Sixteenth Amendment

The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution laid out the distribution of powers between the Presidency and Congress, holding the President’s Cabinet accountable to the House, and changing the term of members of the House of Representatives from Two to Four years.

With increasing amounts of confrontation between the Fairbanks administration and much of the House—Including Democrats, progressive Republicans, and the growing number of socialists— over a multitude of matters, including the passage of progressive legislation, like the Comprehensive Trade Act, the pacification of organized labor, expansion of the military, and the President’s supreme authority over it, Congress, the majority of which being a broad coalition under Democratic Minority Leader Woodrow Wilson, endorsed the Congressional Government Amendment with a vote of 254-99 in late 1905. The Act, ratified over the next four years by Democratic and Progressive Republican legislatures alike, was certified as duly ratified and part of the Constitution on July 18, 1909. It was the first of the three Progressive Amendments ratified in the Early 20th century.

Text
Sixteenth Amendment (Ratified July 18th, 1909)

§ One: The executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States; and in the Cabinet of the United States, consisting of the various Secretaries in charge of the executive departments, the First Secretary, and such other officers of the House of Representatives as determined by law. The First Secretary and Secretaries of the Cabinet shall be elected by the House of Representatives without debate on the proposal of the President. The person who receives the majority vote of the House of Representatives shall be appointed by the President. Members of the Cabinet may serve concurrently as members of the House of Representatives.

§ Two: The House of Representatives may express its lack of confidence in the Cabinet only by electing successors by majority vote of the members and requesting the President to dismiss the Cabinet. The President must comply with this request and appoint the successors. If a motion of the First Secretary for a vote of confidence is not supported by a majority of members of the House of Representatives, the President may dissolve the House of Representatives, and order new elections to occur within twenty one days of dissolution.

§ Three: Save the following provisions, the House of Representatives shall be elected for four years. Its term shall end when a new House convenes. New elections shall be held no sooner than forty-six months and no later than forty-eight months after the electoral term begins. If the House be dissolved, new elections shall be held within sixty days. The House of Representatives shall convene no later than thirty days following election.

Background, Proposal, And Ratification.
In 1904, conservative pro-business laissez-faire Republican, Charles Fairbanks, was elected to the United States presidency. An avowed foe of organized labor, Fairbanks vetoed several progressive acts passed by the Congress, criticizing their “ bowing to syndicalist-anarchist intimidation and waging a bloody, unconstitutional class war by despotically depriving men of their property and liberty”, including the Comprehensive Federal Trade Act. Fairbanks, wholly supporting the haut-bourgeois labor wars against unions and unionization, refused to accept any sort of compromise with the relatively pro-labor Congress, accusing even humorists of being “syndicalist-anarchist bombthrowers”. With permission for investigation of Fairbanks’ corruption requested by Congress denied by the President, Congress increasingly began to support Representative Wilson’s Congressional Government Amendment, passed by the House in November 1905. With the Senate passing the act in March 1906, and President Fairbanks’ confrontations with the House, this time on armament spending, continuing to grow, the act gained more traction nationwide.

With the Ratification of the amendment by Seven Southern States in 1906, and the Progressive Republican States, spearheaded by then-Governor LaFollette of Wisconsin, ratifying it by 1907, and further discontent caused by Fairbanks’ violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, as well as his defeat in the 1908 Republican Primaries, the amendment was ratified and made part of the Constitution on July 18th, 1909.

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