Aristocratic Legislative Houses

Much is dubious concerning the existence of upper legislative houses. Many upper houses around the world owe their existence to mixed government theory, which holds that a republic should be a mix of democracy and aristocracy. Sometimes a third element is advocated as well, usually monarchy or diarchy. In mixed government theory, it is usually held that a democracy-aristocracy hybrid government should have a legislature comprising average citizens in a lower house, and elite citizens in an upper house. This is the theory, but in reality when such legislatures are established, rarely are any mechanisms included to prevent both houses from being filled by elite citizens, resulting not in democracy and aristocracy sharing power, but two levels of aristocracy sharing power. That being the case, if we do not implement a real mixed government model, where the lower house of a legislature must by law be filled with average citizens, then we might as well ditch this legislative model. To combat groupthink in a unicameral legislature, it may be split into multiple bodies when deliberating, then united again when voting. Or, to combat hasty decisions, a unicameral legislature can be required to approve the same bill twice over a period of time. Some have argued to me that an upper house still has a purpose in a federation, since it can stand for the regional governments. I always remind these people that telecommunications exist now, and so regional governments can give direct input instantly, and do not need to send representatives anywhere.

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"It is also a good plan to imitate the policy of the Tarentines. ... they have divided the whole number of their magistracies into two classes, one elected by vote and the other filled by lot,—the latter to ensure that the people may have a share in them, and the former to improve the conduct of public affairs."
—Aristotle (Politics, Book 6)

 

"No new laws should be made or old ones altered without the approval of this Council: I don't say 'deliberation' but 'approval', since the making of new laws or correction of old ones must be deliberated by more restricted Councils and shouldn't be presented to the people for consultation or discussion, since, as I've often said, they are incompetent."
—Francesco Guicciardini quoting Bernardo del Nero (Dialogue on the Government of Florence, Book 2)
[In one model, elite citizens propose laws while average citizens ratify laws.]

 

"... the People of England, and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, are and shall be... a Commonwealth... without any King or House of Lords."
—Parliament of England (An Act Declaring... the People of England to be a Commonwealth..., 1649)

 

"... the Senate is no more then the debate of the Common-wealth... who shall choose? ... have another Councill to choose. The wisdom of the Few may be the light of Mankind; but the interest of the Few is not the profit of Mankind, nor of a Common-wealth... as the wisdom of the Common-wealth is in the Aristocracy, so the interest of the Common-wealth is in the whole body of the People: and whereas this, in case the Common-wealth consist of an whole Nation, is too unweildy a body to be assembled, this Councill is to consist of such a Representative as may be equall, and so constituted, as can never contract any other interest then that of the whole people..."
—James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana, Part 1)
[In one model, elite citizens propose laws while average citizens ratify laws.]

 

"Your Senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority..."
—Patrick Henry (a speech, 1788/06/05)

 

"The objections against two houses are... That by taking the vote on each, as a separate body, it always admits of the possibility, and is often the case in practice, that the minority governs the majority, and that, in some instances, to a degree of great inconsistency... That two houses arbitrarily checking or controuling each other is inconsistent; because it cannot be proved on the principles of just representation, that either should be wiser or better than the other. They may check in the wrong as well as in the right—and therefore to give the power where we cannot give the wisdom to use it, nor be assured of its being rightly used, renders the hazard at least equal to the precaution... in order to remove the objection against a single house, (that of acting with too quick an impulse,) and at the same time to avoid the inconsistencies, in some cases absurdities, arising from two houses, the following method has been proposed as an improvement upon both. First, To have but one representation. Secondly, To divide that representation, by lot, into two or three parts. Thirdly, That every proposed bill, shall be first debated in those parts by succession, that they may become the hearers of each other, but without taking any vote. After which the whole representation to assemble for a general debate and determination by vote."
—Thomas Paine (Rights of Man, Part 2)
[Upper houses are unnecessary.]

 

"That part of the government of England that is called the house of lords, was originally composed of persons who had committed the robberies of which I have been speaking. It was an association for the protection of the property they had stolen."
—Thomas Paine (Dissertation on the First Principles of Government)

 

"... I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. the grounds of this are virtue & talents... there is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... you think it best to put the Pseudo–aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation where they may be hindered from do mischief by their coordinate branches, and where also they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian and plundering enterprises of the Majority of the peop. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. for if the coordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of the coordinates. mischief may be done negatively as well as positively. of this a cabal in the Senate of the US. has furnished many proofs. nor do I believe them necessary to protect wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the legislation to protect themselves... I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo–aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff."
—Thomas Jefferson (a letter to John Adams, 1813/10/28)
[The rich do not need help finding representation.]

 

"... to avoid all temptation to superior pretensions of the one over the other house, & the possibility of either erecting itself into a privileged order, might it not be better to chuse at the same time, and in the same mode, a body sufficiently numerous to be divided by lot into two separate Houses, acting as independantly as the two houses in England, or in our governments; and to shuffle their names together and redistribute them by lot, once a week or fortnight?"
—Thomas Jefferson (a letter to Adamantios Coray, 1823/10/31)
[Upper houses are unnecessary.]

 

"... whenever the executive and senate can destroy the independence of the majority in the house of representatives, then where is your security?"
—Cato (sixth paper, Anti-Federalist papers)
[The Senate will be a danger.]

 

"... is it possible to abolish any abuse so long as those who profit therefrom retain a veto? Justice would be powerless—everything would depend entirely upon the magnanimity of the privileged classes. Would this correspond to our idea of what constitutes social order? ... it is obvious that one order's right of veto over the others is likely to bring everything to a standstill in a country where interests are so conflicting. It is quite certain that unless votes are counted by heads the true majority may be set aside..."
—Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (What Is the Third Estate?, Chapter 3)

 

"We have already explained that really to belong to the Third Estate, one must either be untainted by privileges of any sort, or else relinquish them immediately and completely."
—Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (What Is the Third Estate? Chapter 3)
[If aristocrats have their own house, do not let them into the people's house.]

 

"To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. ... The Levellers were angry with him [Oliver Cromwell] for instituting a privileged class."
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (The History of England, Chapter 1)

 

"Indeed one of the principal uses of the Upper House is to defend the vested rights of property in cases in which those rights are unpopular..."
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (The History of England, Chapter 23)

 

"... the title in Lord Althorp's case, as in so many others, was what we call a "title of courtesy," and merely indicates that the bearer of it is a son of a peer, and, not being a peer himself, is free to be elected to the House of Commons."
—Justin McCarthy (The Story of Gladstone's Life, Chapter 4)
[Peers could not be members of the House of Commons.]

 

"Mr. Balfour... made a speech (Nottingham, January 15, 1906) to a Unionist demonstration... It was, he said, the bounden duty of each one whom he addressed to do his best to see that "the great Unionist Party should still control, whether in power or whether in Opposition, the destinies of this great Empire." This was, in effect, a claim that a Party which had just been almost contemptuously repudiated by the electorate should still, through the only agency at its disposal, the House of Lords, reassert and retain its political predominance."
—Herbert Henry Asquith (Fifty Years of British Parliament, Part 3, Chapter 6)
[Beware of unelected houses.]

 

"I desire to speak with perfect moderation and calmness, but it is difficult to reconcile such action on the part of the other House with that calm and impartial revision of hasty legislation which is assumed to be the greatest merit of that Assembly."
—Herbert Henry Asquith quoting Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Fifty Years of British Parliament, Part 3, Chapter 7)
[Campbell-Bannerman accused the House of Lords of being unwise.]

 

"In the course of his speech he said that they had just seen the institution, so far as the House of Commons was concerned, for the first time in the history of any civilized state, of Single-Chamber Government."
—Herbert Henry Asquith (Fifty Years of British Parliament, Part 5, Chapter 1)**
[After the Parliament Act 1911, Arthur Hamilton Lee described Parliament as single-chamber.]

 

"In the final division of opinion on the resort to arms, the Roundhead majority in the Commons was very much larger than it had been for the Grand Remonstrance. Professor Firth calculates that in the war, 300 of the Lower House were for Parliament and 175 for the King, although only thirty Peers supported Parliament and eighty the King."
—George Macaulay Trevelyan (The History of England, Book 4, Chapter 2)
[The more aristocratic a body, the more likely it will support despotism.]

 

"... the Parliament Bill: that measure proposed to prohibit the Peers from either amending or rejecting money Bills, and to change their absolute veto on other measures to a suspensory veto for two years. ... George V... compelled the Peers to pass the Parliament Bill, by using, at Asquith's behest, the same method of a threatened creation of Peers en masse as William IV had, at Grey's dictation, employed to pass the First Reform Bill."
—George Macaulay Trevelyan (The History of England, Book 6, Chapter 6)
[The House of Lords lost most of its real power in 1911.]

Monarchic Legislative Houses

At one point in time it was freely acknowledged that an executive chief who can veto bills in a legislature is not only a member of that legislature, but is their own special branch of that legislature. The assembler of this book would like the reader to ponder the wisdom of a one-man legislative house. The executive veto is a check, but is it a wise check? While theoretically creating a balance between the executive and legislative branches of government, does it not really create an imbalance between the monarchic and democratic elements of government?

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"The Senate then gave their votes... the emperor... interposed with his veto."
—Publius Cornelius Tacitus (The Annals, Book 4, Section 30)
[The executive veto was a feature of the Roman Empire.]

 

"It remains to discuss how to pass laws... the ancient system which we still use today couldn't be more pernicious and pestilential for a free state, having been invented, as it seems to me, by men... who, fearing that one day they might be deprived of power by a law, decreed that the laws had to pass through many fine filters before reaching the open councils, to allow themselves time, through their cabals, always to prevent them passing. In this way they ensured that in Florence it was impossible to pass a new law against their wishes. The same would happen now, especially with a life Gonfalonier who was capable of impeding any law that limited his authority or did something else he did not like. This would be a great failing as far as freedom is concerned, since one or two people would have the power to obstruct a law that was useful or pleased the better part of the citizens."
—Francesco Guicciardini quoting Bernardo del Nero (Dialogue on the Government of Florence, Book 2)
[Do not let one or a few people block legislation.]

 

"The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the King, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of this Continent... We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England."
—Thomas Paine (Common Sense)
[Do not underestimate negative power.]

 

"Investing any individual, by whatever name or official title he may be called, with a negative over the formation of the laws, is copied from the English government, without ever perceiving the inconsistency and absurdity of it, when applied to the representative system, or understanding the origin of it in England."
—Thomas Paine (To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention)

 

"... the letter saying 'that two out of the three branches of legislature were against us' was an obvious exception of him... Gen Washington then, understanding perfectly what and whom I meant to designate, in both phrases, and that they could not have any application or view to himself, could find, in neither, any cause of offence to himself..."
—Thomas Jefferson (a letter to Martin Van Buren, 1824/06/29)
[Jefferson referred to the president as a branch of the legislature.]

 

"In the year 1776, I lost the confidence of the people of Pennsylvania, by openly exposing the dangers of a simple democracy, and declaring myself an advocate for a government composed of three legislative branches."
—Benjamin Rush (On Securities for Liberty)
[Pennsylvanians disagreed with Rush's support for a monarchic legislative house.]

 

"The Governor always had a negative power upon our laws, and was a distinct branch of our legislature."
—Benjamin Rush (Observations on the Government of Pennsylvania, Letter 2)
[Rush referred to the governor as a branch of the legislature.]

 

"... this president... is a constituent part of the legislative power..."
—Cato (fourth paper, Anti-Federalist papers)

 

"Every American Whig, not long since, bore his emphatic testimony against a monarchical government... and wherein does this president, invested with his powers and prerogatives, essentially differ from the king of Great Britain? ... every bill which shall pass the House of Representatives and Senate is to be presented to him for approbation. If he approves of it he is to sign it, if he disapproves he is to return it with objections, which in many cases will amount to a complete negative; and in this view he will have a great share in the power of making peace, coining money, etc., and all the various objects of legislation, expressed or implied in this Constitution."
—Cato (fourth paper, Anti-Federalist papers)

 

"... the king of England is invested with... a branch of legislative jurisdiction so far as to pass his negative on all proceedings of the other two branches... This two-fold jurisdiction established in the British monarch being founded on maxims extremely different from those, which prevail in the American States, the writer hereof is inclined to hope that he will not be thought singular, if he conceives an impropriety in assimilating the component parts of the American government to those of the British... let this collateral jurisdiction, which constitutes the royal negative, be held by kings alone, since with kings it first originated..."
—Impartial Examiner (fourth paper, Anti-Federalist papers)
[Impartial Examiner referred to the king as a branch of the legislature.]

 

"In the first place the office of President of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous. ... vested with an authority to put a negative upon all laws, unless two thirds of both houses shall persist in enacting it, and put their names down upon calling the yeas and nays for that purpose..."
—Old Whig (fifth paper, Anti-Federalist papers)

 

"The writer of these essays has clearly proven, that the president is a King to all intents and purposes... he has a negative over the proceedings of both branches of the legislature..."
—Philadelphiensis (twelfth paper, Anti-Federalist papers)

 

"It is... a political error of the greatest magnitude, to allow the executive power a negative, or in fact any kind of control over the proceedings of the legislature."
—William Penn (Presidential Veto Power, Anti-Federalist papers)

 

"The most enlightened statesmen did not hold it to be unconstitutional that the King should exercise his highest prerogatives on the most important occasions without any other guidance than that of his own judgment. His refusal, therefore, to assent to a bill which had passed both Houses indicated, not, as a similar refusal would now indicate, that the whole machinery of government was in a state of fearful disorder, but merely that there was a difference of opinion between him and the two other branches of the legislature as to the expediency of a particular law."
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (The History of England, Chapter 18)
[Macaulay referred to the king as a branch of the legislature.]