Congress

The Constitution gives every state two senators regardless of its size, while seats in the House are apportioned among the states according to population. Senators were originally chosen by state legislatures; members of the House have always been elected directly by the people.

Article I, Section 8 gives Congress power “To lay and collect Taxes,” to borrow money, to regulate commerce, “To declare War,” to raise armies and a navy, and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” for carrying out its powers. Every bill must pass both houses and be presented to the president, and Congress can override a veto by two-thirds of each house. The Senate confirms or rejects nominations for federal agencies, judges, and the Supreme Court, and Congress can remove a president from office through impeachment.

Political parties, which the founders had hoped to avoid, quickly organized Congress; within a decade they absorbed state and local factions in the House. Congress debated slavery’s expansion in compromises from 1820 to 1850, led Reconstruction and passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and in the Progressive Era proposed the Seventeenth Amendment for direct election of senators. In the twentieth century it enacted the New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, and the Great Society, and after Vietnam and Watergate it reasserted its oversight of presidential war-making.