questions of passion or of national existence, such as ran through all he earlier debates, or because our system so obscures and complicates party rule in legislation as to leave nothing very interesting to the public eye dependent upon the discussions of either House or Senate. What that is picturesque, or what that is vital in the esteem of the partisan, is there in these wordy contests about contemplated legislation? How does anybody know that either party’s prospects will be much affected by what is said when Senators are debating, or, for that matter, by what is voted after their longest flights of controversy?
Still, though not much heeded, the debates of the Senate are of great value in scrutinizing and sifting matters which come up from the House. The Senate’s opportunities for open and unrestricted discussion and its simple, comparatively unencumbered forms of procedure, unquestionably enable it to fulfill with very considerable success its high functions as a chamber of revision.
When this has been claimed and admitted, however, it still remains to be considered whether two chambers of equal power strengthen by steadying, or weaken by complicating, a system of representative government like our own. The utility and excellence of a bicameral system has never, I believe, been seriously questioned in
