The state mechanism of the United States was defined by the Constitution of 1787 only in the most general terms. Many provisions of the basic law allowed for their ambiguous interpretation, so it was the practice of the American state that played a decisive role in the formation of the national political and legal system. The process of formation of U.S. government bodies was initially significantly influenced by English law, but subsequently the socio-economic and political factors of the young republic’s development predetermined specific forms of evolution of its state-legal institutions.
During the period of imperialism, the committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the internal working bodies of the houses of Congress, were extremely important. They usually act as intermediaries between the legislative and executive branches, and their activities are an inherent feature of the American model of checks and balances. The congressional committee system emerged not by constitutional mandate, but as a result of the long evolution of the structure of the highest representative institution, under the direct influence of the political factors that determined its functioning. The study of the history of the emergence and development of the congressional committee system is important for the study of the formation of the national state mechanism in the USA, helps to understand the place of the highest legislative institution in the modern political system. In the Soviet legal and historical literature so far no special attention has been paid to the history of the working bodies of the American parliament.
From the end of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century the committees of the supreme representative institution went through two periods of their development. From the 1890s to the first quarter of the 19th century the process of committee system emergence lasted, and from the 20s its institutionalization began.
In both houses of Congress, committees were created at a very early stage of national statehood. Their formation is a general pattern of bourgeois parliaments’ activity, caused by the objective necessity of labor division in the supreme legislative body. Parliaments are numerous in their composition, the volume of their work is extremely large, and deputies are not able to solve all the issues at sessions of the chambers, so there is a need for auxiliary bodies. The system of committees, firstly, frees the chambers from considering an excessive number of cases; secondly, provides an opportunity for thorough examination of an issue, creates conditions for both specialization of MPs and involvement of experts from outside; thirdly, the committee system facilitates the work of representative institution, since examination of issues in each of the committees is carried out according to simplified rules.
The Constitution of 1787 consolidated the power of the ruling classes – the bourgeoisie and the planters, establishing their undivided dictatorship, but the question of the distribution of power within the bloc of ruling forces still needed to be resolved. On the one hand, the ruling classes, facing the threat of a possible deepening of the revolution, sought to consolidate political forces, and the interests of strengthening the national state apparatus required this. On the other hand, the heterogeneity of interests among the various factions of the ruling classes and the sharp ideological struggle over the question of the way forward for capitalism in the country gave rise to opposing tendencies and had a considerable influence on the formation of the US central bodies as a whole and of Congress in particular.
Initially, Congress took as its model the activity of the English Parliament, colonial legislative assemblies (Legislatures) and continental congresses. The main instrument of discussion and decision-making in each of its two houses was the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, a body composed of all the deputies of the house, but chaired by a specially elected person, rather than the Speaker in the House of Representatives or the Vice-President in the Senate. In accordance with the perceived norms of the English legislative process, every important proposal that came before Congress was initially debated in detail by a committee of the whole House, and then referred with specific instructions to a temporary committee, a body that was created specifically to deal with a particular issue and dissolved after a report before the House. Then the deputies again discussed the proposals in a committee of the whole chamber, where they made decisions taking into account the position of the provisional committee. And only then, with further additions and amendments, it was submitted to the plenary session of the Senate or the House of Representatives. Such a long procedure revealed its shortcomings from the very beginning. The deputies complained that the extensive use of a committee of the whole chamber was a waste of time, delayed the legislative process, and reduced its efficiency. However, at the first stage of the development of an independent state, when the mechanism of power distribution within the ruling bloc was yet to be worked out, the use of a committee of the whole chamber helped to reveal the interests of the main factions of the bourgeoisie and planters. The collegial consideration of questions made it possible to work out a compromise solution and unite the political forces in Congress: on the one hand, to secure the interests of the majority of the ruling classes and, on the other hand, to give the minority equal rights in the discussion of the most important problems.