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The origin of the senate is to be found in the governor's council of colonial times, just as the House of Lords is descended from the Witenagemot or council of great barons summoned by the Old-English kings. The Americans had been used to having the acts of their popular assemblies reviewed by a council, and so they retained this revisory body as an upper house.
As to many of these minor matters, the function of the Commission might well be made revisory, and the primary responsibility delegated to subordinate officials after the practice long in vogue in the executive departments. Under the impulse of the merchant marine act of 1928 the transfer to private enterprise of the Government-owned steamship lines is going forward with increasing success.
No colony set up a permanent supreme court with full appellate jurisdiction. None probably cared to do this, and none probably thought that it could. The Lords of Trade and Plantations would have rightly thought such a step hardly consistent with the maintenance of their revisory and controlling powers.
Then there was the two-chambered legislature, of which the lower house was the same institution after the Revolution that it had been before. The upper house, or council, was retained, but in a somewhat altered form. The Americans had been used to having the acts of their popular assemblies reviewed by a council, and so they retained this revisory body as an upper house.
However, in England the doctrine of the common law yielded to the later doctrine of the omnipotence of Parliament, while in France the revisory power of the judiciary was terminated by the French Revolution. The United States, however, embodied it in its form of government and thus made the judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, the balance wheel of the Constitution.
Not less simple seemed to be the position of the republicans; they rejected all revision, seeing in that only a general conspiracy against the republic; as they disposed over more than one-fourth of the votes in the National Assembly, and, according to the Constitution, a three-fourths majority was requisite to revise and to call a revisory convention, they needed only to count their own votes to be certain of victory.
Then the judiciary article was taken up, and there was much earnest discussion as to whether the new Constitution should embody the French idea of giving to the judiciary, in conjunction with the Executive, a revisory power over legislation. Three times the convention voted upon this dangerous proposition, and on one occasion it was only defeated by a single vote.
As to many of these minor matters, the function of the Commission might well be made revisory, and the primary responsibility delegated to subordinate officials after the practice long in vogue in the executive departments. Under the impulse of the merchant marine act of 1928 the transfer to private enterprise of the Government-owned steamship lines is going forward with increasing success.
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