The duration of the sessions of Congress depends,

1st. On the Constitutional limitation, which can not extend be yond the period of two years.

2d. On the pleasure of the two houses, subject to the foregoing restriction.

3d. On the pleasure of the President of the United States when the two houses can not agree on the time of adjournment.

§ 2. - ON MEMBERS.

1st. If a member of Congress were permitted to assist in creat ing an office, and then to resign his seat for the purpose of obtain ing that office on being nominated to it by the President, it would throw wide open the doors to executive corruption. Numerous lucrative offices might thus be created by legislation, with the understanding, express or implied, between the legislators and the Executive, that the offices so created should be distributed among those who were instrumental in creating them.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee might propose to the house of which he was a member the creation of a United-States judgeship in California, with a salary of ten thousand dollars a year; and, through his official influence, the bill might pass both houses of Congress. By pre-arrangement with the Executive, that office might be secured to the very man who had been the chief means of creating it, were he at liberty to resign his seat and take it.

2d. Also, by a system of "bargaining and selling," the salaries of certain offices might be greatly increased by mercenary legisla tion; and then those salaries might be bestowed on the very men who had been active in augmenting them, but for the restriction under consideration.

We can not too much admire the wisdom, purity, and sagacity of the great and good men who formed the Constitution, in their efforts to withdraw as far as possible from the framework of our government all motives to selfish and dishonest legislation.

ART. VIII.-Official oath.

Senators and representatives shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of the United States 81.

President, and also to the foreign government with whom negotiations are pending.

§ 10. The President must submit the nominations of certain classes of officers to the Senate for their advice and consent. The Senate may confirm or reject a nomination made by the President; though it is usual, in deference to the Executive, to confirm, unless there is a palpable unfitness in the nomination. The Senate's advice

and consent are to be asked, on the nomination, by the President, of ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution, and which shall be established by law.

§ 11. It will be seen, by reference to the powers of Congress, that the appointment of such inferior officers as they shall think proper may be vested in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

§ 12. On the subject of appointments, especially of the judges of the Supreme Court, members of the Constitutional Convention were divided in opinion.

One class of opinions was in favor of giving the appointments to the Executive alone.

A second preferred that they should be vested in the Senate alone.

A third proposed that the nomination should be made by the Senate, allowing the President a negative, but giving the Senate the power to overrule his negative by a two-third majority.

A fourth was (and this prevailed), to give the nomination to the President, and the power of confirmation or rejection by a majority to the Senate; and ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, were included with the judges of the Supreme Court.

3.- ELECTIVE.

§ 13. The Senate has the power to elect its officers, except the president thereof, who holds this position by virtue of his being VicePresident of the United States. They are required by the Constitution to choose a president pro tempore also. Deliberative bodies,

with few exceptions, elect their own officers; and this is necessary to their independence. Here is one of the exceptions to the general rule, however, that the Vice-President is, ex officio, President of the Senate.

§ 14. Besides the president pro tempore, the Senate officers are a secretary, who keeps the record or journal, has charge of the papers, and reads such as he may be called upon by the members to read; a sergeant-at-arms, who sees that orders of the Senate are executed; a postmaster, who sees to the mailing and distributing letters and papers for the members; and a door-keeper, who has charge of the doors.

§ 15. These officers, except the president pro tempore, are not specified in the Constitution, and are not elected from among the members of the Senate.

§ 16. As a last resort, the Senate elects a Vice-President of the United States. This is not done, however, until an attempt to elect this officer on the part of electors chosen by the people has resulted in a failure. An election of a Vice-President by the Senate has taken place in the history of our government but once in 1837, Richard M. Johnson was elected by the Senate.

4.-JUDICIAL.

§ 17. The Constitution vests in the Senate the sole power to try all impeachments. To this provision there was very earnest opposition in the Constitutional Convention. Three different classes of views were maintained on this subject : —

1st. That, as a trial of impeachment is a judicial proceeding, it ought to be committed to the Supreme Court, or some other tribunal learned in the law.

2d. Others maintained that it was not wholly judicial; and therefore they preferred to have it submitted to the Supreme Court, united with some other tribunal for that purpose appointed.

3d. Still others (and for this proposition there was a majority) insisted that the trial of impeachment should be vested exclusively in the Senate.

§ 18. When trying impeachments, the Senate sits as a court; and

§ 4. It should be remarked here, that when a new State is admitted into the Union, and it chooses two senators, it is determined by lot which shall serve for the shorter, and which for the longer term.

At the first session of Congress under the Constitution, the division of the senators into three classes was made in the follow ing manner :

1st. The senators present were divided into three classes by name; the first consisting of six persons, the second of seven, and the third of six. (Two or three senators had not yet reached the seat of government; and it will be remembered that Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the new Constitution.)

2d. Three papers of an equal size, numbered one, two, and three,

were, by the secretary, rolled up and put into a box, and drawn by a committee of three persons chosen for the purpose in behalf of the respective classes in which each of them was placed. 3d. The classes were to vacate their seats in the Senate according to the order of the numbers drawn for them, beginning with number one.

4th. It was also provided, that, when senators should take their seats from States which had not then appointed senators, they should be placed by lot in the foregoing classes, but in such a manner as should keep the classes as nearly equal as possible. 5th. In arranging the original classes, care was taken that both senators from the same State should not be in the same class, so that there never should be a vacancy, at the same time, of the seats of both senators.1

ART. VII.-VACANCIES.

If vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any State,

1. The executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature.

2. The legislature shall then fill such vacancies. 9.

1 Story on Const., § 726.

§ 1. If vacancies happen while the legislature of the State whose seats are thus vacated is in session, the legislature will fill the vacancies without official action on the part of the governor or executive. The governor has no authority in the case while that body is in session, not even to appoint for a single day. § 2. He has no appointing power in anticipation of a vacancy soon to occur. He must wait until it actually happens. The Senate itself has decided this question. It is also doubtful if the legislature could choose a senator in anticipation of a vacancy.

§ 3. The senator chosen to fill a vacancy does not hold for the term of six years, but until the expiration of his predecessor's term only.

ART. VIII.- VOTE.

Each senator shall have one vote. 8.

This clause would seem to be superfluous, unless it be remembered, that, under the Confederation, each State, whatever the number of its members in Congress, had but one vote; and, if less than two members were present, it had no vote. The States were each aliowed from two to seven members; and, if their delegation was equally divided, they lost their vote. One member was incapable of voting alone.

It was the intention of the Constitution to give equality of suffrage in the Senate; with the further advantage, that a senator shall not lose his vote, nor his State go entirely unrepresented, on account of the absence of one of the members from the senate-chamber.

ART. IX. - PRESIDING OFFICER.

1. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate.

2. He shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 11. 3. The Senate shall choose a president pro tempore in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States. 12. § 1. There was strong opposition in the Constitutional Convention to creating any such office as the Vice-Presidency; and, when this point was carried, there was considerable opposition to the