years, free resident citizens of the state in which they vote, and have paid taxes. In some of the states they are required to possess property of a certain description or amount, and in others to be white as well as free citizens. These different qualifications are, in some instances, differently combined, or restricted and modified; and, in most others, are so large as to include all persons who are of competent discretion, and interested in the welfare of the government, liable to perform any of its duties, or bear any of its burdens: so that the House of Representatives may be said very fairly to represent the whole body of the people.

Several of the state constitutions have prescribed the same, if not higher, qualifications in the elected than in the electors, and some of them require a religious test. But the Constitution of the United States requires no evidence of property in the representative, nor any declaration of his religious belief. He is merely required to be a citizen of competent age, and free from undue bias or dependance, by not holding any office of trust or profit under the United States. The term for which he is elected to serve is not so short as to prevent his obtaining a comprehensive acquaintance with his duties, nor so long as to tempt him to forget his dependance on the approbation of his constituents. Frequent elections, moreover, have a tendency to diminish the importance of the office, and to render the people indifferent to the exercise of their right; while, on the other hand, long intervals between the elections are apt to produce too great excitement, and, consequently, to render the periods of their return a season of too se.

vere competition and conflict for the public tranquillity. The Constitution has certainly not deviated in this respect to the latter extreme, in the establishment of biennial elections. Considering the situation and extent of the country, the medium adopted combines as many advantages, and avoids as many inconveniences, as any other term which might have been adopted.

sons.

The representatives are directed to be apportioned among the states according to numbers, which are determined in each state by adding to the whole number of free persons, exclusive of Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other perThis rule of apportionment is obnoxious to the objection that three fifths of the slaves in those states where slavery still exists are computed in settling the representation. But the provision which thus permits them to swell the population, and thereby increase the political weight and influence of the states in which their masters reside, was the result of necessary compromise; and the same rule that apportions the representatives extends to direct taxes: so that while their slaves give to the states in question an increased number of representatives in Congress, they contribute also, when that mode of taxation is resorted to, to increase the measure of their contributions. The mischief, however, remains, that their preponderance in the public councils, obtained by these very means, has hitherto prevented the imposition of direct taxes, except during a part of the short periods in which this country has been engaged in war.

The Constitution directed an actual enumeration of the people to be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress it cre

ated, and provides one to be taken, in virtue of acts passed for that purpose, within every subsequent period of ten years. The number of representatives cannot exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state is entitled to at least one representative. Upon the return of the census, it was conceived by Congress that, without invading the Constitution, the principle of apportionment might with advantage be so modified as to prevent the loss in the number of representatives, arising from the fractional parts produced by the application of the ratio of representation, to the representative population of the respective states. The aggregate numbers of the population of the United States, as ascertained by that census, was accordingly divided by the ratio adopted in the bill, which was thirty thousand, and the operation was found to produce the quotient of one hundred and twenty; whereupon that number of representatives was apportioned among the several states, until as many representatives as it would give were assigned to each state respectively; and then the residuary or surplus number was distributed among the states having the highest fractional numbers, until the whole number of one hundred and twenty was exhausted. After much debate and strong opposition, this bill passed both houses of Congress; but the correct and independent mind of President Washington could not reconcile its provisions with the Constitution, and he returned the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it had originated, with this objection, "that the Constitution had provided that the number of representatives should not exceed one for every thirty thousand, which ratio was to be applied to the respective

numbers of the states; whereas the bill allotted to several of the states more than one representative for every thirty thousand of its population." As there was not a constitutional majority to pass the bill notwithstanding the objection, it was subsequently rejected, and a new one immediately brought in and passed, adopting the ratio of thirty-three thousand, and applying it to the numbers of the states respectively, without providing for the representation of the fractional parts. This course has been pursued on every subsequent occasion; although, on the return of the fifth census, a proposal for the representation of the fractional parts, similar in principle to the former, was made and adopted in the Senate, but rejected in the House of Representatives. In this case, indeed, the ratio adopted exceeded thirty thousand, and was fixed by the amendment of the Senate at forty-seven thousand seven hundred; but this ratio, as before, was applied to the aggregate number of the whole representative population, in order to obtain the number of representatives, who were then, in like manner, apportioned among the several states, and the residuary members distributed among those having the highest fractional numbers exceeding twenty-five thousand. In this respect, therefore, the amendment in question was liable to the objection of assigning a representative to a less number than thirty thousand. But had it even assigned the surplus to the states having fractions equal to or exceeding that number, it would still have contravened the provision of the Constitution which directs the ratio to be applied to the representative numbers of the several states, without in any man

ner noticing the fractional parts resulting from the apportionment, or contemplating any other computation than the one expressly directed.

To guard against a refractory disposition, should it ever appear in any of the sister states, in the neglect or refusal to exercise the right vested in them by the Constitution, of prescribing the time, places, and manner of holding elections of representatives, Congress is empowered, at any time, to make or alter such regulations; and this power was, for the first time, partially exercised by the present Congress. The act referred to directs the state legislatures to divide their respective states into as many districts, for the election of their representatives in Congress, as there are representatives to be elected in each; and requiring that each district shall consist of contiguous territory, and contain an equal number of persons, as nearly as may be, without dividing counties, or other similar subdivisions. Several of those states in which the principles of anti-federalism and nullification prevail, demurred in carrying this regulation into effect, and at last yielded only a reluctant consent; and the State of Missouri still holds out against a provision, of which the expediency is as undoubted elsewhere as its constitutionality. By the act apportioning the representatives among the several states according to the last census, the ratio of seventy-four thousand for a representative was adopted, which gives a total rumber of two hundred and twenty-three members in the next House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives possesses the sole power of impeachment, or of presenting accusations against public officers of the United