HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, the branch of most State legislatures, and of Congress, which has the more numerous mem bers, elected from smaller districts, and in some cases for shorter terms. Congress — according to the first article of the Constitution —con sists of a Senate and House of Representa tives. The House represents population; the Senate represents the States. Both represent constituencies and the public equally, and both are not only theoretically but practically equal. The Senate's power of confirming appointments and treaties is fully balanced by the House's power of impeachment, or originating revenue bills, and electing a President if the electors fail of a choice. Nor are the members of either as individuals presumptively superior in power to those of the other. The actual superiority of the Senate is due to the longer terms, which give the older members a parliamentary ex perience before which the mass of raw mem bers of the House bow; to the seats being the subject of eager competition among the ablest politicians, so that the average public position is higher; and to the lesser membership and smaller number of new bills, which enable it to preserve more independence of the chairman's prerogative than the House. Still, a certain glamour always surrounds the latter as the branch"; partly due to the fact that, owing to its great number and short terms, popular movements are more quickly trans formed into legislative action than in the Sen ate. In this respect alone the idea is correct;
a party entrenched in the Senate has often boasted that no matter what the majority of the people wished it could not be dislodged for at least eight years, or the time of two presidential elections, in which anything might happen.
In its formation, the model in the State legislatures was simply to follow the old colo nial form of council and assembly —the polit ical theory of "checks and balances" being more potent, however, in defining the distribu tion of powers than in creating the forms of the houses. The actual form of Congress was a compromise, without which the Union could not have been formed. The large States were averse to being outweighed by the small, and wished for a two-chambered body, with repre sentation in each proportionate to population; the small ones were determined on a single chambered one, with each State having one vote. The present arrangement was the gig Festion of the Connecticut members; a final limn of the compromise was that the senators should vote individually and not by States, so that a State should only have its power on con dition of keeping its members in place. For the general functions of the House, and its rela tions present and prospective to the Senate, see