Divisions in the Senate do not take place as in the House of Representatives. The ayes and noes are called for in the same way;but if a poll be demanded, the Clerk of the House calls out the names of the different Senators, and makes out lists of the votes according to the separate answers given by the members. The mode is certainly more dignified than that pursued in the other House, where during the ceremony of voting the members look very much like sheep being passed into their pens.
I heard two or three debates in the House of Representatives, and that one especially in which, as I have said before, a chapter was read out of the Book of Joshua. The manner in which the Creator's name and the authority of His Word was banded about the house on that occasion did not strike me favorably. The question originally under debate was the relative power of the civil and military authority. Congress had desired to declare its ascendency over military matters, but the army and the Executive generally had demurred to this,--not with an absolute denial of the rights of Congress, but with those civil and almost silent generalities with which a really existing power so well knows how to treat a nominal power. The ascendant wife seldom tells her husband in so many words that his opinion in the house is to go for nothing; she merely resolves that such shall be the case, and acts accordingly. An observer could not but perceive that in those days Congress was taking upon itself the part, not exactly of an obedient husband, but of a husband vainly attempting to assert his supremacy. "I have got to learn," said one gentleman after another, rising indignantly on the floor, "that the military authority of our generals is above that of this House." And then one gentleman relieved the difficulty of the position by branching off into an eloquent discourse against slavery, and by causing a chapter to be read out of the Book of Joshua.
On that occasion the gentleman's diversion seemed to have the effect of relieving the House altogether from the embarrassment of the original question; but it was becoming manifest, day by day, that Congress was losing its ground, and that the army was becoming indifferent to its thunders: that the army was doing so, and also that ministers were doing so. In the States, the President and his ministers are not in fact subject to any parliamentary responsibility. The President may be impeached, but the member of an opposition does not always wish to have recourse to such an extreme measure as impeachment. The ministers are not in the houses, and cannot therefore personally answer questions. Different large subjects, such as foreign affairs, financial affairs, and army matters, are referred to Standing Committees in both Houses; and these committees have relations with the ministers. But they have no constitutional power over the ministers; nor have they the much more valuable privilege of badgering a minister hither and thither by viva voce questions on every point of his administration. The minister sits safe in his office--safe there for the term of the existing Presidency if he can keep well with the president; and therefore, even under ordinary circumstances, does not care much for the printed or written messages of Congress. But under circumstances so little ordinary as those of 186l-62, while Washington was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, Congress was absolutely impotent. Mr. Seward could snap his fingers at Congress, and he did so. He could not snap his fingers at the army; but then he could go with the army, could keep the army on his side by remaining on the same side with the army; and this as it seemed he resolved to do. It must be understood that Mr. Seward was not Prime Minister. The President of the United States has no Prime Minister--or hitherto has had none. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has usually stood highest in the cabinet, and Mr. Seward, as holding that position, was not inclined to lessen its authority. He was gradually assuming for that position the prerogatives of a Premier, and men were beginning to talk of Mr. Seward's ministry.
It may easily be understood that at such a time the powers of Congress would be undefined, and that ambitious members of Congress would rise and assert on the floor, with that peculiar voice of indignation so common in parliamentary debate, "that they had got to learn," etc. etc. etc. It seemed to me that the lesson which they had yet to learn was then in the process of being taught to them.