eeship. But the phrase "the people" is an abstraction
which has no force save as it receives concrete form in appropriate
institutions. It is the essential characteristic of a sound
constitutional system that it supplies such institutions, so as to
put executive authority on its good behavior by steady pressure of
responsibility through full publicity and detailed criticism. This
result, the Senate fails to secure because it keeps trying to invade
executive authority, and to seize the appointing power instead of
seeking to enforce executive responsibility. This point was forcibly
put by "The Nation" when it said: "There is only one way of securing
the presentation to the Senate of all the papers and documents which
influence the President in making either removals or appointments, and
that is a simple way, and one wholly within the reach of the Senators.
They have only to alter their rules, and make executive sessions as
public as legislative sessions, in order to drive the President not only
into making no nominations for which he cannot give creditable reasons,
but into furnishing every creditable reason for the nomination which he
may have in his possession."*

* "The Nation," March 11, 1888.

During the struggle, an effort was made to bring about this very reform,
under the lead of a Republican Senator, Orville H. Platt of Connecticut.
On April 13,1886, he delivered a carefully prepared speech, based upon
much research, in which he showed that the rule of secrecy in executive
sessions could not claim the sanction of the founders of the government.
It is true that the Senate originally sat with closed doors for all
sorts of business, but it discontinued the practice after a few years.
It was not until 1800, six years after the practice of public sessions
had been adopted, that any rule of secrecy was applied to business
transacted in executive sessions. Senator Platt's motion to repeal
this rule met with determined opposition on both sides of the chamber,
coupled with an indisposition to discuss the matter. When it came up for
consideration on the 15th of December, Senator Hoar moved to lay it on
the table, which was done by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-one. Such
prominent Democratic leaders as Gorman of Maryland and Vest of Missouri
voted with Republican leaders like Evarts, Edmunds, Allison, and
Harrison, in favor of Hoar's motion, while Hoar's own colleague, Senator
Dawes, together with such eminent