Abstract

The Work and Character of Congress

The judgment of the country is that the sins of the U.S. Congress are those of Omission rather than of commission, and that have not had a very bad Congress because people have had as nearly as possible no Congress at all. The merit of the U.S. Congress was in allowing competent hands to do the work, or in throttling the ignorant, self-opinionated legislative tinkers, who generally spoil whatever the competent few in Congress undertake. A codification which runs back to the very beginning of the Government, and analyzes the very worst specimens of statutory law that the whole world contains, and an investigation which entirely upsets the most powerful executive department of the Administration, are certainly unusual achievements for Congress, and of an unusually creditable character.