While thus successfully encroaching upon the authority of the President, the Senate had also been signally successful in encroaching upon the authority of the House.

The framers of the Constitution anticipated for the House a masterful career like that of the House of Commons, and they feared that the Senate could not protect itself in the discharge of its own functions; so, although the traditional principle that all revenue bills should originate in the House was taken over into the Constitution, it was modified by the proviso that "the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills." This right to propose amendments has been improved by the Senate until the prerogative of the House has been reduced to an empty form.

Any money bill may be made over by amendment in the Senate, and when contests have followed, the Senate has been so successful in imposing its will upon the House that the House has acquired the habit of submission.

Not long before the election of Cleveland, as has been pointed out, this habitual deference of the House had enabled the Senate to originate a voluminous tariff act in the form of an amendment to the Internal Revenue Bill voted by the House.
In addition to these extensions of power through superior address in management, the ascendancy of the Senate was fortified by positive law.
In 1867, when President Johnson fell out with the Republican leaders in Congress, a Tenure of Office Act was passed over his veto, which took away from the President the power of making removals except by permission of the Senate.

In 1869, when Johnson's term had expired, a bill for the unconditional repeal of this law passed the House with only sixteen votes in the negative, but the Senate was able to force a compromise act which perpetuated its authority over removals.* President Grant complained of this act as "being inconsistent with a faithful and efficient administration of the government," but with all his great fame and popularity he was unable to induce the Senate to relinquish the power it had gained.
* The Act of April 5, 1869, required the President, within thirty days after the opening of the sessions, to nominate persons for all vacant offices, whether temporarily filled or not, and in place of all officers who may have been suspended during the recess of the Senate.
This law was now invoked by Republicans as a means of counteracting the result of the election.