When, in 1913, it was decided to amend the Constitution and create a United States Senate that was composed of politicians who were elected directly by the citizenry of each state, rather than the state legislators (as had been the practice prior to that year) – no one could have known how radically the nature of the Senate would be altered by doing this. In this article, historian Everett Kimball pointed out that the founders created the House of Representatives to be the dynamic engine of government – the body that was intended to reflect the popular opinion of the electorate; the Senate was intended to be the conservative body – “the saucer into which the hot tea of the House of Representatives was poured to cool”, as Washington remarked. The 17th Amendment saw to it that the nation is now governed by two bustling houses!
Kimball pointed out that the Amendment solved the problem that resulted in corrupt State Legislators sending corrupt Senators to Washington – but with that same swipe of the pen, the states lost the power in Washington that the Framers of the Constitution intended for them.
