State Legislatures and Distrust

This chapter explains the myriad restrictions that state constitutions place on state legislatures—such as single-subject rules, clear-title, and public-purpose clauses—and the kinds of problems that prompted them. The clear-title rule requires the subject of each bill to be expressed plainly in its title. The single-subject requirement ensures that each bill enacted by the legislature contains just one subject. The original-purpose requirement requires a final bill to line up with the stated purpose of the original bill. These limitations grew naturally out of a preoccupation of the Jacksonian era, curbing special interests. The US Constitution does not place comparable restrictions on Congress.

The Jeffersonian Electoral College in the Twenty-First Century

The 2016 election is, at a minimum, problematic from a Jeffersonian perspective, like 1992, and may have been another systemic malfunction, like 2000. Donald Trump received 107 of his 304 electoral votes in states where he won less than 50 percent of the popular vote—failing to achieve the kind of compound majority-of-majorities consistent with the Jeffersonian vision of how the system should work. 2016 illustrates the system’s inability to handle third-party and independent candidates, like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, an inability caused by the addition of plurality winner-take-all in the Jacksonian era. It is unknowable whether Trump or Hillary Clinton would have won runoffs in the three pivotal Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. But if Clinton had won runoffs there (and in the states where she was only a plurality winner), then she would have won the Electoral College with an appropriately Jeffersonian majority-of-majorities.

“The Baneful Influence of this Narrow Construction”

McCulloch v. Maryland and its principles came under attack during the Jacksonian era, and the Supreme Court under John Marshall’s successor, Roger Taney, ignored McCulloch into oblivion and reversed its thrust. The Taney Court prioritized states’ rights over federal power, to protect the constitutional position of slavery. McCulloch and Gibbons v. Ogden had refrained from committing the Court to implied commerce powers, and Gibbons also invited the Taney Court to ignore McCulloch. To the Jacksonian justices of the Taney Court, preservation of slave-state sovereignty—not the power of Congress to act for the benefit of the whole people—was the bedrock principle of the Constitution. Reserved state powers under the Tenth Amendment were sufficient to block implied federal powers. Moreover, states could regulate matters expressly delegated to the United States when conducive to exercising their reserved powers.

Messing, 1834–1840

Chapter 3 explores the “Bachelor’s mess,” a phrase drawn from Buchanan’s correspondence, and notes the many ways in which their shared Washington boardinghouse intersected with the overlapping identities of party, section, and marital status. New messmates (and bachelors) emerged during this period, including the lesser known Democrats Edward Lucas of Virginia, Robert Carter Nicholas of Louisiana, John Pendleton King of Georgia, Bedford Brown of North Carolina, William Sterrett Ramsey of Pennsylvania, and William Henry Roane of Virginia. Their congregation into a single boardinghouse produced one of the most politically powerful such units in Washington during the Jacksonian era. As the congressional Democrats struggled to resist the Whig agenda promoted by Henry Clay, Buchanan and King solidified a political strategy that included the institution of a gag rule to quell discussion of slavery and opposition to the national bank. Finally, the chapter continues earlier themes to suggest how Buchanan’s experience in the bachelor’s mess yielded the twin results of his hardening into a committed northern dough-face and his growing intimacy with King.

A Brief History of Congress: From First Branch to Second Fiddle

This chapter examines the history of the US Congress. It pays particular attention to issues of constituency, congressional organization, and the ways in which Congress and the executive have dealt with their constitutional invitation to struggle. Focusing on political changes outside Congress and institutional changes within Congress, the history of the legislative branch can be divided into six political eras. These are the Federalist and Jeffersonian eras, the Jacksonian era, the Civil War Congress, the Republican era, the “New Deal” and postwar period, and the contemporary period of congressional gridlock and presidential unilateralism. During each of these periods, the chapter highlights examples of congressional successes and achievements, but the overall picture is one of institutional retrocession.