articles of Confederation, the Congress was an
extremely weak body and was unable to fulfill its duty of maintaining
proper stability throughout the US. However, the people were
concerned about expanding the power of the national government
without creating some kind of check on that power. One of the
proposed solutions was to split Congress in two. That way, if one
house of Congress passed a bad law, there was chance that it might
not pass in the second house, thus creating a buffer. On June 20th
1787, Col. George Mason of Virginia, speaking in favor of two houses
of Congress, articulated the problem and proposed solution this way:
“Is it to be thought that the people of America, so watchful over
their interests; so jealous of their liberties, will give up their
all, will surrender both the sword and the purse to the same body (a
single-house Congress), and that too not chosen immediately by
themselves? They never will. They never ought...The only exceptions
to the establishment of two branches in the Legislature are the State
of Pennsylvania and Congress (that is, the then current Congress) and
the latter the only single one not chosen by the people themselves
(at the time the delegates to Congress were chosen by the individual
state legislatures). What has been the consequence? The people have
been constantly averse to giving that Body further powers.”
George Mason was saying that all of
the states (other than Pennsylvania) already had two-house
legislatures and that all the state legislatures were chosen by the
people of the state. His question was why would the people be willing
to trust a national legislature with more powers when it was a single
house, and they did not even directly choose the delegates to
Congress.
In the Federalist # 62, James Madison
summed up the case for a two-house legislature this way: “It is a
misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree
than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget
their obligations to their constituents and prove unfaithful to their
important trust. In this point of view a senate, as a second branch
of the legislative assembly distinct from and dividing the power with
a first, must be in all cases a salutary check on the government. It
doubles the security to the people by requiring the concurrence of
two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where the
ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient.”
For
more information, please see James Madison's Notes from the
Constitutional Convention for May 31st
and June 20th
as well as The Federalist # 62.
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