Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

When I came to the Senate that body was at the very height of its Constitutional power. It was, I think, a more powerful body than ever before or since. There were no men in it, I suppose, who were equal in reputation or personal authority to either of the great triumvirate—Webster, Clay and Calhoun. If we may trust the traditions that have come down from the time of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, when the Senate sat with closed doors, none of them ever acquired the authority wielded by the profound sagacity of Ellsworth.

But the National authority itself, of which the Senate was a part, was restricted by the narrow construction which prevailed before the Civil War. During the Civil War everything was bowed and bent before the military power. After the war ended the Senate was engaged in a controversy with Andrew Johnson, during which there could be no healthy action either of the executive or the legislative branch of the Government. It was like a pair of shears, from which the rivet was gone.

With the coming in of Grant harmonious relations were established between the two departments. But the Senators were unwilling to part with the prerogatives, which they had helped each other to assert, and which had been wrenched from the feeble hand of Johnson. What was called Senatorial Courtesy required every Senator belonging to the party in the majority to support every other in demanding the right to dictate and control the executive and judicial appointments from their respective States. So every Senator had established a following, like that of the Highland chieftain—"Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on"—devoted, of course, to the party, but devoted more completely and immediately to his political fortunes.

President Grant in the beginning undertook to break down this arrogant claim. He recommended the repeal of the Civil Tenure Act, the establishment of a system of competitive examinations for appointments in the civil service and, under the advice of Attorney-General Hoar, made the nominations to the new Circuit Court without regard to Senatorial dictation. But he very soon abandoned this purpose, and formed a close friendship and alliance with the most earnest opponents of the reform.

While, in my opinion, this claim of the Senators was untenable and of injurious public consequences, it tended to maintain and increase the authority of the Senate. The most eminent Senators—Sumner, Conkling, Sherman, Edmunds, Carpenter, Frelinghuysen, Simon Cameron, Anthony, Logan—would have received as a personal affront a private message from the White House expressing a desire that they should adopt any course in the discharge of their legislative duties that they did not approve. If they visited the White House, it was to give, not to receive advice. Any little company or coterie who had undertaken to arrange public policies with the President and to report to their associates what the President thought would have rapidly come to grief. These leaders were men, almost all of them, of great faults. They were not free from ambition. Some of them were quite capable of revenge, and of using the powers of the Government to further their ambition or revenge. But they maintained the dignity and the authority of the Senatorial office. Each of these stars kept his own orbit and shone in his sphere, within which he tolerated no intrusion from the President, or from anybody else.

The reform of the civil service has doubtless shorn the office of Senator of a good deal of its power. I think President McKinley, doubtless with the best and purest intentions, did still more to curtail the dignity and authority of the office. I dare say the increase in the number of Senators has had also much to do with it. President McKinley, with his great wisdom and tact and his delightful individual quality, succeeded in establishing an influence over the members of the Senate not, I think, equalled from the beginning of the Government, except possibly by Andrew Jackson. And while the strong will of Jackson subjugated Senators, in many cases, as it did other men, yet it roused an antagonism not only in his political opponents, but in many important men of his own party, which would have overthrown him but for his very great popularity with the common people. President McKinley also made one serious mistake, of which indeed he did not set the example. Yet he made what was before but an individual and extraordinary instance, a practice. If that practice continue, it will go far, in my judgment, to destroy the independence and dignity of the Senate. That is, the appointment of members of the Senate to distinguished and lucrative places in the public service, in which they are to receive and obey the command of the Executive, and then come back to their seats to carry out as Senators a policy which they have adopted at the command of another power, without any opportunity of consultation with their associates, or of learning their associates' opinions.

The Constitution provides, Article I., Sec. 6,

"No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such time; and no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office."

It is, I suppose, beyond dispute that the intention of that provision was to protect the members of the Legislative branch of the Government from Executive influence. The legislator was not to be induced to create a civil office, or to increase its emoluments, at the request of the Executive, in the hope that he might be appointed. He was to preserve his independence of Executive influence, and to approach all questions in which he might have to deal with matters which concerned the Executive power, or Executive action, absolutely free from any bias.

This provision comes, with some modification, from the English Constitution. The fear of Executive influence was in that day constantly before the framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it. Roger Sherman, in his correspondence with John Adams, says that he "esteems the provision made for appointment to office to be a matter of very great importance, on which the liberties and safety of the people depend nearly as much as on legislation."