The time between the House Appropriations Committee's (HAC) creation in 1865 and its wholesale loss of institutional power in 1885 was one of nearly continual debate over the proper way to structure the appropriations process in the House. The debate started slowly, but by the late 1870s its intensity had increased substantially.

As we shall see, the debate was guided by the theoretical dynamics identified in Chapter 1, which informed the structural preferences of members and helped to determine their reform tactics. Of the dynamics identified as key to understanding structural politics, two especially stood out during the period covered in this chapter, giving rise to the most important reform attempts and ultimately shaping the form of the new appropriations process that was in place by 1885. The first key dynamic was the tension between leadership and rank-and-file preferences. With only a couple of important exceptions, the structural debate after 1865 was prompted by the dissatisfaction of the rank-and-file with the status quo; the rank-and-file frequently opposed the formal structures of centralized spending control, which leadership usually defended vigorously. The split between leaders and backbenchers was greatest among Democrats, whose southern members occasionally found themselves in direct conflict with the preferences of northern Democratic Speakers.