Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/245

1787.] ". 7. Vacancies in the House of Representatives shall be supplied by writs of election from the executive authority of the states in the representation from which they shall happen.

". V. . I. The Senate of the United States shall be chosen by the legislatures of the several states. Each legislature shall choose two members. Vacancies may be supplied by the executive, until the next meeting of the legislature. Each member shall have one vote.

". 2. The senators shall be chosen for six years; but immediately after the first election, they shall be divided, by lot, into three classes, as nearly as may be, numbered one, two, and three. The seats of the members of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year; of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year:—so that a third part of the members may be chosen every second year.

". 3. Every member of the Senate shall be of the age of thirty years at least; shall have been a citizen of the United States for at least four years before his election; and shall be, at the time of his election, a resident of the state for which he shall be chosen.

". 4. The Senate shall choose its own president and other officers.

". VI. . 1. The times and places, and the manner, of holding the elections of the members of each house, shall be prescribed by the legislature of each state; but their provisions concerning them may, at any time, be altered by the legislature of the United States.

". 2. The legislature of the United States shall have authority to establish such uniform qualifications of the members of each house, with regard to property, as to the said legislature shall seem expedient.

". 3. In each house a majority of the members shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day.

". 4. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications, of its own members.

". 5. Freedom of speech and debate in the legislature shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of the legislature; and the members of each house shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at Congress, and in going to and returning from it.

". 6. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings; may punish its members for disorderly behavior; and may expel a member.

". 7. The House of Representatives, and the Senate when it shall be acting in a legislative capacity, shall keep a journal of their proceedings, and shall, from time to time, publish them; and the yeas and nays of the members of each house, on any question, shall, at the desire of one fifth part of the members present, be entered on the journal.

". 8. Neither house, without the consent of the other, shall adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that at which the two houses are sitting. But this regulation shall not extend to the Senate when it shall exercise the powers mentioned in the article.

". 9. The members of each house shall be ineligible to, and incapable of holding, any office under the authority of the United States, during the time for which they shall respectively be elected; and the members of the Senate shall be ineligible to, and incapable of holding, any such office for one year afterwards.

". 10. The members of each house shall receive a compensation 29