You propose to clothe eight committees with the same power, with the same temptation and capacity to abuse it.

You multiply eightfold the very evils of which you complain." James H.Blount of Georgia sought to mitigate the evils of the situation by giving a number of other committees the same privilege as the appropriation committees, but this proposal at once raised a storm, for appropriation committees had leave to report at any time, and to extend the privilege would prevent expeditious handling of appropriation bills.

Mr.Blount's motion was, therefore, voted down without a division.
While in the debate, the pretense of facilitating routine business was ordinarily kept up; occasional intimations of actual ulterior purpose leaked out, as when John B.Storm of Pennsylvania remarked that it was a valuable feature of the rules that they did hamper action and "that the country which is least governed is the best governed, is a maxim in strict accord with the idea of true civil liberty." William McKinley was also of the opinion that barriers were needed "against the wild projects and visionary schemes which will find advocates in this House." Some years later, when the subject was again up for discussion, Thomas B.
Reed went to the heart of the situation when he declared that the rules had been devised not to facilitate action but to obstruct it, for "the whole system of business here for years has been to seek methods of shirking, not of meeting, the questions which the people present for the consideration of their representatives.

Peculiar circumstances have caused this.

For a long time, one section of the country largely dominated the other.