THE ORIGIN OF THE STANDING-COMMITTEE SYSTEM IN AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE BODIES. MR. BRYCE and Mr. Woodrow Wilson have familiarized us all with the knowledge that the transaction of business through standing committees is one of the most important peculiarities of the American legislative system—perhaps, indeed, its most distinctive peculiarity. Both in Congress and in the state legislatures, this is the system of procedure universally followed. It is therefore somewhat surprising that no attempt appears to have hitherto been made toward tracing completely the history of an institution of such obvious importance. Doubtless it is but one more illustration of the apathy with which students of American constitutional history have in former times regarded the history of all parts of our frame of government which have not been embodied in the document called the Constitution of the United States. So far as the writer knows, the history of the American standing committee before 1789 has not been treated at all. Its history after that time we know, a history of gradual development from slight beginnings in the earlier Congresses, more especially in the House of Representatives. It seems to have been assumed that this is all. It is the object of the present paper to demonstrate that, on the contrary, the institution has a history extending far back into the past of the Anglo-American people, and to trace that history, from the procedure of the House of Commons under Queen Elizabeth, through that of the colonial legislative assemblies, down to the time of the Revolution and the assembling of federal congresses. No doubt there are two special reasons why this has not been done before: first, that the system, while it prevailed in earlier days in the House of Commons, long ago became virtually extinct in that body, so that observers in our own time have regarded it as a purely American invention; and second, that it did not prevail in the colonial legislatures of New England, on which account those American historical writers who have been New Englanders -perhaps a majority of all-have overlooked the fact of its existence in times anterior to 1789. The standing-committee system, in its modern form, involves the following particulars: the institution by a legislative body, (1) as a regular practice, of (2) several committees, (3) composed of its own members and (4) continuing in existence throughout the session, each of which (5) has charge of a specific division of the business of the house in such manner that all matters falling within that division are regularly and usually referred to that committee for preparative consideration previously to final action upon them by the house. Germs of such a system in the procedure of the English Parliament may perhaps be discovered in the practice, begun in the reign of Edward I and till as late as 1886 solemnly continued, of appointing at the beginning of the session two groups of triers of petitions, one for England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, the other for Gascony and other lands and islands beyond the sea, whose duty it was to sift petitions, and to report to the law-courts, king and Parliament those which should properly be referred to each.1 But a germ from which the standing committee is more distinctly to be derived is the committee especially appointed to frame a particular statute from a petition or bill. Of such, an instance is found in the records of the House of Commons as far back as 1340.2 From the beginning of the printed journals of the House of Commons (1547), we find instances of the reference of bills to one or two members, and of other special committees, such, for example, as the committee of six appointed in the first year of Queen Mary, "to inquire for Alexander Newell, Burgess of Loo in Cornwall, Prebend of Westminster, if he may be of this House"; committees for conference with the Lords; or that committee consisting of "the Queen's Council with twenty-four of the shires and six of Wales," appointed in 1563 "for order to be taken concern1 Stubbs, Constitutional History, II, 263; III, 452. Anson, I, 309, 310. 2 Stubbs, II, 382; III, 466. ing the subsidy." 1 When Sir Thomas Smith, who died in 1577, wrote his famous treatise of the Commonwealth of England, committees for framing laws were already an essential part of the procedure of Parliament. In describing its organi zation, he says: The Committies are such as either the Lords in the higher House, or Burgesses in the Lower House, doe choose to frame the Lawes upon such Bils as are agreed upon, and afterward to bee ratified by the same Houses. Again, in speaking of the course of business, he says: It chanceth sometime that some part of the Bill is allowed, some other part hath much controversie and doubt made of it; and it is thought if it were amended it would goe forward. Then they choose certaine Committees [i.e., committee-men] of them who have spoken with the Bill and against it, to amend it, and bring it againe so amended as they amongst them shal thinke meet.2 It marks a distinct forward step in the development of the institution when, at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's third Parliament, on April 6, 1571, we find a group of election cases, or a group of bills all relating to the same general subject, referred to a single committee. This Day Mr. Treasurer, Mr. Servients Manwood, Geffrey and Lovelace, Mr. Fleetwood, Mr. Bell and Mr. Mounson are appointed to confer with Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor, about the Return of the Burgesses following; for that the same Towns returned no Burgesses the last Parliament, And to meet To-morrow, at Afternoon, at Three of the Clock, in Mr. Treasurer's Chamber at the Court. — Upon a Motion for Uniformity of Religion, and the Mention of certain Bills drawn for that Purpose the last Parliament, and for Redress of sundry Defections in those Matters, a Committee is, by the House, appointed of these following. . . . On the next day a still further step in development is taken by the appointment of a committee "to meet in the Temple Church on Monday next, at two of the clock in the afternoon," to "consider of those griefs and petitions, which had 1 Commons Journals, October 12, 1553. D'Ewes' Journals, 80. 2 Smith, Commonwealth (ed. 1633), pp. 79, 93. been touched and mentioned in the former dispute," namely, that concerning ecclesiastical affairs.1 Here we for the first time find a committee charged, not with a single bill or set of bills, but with a general subject, with an entire division of the business of the house. In the same session we observe the appointment of what in modern American slang would be termed a "steering committee," certain members being made "Committees for appointing such bills for the common-weal as shall be first proceeded in, and preferred before the residue, but not to reject any."" D'Ewes comments on this as a rare precedent, and one that "may prove worthy of often imitation"; but it seems not to have been followed until, more than a century later, the same idea found expression in the development of the modern cabinet. In the committees mentioned we find the germs of three of the great committees of subsequent times- the committee of privileges and elections, the committee of religion and the committee of grievances. But apparently they did not continue in the exercise of their functions throughout the session,3 nor do we find an equally developed arrangement in operation during the first two sessions of Elizabeth's fourth Parliament. Yet of the increasing importance of committees of some sort we find an evidence in its third session, in the mention of the "committee chamber of this house." 4 At this session (February 24, 1580-81), a committee of elections was appointed, charged with more comprehensive functions than its predecessors; for it was ordered to examine all the election returns of the session and the orders and precedents formerly used in like cases, and to make report to the house accordingly.5 In the next Parliament, that of 1584-85, there is a committee to consider what statutes shall be continued beyond the end of the present session, a committee to consider the petitions and griev ances of the house regarding religion, and a committee on the penal laws.6 1 Commons Journals, I, 83. D'Ewes, 156-158. 6 Commons Journals, I, 129, 135. D'Ewes, 307. 2 D'Ewes, 179. But the main interest, for our subject, of this and the next three Parliaments lies in the development of the standing committee of privileges and elections. It was perhaps natural that this should be the first of the standing committees to attain full development, partly because of the nature of its business, involving many questions too detailed and complicated for discussion in the whole house, partly because of the increasing vigor with which the Commons were in this reign beginning to assert their privileges, among others that of determining all matters relating to their own elections. The committee mentioned as appointed in 1571 was simply a committee of elections. On February 13, 1584-85, the Recorder of London. and two other members were appointed a committee on the State and manner of the serving of Process upon any of the Members of this House from time to time during this Session as occasion thereof shall fall out, and after such information and intelligences thereof then further to impart the same to this House as occasion shall serve for further resolution. A few days later we find this body called the committee of privileges: "Mr. Cromwell was added to the former comittees for priviledges, and touching serving of process upon the members of this house and their servants."1 In the next Parliament, that of 1586 and 1587, " Mr. Recorder of London moved also that a like committee of this House may at this time be appointed, as had been the last Parliament, for the examining and reporting cases of priviledge," which was accordingly done.2 Neither of these two Parliaments seems to have had a committee of elections. That of 1589 had both a committee of privileges and a committee of elections. On February 8, 1588-89, the following entry appears : Upon a motion this day made by Sir Edward Hobby, touching the sundry abuses of returning the Knights and Burgesses into this House this present Session of Parliament, as in some not returned at all, some others returned erroneously, and for some places for which none hath been returned heretofore, and some returned superfluously, 2 Ibid., 393. 1 D'Ewes, 349, 355. |