Matthew Yglesias has discovered afresh the massively inequitable US Senate. As longtime readers of this blog know, it’s historically been even worse than Yglesias notes: the party in power has rigged the course of admissions to keep itself in power. In 1889-90, Republicans rolled Democrats and got six new territories admitted as new states—not the most populous territories, but the most Republican-leaning territories, at least in five cases: Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.
But, as Heather Cox Richardson points out in a recent email, five out of six wasn’t good enough for the enterprising Republicans of the fifty-first Congress.
The sixth new state, Montana, tended Democratic in territorial elections, and was forecast to do so in its first state elections.1 But in November 1889, a close vote led to a confused result. The Democrats won the governorship, while the Republicans took the other state offices; the state senate was an 8-8 tie. It looked as though the Democrats had won the house by four seats. But a disputed vote in precinct 34 of Silver Bow County allowed the Territorial Secretary (a Harrison appointee) to certify Republican candidates for state legislature while the County Clerk certified Democratic candidates for state legislature.2 The fledgling state ended the year with its legislature split in two between Democrats and Republicans, and in January each side elected its own pair of US Senators.3
In February all four candidates for US Senate from Montana arrived in Washington to plead their case before the Senate’s Committee on Elections. As the NYT had it, the Republican case depended on throwing out Silver Bow’s precinct 34; without that, they were sunk. But the GOP didn’t need to worry; the Committee would seat the Republicans.
The Republican members of it [the Committee] are Messrs. Hoar, Evarts, Frye, Teller, and Spooner. They are all pronounced partisans. They yesterday manifested in words a determination to dispose of the case without much reference to anything except their desires and the desires of the Republican managers from the State of Montana.4
The Committee did as the NYT predicted.
… the proceeding at precinct 34 had no relation whatever to the real will of duly qualified voters, but was fictitious, pretended, and without validity either in form or substance.5
A principal piece of evidence to the Committee was that the voter roll, which was supposed to show who voted and in what order, instead showed the voters of Silver Bow precinct 34 in alphabetical order: “This seems to us conclusive evidence that the whole proceeding was manufactured.”6 The Committee were also concerned at the margin of Democratic victory in Silver Bow no. 34:
It is also singular, and to us incredible, that … the voters of this new community at precinct 34, who must have assembled from various parts of the country, whose names as they appear upon the poll list indicate their descent from various nationalities, should have been divided, in any fair election, between the two political parties, in the proportion of 171 to 3.7
In the event, then, the Committee seated the Republican Senators from Montana, and sent the Democrats home, which helped the Republicans to 51 seats of an 88-seat US Senate.
PS: For Tomasky’s plan to work, you have to get around Article V—“no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
1“The Montana Election”, NYT 9/30/1889, p. 2.
2“The Montana Muddle”, NYT 11/5/1889, p. 1.
3“Montana’s Four Senators”, NYT 2/10/1890, p. 5.
4“Partisanship the Judge”, NYT 2/17/1889, p. 1.
5US Senate, Committee on Privileges and Elections, “In regard to the credentials of Messrs. Sanders, Power, Clark, and Maginnis,” 51st Congress, 1st Session, Senate report 538, serial set 2704, session vol no. 2, p. 9.
6Ibid., p. 10.
7Ibid.
27 comments
June 16, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Bruce Ross
Were things any different when the Constitution was drafted? How did the population skew between Rhode Island and Virgina then compare with California and Wyoming now?
June 16, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Mike
I’ve been reading McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom since Ta-Nehisi Coates mentioned it, and there’s a similarly egregious (relative to population) imbalance in the antebellum years. Care was taken to keep the Senate as balanced as possible between the North and the South to prevent section domination (how nice it must have been to have a majority plus one to be the cut-off for Senate ratification). But the North received all the immigration in those years, and had a vastly larger free population. This was compounded with the South also being overrepresented in the House due to the Three Fifths Compromise.
June 16, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Bruce Ross
Actually, in the 1790 Census, Virginia had (including slaves as a full person) 11 times the population of Rhode Island. The gap is now approaching about 80-1 from smallest to largest, according to the Census.
Nice tool, this Google. It might catch on.
June 16, 2009 at 5:30 pm
jacob
Re the Tomasky plan: Had I my druthers (and needless to say this would require amending the constitution) the senate would be determined by proportional representation, and each party’s list would be required to be geographically balanced. That way you’d avoid domination by the coasts while still having some semblance of fairness. Um, also, everyone would get a pony.
June 16, 2009 at 7:55 pm
horatiox
In 1889-90, Republicans rolled Democrats and got six new territories admitted as new states—not the most populous territories, but the most Republican-leaning territories, at least in five cases: Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.
Typical misleading EotAW historical-moralizing. The yankee Democrats were controlled by Tammany; the southern dems were still mostly Jackson populists, if not klansmen (though admittedly suffering under reconstruction, and the carpetbaggers sorts from the north). The Republicans were the reform party, even out west, for the most part– at least until the time of Coolidge. Not perfect but they were hardly any “more corrupt” than the Tammany rackets. Either way, no proof is offered that the early GOP (and Bull morse sorts of progressives) out-perform the Demos on the EotAW corrupt-o-meter.
June 16, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Daniel
You know, I think Tomasky’s point was that the Senate would be more effective and reflective of the will of the people there was any proportionality involved in the number of senators from each state. Sure that system isn’t perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now.
June 16, 2009 at 8:41 pm
horatiox
The will of the people? The Federalists designed the electoral college and non-proportional representation in hopes of controlling the will of the people, or a possible tyranny of majority situation.
The Silver Bow democrats were mostly from Butte area, one of the few areas in Montana with some union support (and later IWW). Rigged/stuffed ballot boxes a definite possibility (and a typical Tammany crony trick), though it’s possible the montana GOP relied on some jingoism to have the votes rejected.
June 16, 2009 at 11:56 pm
andrew
Surprisingly, Tomasky wasn’t one of the framers.
June 17, 2009 at 5:22 am
silbey
Typical misleading EotAW historical-moralizing
Cool, we have a “typical” behavior. Nice.
June 17, 2009 at 7:38 am
eric
Not only that, it’s apparently a problem that we don’t offer proof for a thesis we don’t assert.
June 17, 2009 at 8:06 am
TF Smith
Plus, no footnotes OR endnotes!
And “historical” being modified by “moralizing” with a hyphen…or is “moralizing” being modified by “historical”…is the charge moralizing about the past, or past moralizing? I am confused.
I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find gambling in Casa-your winnings, sir.
Thank you. Now, what was I saying?
June 17, 2009 at 8:48 am
horatiox
[i] the party in power has rigged the course of admissions to keep itself in power[/i]
A thesis, though not supported by sufficient evidence (the point on Silver Bow seems to suggest that the Committee agreed the Dem. votes from Silver Bow were rigged–). And indeed rather moralistic.
In a real history class, there is no history class, and thus no ideology: just detailed lists (include like Schackapeare & Co on ‘em too), more or less–even online!–which the bright engineering or pre-med student works on when taking time off from integrals or econometrics (and Karl Popper suggested as much in his remarks contra Marx and Hegel). Whoa: just saved Cali peoples a few million in tax-revenues going to anachronistic faculty at state universities. Itz alll goood.
June 17, 2009 at 8:57 am
silbey
In a real history class
You seem to know a lot about the past and nothing about history.
June 17, 2009 at 9:07 am
horatiox
Another unsupported thesis, genius.
I suspect I know da klassix of history as well as you do, Silbey including those soothsayers Hegel, Marx Toynbee, Spengler. Though some of us work, or at least commit crimes, for a living. No ideology, even of the preferred crypto-marxist variety.
For that matter, the Silver box vote issue indicates the positivist’s concerns. It’s written to suggest the GOP good ol boys (blackhats, like) dismissed the votes. But no real proof of that. History itself is not really verifiable, or confirmable, per whatever sort of inductive criteria one decides to use. The beer hall putsch went down, but you don’t have a movie of it, much less some reliable narrative.
June 17, 2009 at 9:23 am
eric
In a real history class, there is no history class
Wow, my mind, it has been blown.
June 17, 2009 at 9:26 am
TF Smith
Parody.
June 17, 2009 at 9:29 am
horatiox
Another patented EotAW evasion (and usual cryptic ad hom. Not going for the Shelby Foote PBS special here, ese ). So, like Silver Bow vote: rigged, or not? You suggest rigged, but have no proof (nor does the bimbo who you quote). It’s merely part of the pop-historian’s liberal narrative (Marx does it on a macro scale. See the hysteria of Brumaire–though at least KM’s entertaining). Black hats done rigged the vote.
June 17, 2009 at 9:36 am
eric
The post doesn’t make a claim whether the Silver Bow vote was rigged or not. The post makes a claim that the GOP rigged the course of admissions — i.e., got states admitted in an order that had nothing to do with population and much to do with their Republicanness. This is pretty clearly established; if you want to know more, you might go read the articles cited at the bottom of the linked post.
We’ve gone, btw, from “typical” to “patented” and “usual”, from someone who’s never commented here before. Interesting.
June 17, 2009 at 10:43 am
silbey
We clearly need a category labeled “usual cryptic ad-hom.” That’s just genius.
June 17, 2009 at 11:41 am
Currence
Could someone explain (or point in the direction of/link to an explanation) what would happen under a hypothetical “domination by the coasts”? Also, what happens when urban politics dominate? (I assume that we needn’t only speculate; presumably there are historical or contemporary examples of coastal and/or urban domination throughout the world that might help.)
June 17, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Vance
Currence, I understood that as a conventional concern — suppose 55% of the population lives on the coasts, and majorities there favor some blue policy such as reproductive rights, while the 45% between the coasts does not. The fact that a majority of the dominant districts support a policy could carry it, even if there wasn’t a majority overall.
June 17, 2009 at 1:23 pm
jazzbumpa
Typical, patented, usual – shall we say, monotonically stereotypical?
With my black-hatted love of cryptic one-stop shopping, I come for the evasive crypto-Marist lack of ideology, and stay for the cryptic ad-hom.
Hysterical historical pop liberal crypto-narrative free with any purchase.
Itz alll crypto-goood.
June 17, 2009 at 8:45 pm
TF Smith
So is “bimbo” a non-crypto-ad-hom-moralizing-historic-yet-always-classy-and-factual-narrative?
Must be a parody…
June 18, 2009 at 11:55 am
stevenattewell
Regarding Article V, couldn’t a hypothetical 28th amendment simply include a clause striking the last clause in Article V? I note, for purposes of historical irony, that the clause immediately before the ban on changing the Senate bars the abolition of the slave trade *by constitutional amendment* prior to 1808.
June 18, 2009 at 2:36 pm
eric
Well, I don’t know, but it certainly seems like the article is trying to sprinkle special amendment-proof fairy dust on the equal representation of states in the Senate.
June 18, 2009 at 9:36 pm
stevenattewell
That’s true, but I don’t know enough constitutional law to know whether how one actually goes about making something unamendable – after all, you can’t rule a constitutional amendment unconstitutional. I guess you could challenge it in court as creating a constitutional conflict, but I seem to recall that generally the most recent version of a law or constitution takes precedent. May be wrong though.
June 18, 2009 at 9:50 pm
andrew
The amendable object meets the unamending force.