ABSTRACT
The political fall of Congress has been correlated, as is usual in such cases, with a verbal critique proving that the victim amply deserves his unhappy fate. "Advanced opinion", translating the theoretical attacks on Congress into the rhetoric of schoolroom, pulpit and market place, helps to undermine the public confidence without which a political institution cannot flourish in a republican society. During the past generation, in contrast, the criticism of Congress has been generalized, and has often been directed at features of congressional conduct that are essential to its continued functioning in anything like the traditional mode. Some of the most effective essays in the verbal denigration of Congress take the form not of polemics, argument/critique but of historical study and analysis. The architects of the Grand Design of 1787, keenly conscious of the incompetence of Congress under the confederation, expressly vested the primary powers of the new national and federal government in the Congress of the United States.
