The American Congress: The Building of Democracy - Hardcover

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9780618179060: The American Congress: The Building of Democracy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618179062 ISBN 13: 9780618179060

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004

Congress is the heart and soul of our democracy, the place where interests are brokered, laws are established, and innovation is turned into concrete action. It is also where some of democracy's greatest virtues clash with its worst vices: idealism and compromise meet corruption and bitter partisanship. The American Congress unveils the rich and varied history of this singular institution.
Julian E. Zelizer has gathered together forty essays by renowned historians to capture the full drama, landmark legislation, and most memorable personalities of Congress. Organized around four major periods of congressional history, from the signing of the Constitution to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, this volume brings a fresh perspective to familiar watershed events: the Civil War, Watergate, the Vietnam War. It also gives a behind-the-scenes look at lesser-known legislation debated on the House and Senate floors, such as westward expansion and war powers control. Here are the stories behind the 1868 vote to impeach President Andrew Johnson; the rise of Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress and a leading advocate for pacifism; and the controversy surrounding James Eastland of Mississippi, who carried civil rights bills in his pockets so they could not come up for a vote. Sidebars further spotlight notables including Huey Long, Sam Rayburn, and Tip O'Neill, bringing the sweeping history of our lawmaking bodies into sharp focus.
If you've ever wondered how Congress worked in the past or what our elected officials do today, this book gives the engaging, often surprising, answers.

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About the Author:

Julian E. Zelizer, Ph.D., is a Professor of History at Boston University. He is author of ON CAPITOL HILL: THE STRUGGLE TO REFORM CONGRESS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, 1948-2000, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State 1945-1975 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), which won the Organization of American Historian's 2000 Ellis Hawley Prize and the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation's 1998 D.B. Hardeman Prize. He is author of dozens of publications, articles, book chapters, and book reviews on American government, esp. Congress, and is a prominent young scholar in the American history world.

Introduction

When the Texan Sam Rayburn served as Speaker of the House of Representatives during the 1940s and 1950s, he met with select Democrats every late afternoon and early evening in what observers called the Board of Education.” The Democrats assembled in a former committee room tucked away under the Speaker’s lobby on the ground floor of the Capitol. Approximately twelve feet square with an elaborately decorated ceiling, the walls were covered with signed photographs of famous politicians, a formal portrait of Rayburn, the flags of Texas and the United States, and a few of Rayburn’s favorite cartoons. Sitting in an oversized chair that stood behind a long desk, the taciturn Rayburn would loosen up as he talked with the Democratic colleagues who made up his inner circle. They ranged in age and ideology from the abrasive and aggressive Georgian Eugene Cox a staunch anti New Deal conservative who nonetheless helped Rayburn as a powerful Democrat on the House Rules Committee to the populist Texan Wright Patman, who was so trusted that he received a personal key to the room. Even though he was physically small and unassuming, Rayburn commanded enormous respect by relying on informal relationships to influence decisions in an era when southern committee chairs dominated the chamber. Lewis Deschler, the House Parliamentarian whose immense knowledge of parliamentary procedure made him an invaluable asset to Rayburn, was a fixture at these gatherings. A few trusted news reporters attended, but only under the strict understanding that conversations were off the record. While drinking bourbon and playing cards on the long leather couch and eight chairs that filled the room, Democrats debated the nation’s biggest issues.
The Board of Education is a landmark in congressional history. Scholars of Congress speak about this room with the same respect shown when presidential experts discuss the Oval Office. It was in this room that a deeply divided Democratic party hashed out difficult compromises on controversial issues ranging from Cold War foreign policy to civil rights for African Americans. This was where Vice President Harry Truman received the call to become president in 1945 when Franklin Roosevelt passed away and where the young Lyndon Johnson strove to ingratiate himself with the Speaker’s drinking circle. In many ways it was like the closed rooms of other congressional eras: a place where senators and representatives could meet and do the hard business of a legislature: discuss, deal, compromise, and finally agree to act on the nation’s problems.
Yet the Board of Education, and the individuals who met there, have generally escaped historical attention. Overshadowed by presidents and social movements, legislators remain ghosts in America’s historical imagination. Tourists visiting Washington, D.C., enter the White House with a strong sense of the history of the presidents who lived there. Many Americans are familiar with the lineage linking George Washington to George W. Bush. Although the Supreme Court is less familiar, a popular narrative centers on the Chief Justices. Unlike the presidency and Supreme Court, however, Congress remains much of a mystery. While many Americans know about a handful of prominent representatives and senators, few have been exposed to a history of the institution as a whole. Most individuals are likely to think of Congress as an amorphous, messy, and chaotic body. At worst, many envision the Congress as depicted in the film Bulworth, in which Warren Beatty plays a senator who once marched for civil rights but who had been morally destroyed by an institution dominated by corrupt individuals and crooked interest groups. Some experts lament that Congress is not what it used to be, but they seem to have little sense of what those times were actually like.
This lack of knowledge is unfortunate. Congress is the heart and soul of our democracy, the arena where politicians and citizens most directly interact over pressing concerns. Frequently, commentators joke that legislation resembles sausage: the taste may be good, but people do not want to see how it was made. The very messiness of congressional decisions, which is often lamented by commentators, reflects the diversity and richness of the nation. As the Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson once argued: Government is like a pump and what it pumps up is just what we are, a fair sample of the intellect, the ethics, and the morals of the people no better, no worse.” In Congress, grand policy proposals are created by politicians responding to the nation’s economic, social, sectional, cultural, and political interests. Its members attempt to placate diverse portions of the population and broker complicated compromises between the myriad of voices to find concrete solutions to the nation’’’’’s most pressing problems. The histories of the House and Senate demonstrate the great virtue of the legislative process is, namely, its ability to create innovative policies through difficult compromise. Yet Congress has also been the source of democracy’s greatest vices, plagued by scandal, insular deliberations, rampant corruption, and bitter partisanship.
The size, messiness, virtues, and vices that make Congress so interesting also create enormous barriers to our understanding the institution. Unlike the presidency, Congress is difficult to conceptualize, with up to 535 members who are constantly rotating in and out. In many respects, moreover, the House and Senate are two distinct institutions, each with its own story. In contrast to the presidency, where the succession of individual leaders creates its own chronological narrative, the structure of Congress makes the crafting of a coherent history challenging.
Furthermore, there are many histories of Congress. For example, there is the internal development of the legislative process (committees, seniority, norms, etc.), as well as the relationship between internal process and external forces. There is also the question of leadership, in its many forms. For example, one study might focus on the history of party leaders in Congress, but another could center on the formidable and independent role played by committee chairs or independent mavericks. As a result, historians have focused on specific legislators and on critical conflicts at different moments in congressional history.
Given all these complications, we believe the best way to understand congressional history is to study the institution in action and what has emerged from that action. Because its job is to make law, the successes and failures of Congress can best be understood by examining seminal moments, when legislators had to make important decisions. Written by thirty-nine of the nation’s leading historians and political scientists, the chapters in The American Congress therefore revolve around events, not individuals, although each chapter also covers a broad range of legislators, procedural issues, and policies that defined Congress at different moments. Thus, the collective nature of Congress, rather than the individual- centered history that is more appropriate for the presidency, is underscored. Seen from this legislative perspective, many of the events with which we are most familiar such as the Constitutional Convention, slavery, or the New Deal look quite different.
Despite the diverse issues and approaches that make up the history of Congress in this volume (and the conflicting interpretations among the authors), several themes recur. One is the changing relationship between the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, which has been a defining tension in American politics. We see how Congress evolved from the time it was the central institution in government to the period when legislators fought for power with an expanded executive branch in the twentieth century, as well as an assertive judiciary that was willing to interfere in legislative business. Another theme, just as significant, will be the importance of the internal structure of the House and Senate to legislative history. In Congress, policy and process have always been intertwined, and changes in the internal structure have been dramatic.
A third theme is the changes in the intermediary institutions the vital organizations such as political parties, civic associations, interest groups, and the mass media through which citizens and politicians have communicated. Since the American Revolution, the nature and power of these organizations have shifted, and the story of Congress has shifted with them.
Another theme is political power. We will show that Congress has not been a solely reactive institution, entering the political fray only after the president, courts, or events have initiated action. Rather, Congress has always played an active role in shaping politics, government policy, and public life.
A fifth theme is that Congress has been an active force. Many historians have downplayed the role of Congress because they see it as a passive institution whose members usually react to the pressure bearing down on them. To understand the prime movers in American political history, historians have looked to the White House, experts, or to social movements. But in fact, although Congress is extraordinarily sensitive to democratic pressure, the members of Congress have also been able to initiate their own policy proposals, develop their own agendas and interests, and form their own distinct institutional identity. Indeed, the search and evolution of this identity have been at the heart of congressional history.
Sixth, many of the essays touch on an ongoing controversy about the nature of representative government everywhere: should legislators simply voice directly the desires of the citizens they represent, or should they decide what policies would be best for the nation and its citizens? This vexing issue, which dates back to at least the sixteenth- and seventeenth- century English debates over the role of Parliament, has been a constant source of controversy that plays out in battles over the institutional structure of Congress and the legislation it passes.
A final question is one of historical framework. How shall we describe the different eras of congressional history? Surely today’s Senate and House are very different from those of the 1790s, and each has gone through a process of evolution. Yet, as most of the essays in this collection reveal, congressional time does not follow the more familiar rhythms of American politics, which center on individual leaders, dominant ideologies and parties, major public policies, or social movements. Making matters more complicated, the elections of legislators are staggered, the institution is composed of two distinct chambers, there is no titular head or unified leadership in a split body with hundreds of members, and Congress handles an enormous number of issues that are often unrelated except for the process through which they travel. So, how to think of the lifetime of Congress?
I believe that historical periods in America’s Congress are best defined by the changing nature of the legislative process itself. The periods of congressional history gain their flavor from the formal and informal rules of the game,” the process and the structures through which all participants operate and all decisions are made. The legislative process of any given congressional era has been much more than a technical backdrop” to the real political action. The way in which the nation’s elected officials have structured Congress to solve problems says a great deal about the character of the nation’s representative democracy.
In this context, it is helpful to think of Congress as an automobile. While drivers of various skills can take the automobile in different directions on various types of roads, the internal machinery of the vehicle plays a crucial role in determining how smooth the drive will be, as well as how far and fast the driver can go. Each particular process, moreover, favors certain types of policies. Each generation of legislators and their leadership become closely identified to the legislative process through which they worked.
There have been four major eras in American congressional history: the formative era (1790s 1820s); the partisan era (1830s 1900s); the committee era (1910s 1960s); and the contemporary era (1970s today). In this book, the procedural framework is meant to be much broader than the relative power of committees and caucuses. It includes the political environment in which legislators governed, such as the structure of the news media, interest groups, social movements, and political parties. In the introductions to the sections of this book, we shall look in detail at the nature of each era. It is important to note that the eras did not begin and end with any type of precision. Rather, each evolved gradually, usually built on top of the previous one, rather than replacing wholesale what came before. As a result, the process that shaped each era contained remnants of what preceded it.
So let us begin our exploration of the American Congress. I hope that once readers have completed this book, Sam Rayburn’s Board of Education won’t seem so foreign and its place in the trajectory of congressional history will seem much more familiar. Given the vast size of the institution and the lengthy amount of time that is covered in this collection, it is of course not a complete history of Congress. Many personalities and events could not be included. Regardless, we believe the breadth of the essays captures many of the major issues that the legislative branch has confronted and the struggles that took place within its halls. We begin this exciting excursion during the writing of the Constitution, when the nation’s Founders struggled over what role the legislative branch should have in the national polity, and we end with recent decades, when a grass-roots conservative movement tried to take advantage of a legislative institution dominated by partisanship and scandal. In the end, we hope to show that, with all of its vices and flaws, Congress has been a critical institution in this nation’s history; it has given life to the meaning of democracy and offered an arena in which to tackle some of our greatest challenges.

Copyright � 2004 by Houghton Mifﬂin Company. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

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