States for malversation in their offices. It has also the exclusive right of originating all bills for raising revenue; and this is the only privilege which that house possesses, in its legislative character, which is not equally shared with the other; and even these revenue bills are amendable by the Senate at its discretion: so that, in all business appertaining to legislation, each house is an entire and perfect check upon the other. The proceedings in the House of Representatives are conducted with open doors, except on very special occasions. This publicity affords the people early and authentic information of the progress, reason, and policy of measures pending before Congress, and is, moreover, a powerful stimulus to industry and research, and to the cultivation of talent and eloquence in debate. These advantages, indeed, may be acquired at the expense of much useless discussion and much valuable time, yet the balance of utility is greatly in favour of open deliberation; and it is very certain, from the opposition made to the experiment of the first Senate to sit with closed doors, that such a practice by any legislative body in this country would not be endured.

II. The Senate of the United States consists of two senators from each state, chosen by its Legislature for six years, and each senator has one vote. If a vacancy happen during a recess of the Legislature, the executive power of the state may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, when the vacancy must be filled in the ordinary manner. Each state, therefore, has its equal voice and weight in the Senate of the Union, without regard to disparity of population, wealth, or terri

tory. The number of two senators from each state would, however, have been found inconvenient, if the votes in the Senate had been taken, as in the old Congress, by states. There, if the delegates from a state were divided, its vote was lost, and this, of course, rendered an uneven number preferable. But from the numerical vote taken upon all questions in the Senate, a division of opinion between the senators of a particular state has no influence on the general result.

The election of senators in Congress by the state legislatures has the double advantage of favouring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an essential agency in the formation of the General Government as recognises and preserves their separate and independent existence, and renders them, in their sovereign character, living and active members of the federal body. Whether the choice of senator should be made by the joint or concurrent vote of the two branches of the state legislatures, the Constitution does not direct. Difficulties have hence arisen as to its meaning. The legislatures are not only to elect the members of this branch of the National Congress, but to prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding the election, and Congress is authorized to alter such regulations, except as to the place. The difference between the two modes of election is, that on a joint vote, the members of both branches of the Legislature assemble together for the purpose, and vote numerically ; while a concurrent vote is taken by each house separately, and the decision of one is subject to the approval of the other. The difficulties alluded to have arisen in cases of their disagree

ment; but as the legislatures may prescribe the manner of choosing senators, it has been considered and settled, in the State of New-York and several other states, that the Legislature may direct them to be chosen by the joint vote, or ballot, of both houses, in cases of non-concurrence; and then, of course, the weight of the least numerous branch is dissipated and overcome by the heavier vote of the other. This construction has been found the most convenient, and has been too long settled, by the recognition of senators so elected, to be now disturbed; but were the question an open one, I think it might be maintained that, when the Constitution directed the federal senators to be chosen in each state "by the Legislature thereof," it meant the Legislature in the true technical sense of the term, consisting of two branches, acting in their separate and organized capacities, with the ordinary constitutional negative on each other's proceedings, and not the members of the two houses per capita.

The smaller number and longer duration of the Senate were intended to render it a safeguard against those paroxysms of heat and passion which prevail occasionally in more popular assemblies. The characteristic qualities of the Senate, in the intendment of the Constitution, are wisdom and experience. The legal presumption, therefore, is, that it will entertain more enlarged views of public policy, and feel a higher and juster sense of national character, and a greater regard for stability and permanence in the administration of the government, than a more numerous and changeable body. These qualities, indeed, may be found, too, in the other branch

of the Legislature, but its constitutional structure is not so well calculated to produce them; for as the House of Representatives comes more immediately from the people, and its members hold their seats for a much shorter term, they are presumed to partake, with a quicker sensibility, of the prevailing temper and irritable disposition of the times, and to be in much more danger of adopting measures with precipitancy and changing them with levity, than the more sage and experienced members of the more select and less numerous body. In order, therefore, to counteract these propensities, to maintain a greater confidence in the government, and to ensure its safety at home and its character abroad, it was necessary that another body of men, coming likewise, though mediately, from the people, and equally responsible to them for their conduct, but resting on a more permanent basis, and constituted with stronger inducements to moderation in debate and tenacity of purpose; should be placed as a check upon the natural intemperance of the younger and more popular branch.

The Senate, at its first organization, was divided, in the mode pointed out in the Constitution, into three classes. The rotation intended by that division was originally determined by lot, and the seats of one of the classes became vacant at the expiration of every second year; so that one third of the Senate is regularly chosen every two years. This provision was borrowed from some of the state constitutions, of which that of Virginia gave the first example; and it is admirably well calculated, on the one hand, to infuse into the Senate renewed confidence and

vigour, and, on the other, to retain a large por tion of experienced members, duly initiated into the general principles of national policy, and the forms and course of legislative business.

The Senate has the sole power of trying impeachments. The first recognition of a court for that purpose is in the article of the Constitution we are now examining, which declares that "the House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment," and that "the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." The term is thus introduced as of a known and definite signification; and a well-constituted court for the trials of impeachments was considered by the authors of "The Federalist" as an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained, in a government wholly elective. The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every one engaged in the administration of public affairs, may be readily perceived; as will also the difficulty of placing it rightly in a government in which the most conspicuous persons are the leaders, and too often the instruments of party, and can, therefore, hardly be expected to possess the neutrality requisite in regard to those whose conduct may be submitted to their scrutiny. It would be improper, too, to commit the cognizance of those offences which are the objects of an impeachment to the ordinary courts of justice, as the complexities and variety of political delinquencies are too numerous and artful to be anticipated by positive enactments, and sometimes too subtile and mysterious to be fully detected and exposed, in the limited period of ordinary investigation. A peculiar tri