Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/36

20 Massachusetts, although her settlements have extended over almost her whole territory, has continued to depute representatives for only one year, and Connecticut for only six months; but as, in each of these colonies, when under the British government, the duties of the representatives were merely local, the great duties of sovereignty being vested in their king, so, since the revolution, their duties have continued local, many of the authorities of sovereignty being vested in Congress. It is now proposed to increase the powers of Congress; this will increase the duties of the representatives, and they must have a reasonable time to obtain the information necessary to a right discharge of their office.

It has been said that our ancestors never relinquished the idea of annual elections: this is an error. In 1643, the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven, united in a confederacy, which continued about forty years; each colony sent two commissioners as their representatives, and by the articles they were to be annually elected. About the year 1650, the General Court of Massachusetts instructed their commissioners to propose that the elections, instead of being annual, should be only once in three years. The alteration did not take place, but the anecdote proves that our ancestors have not had a uniform predilection for annual elections.

Mr. K. concluded by observing that, on a candid examination of this question, he presumed that the Constitution would not be objected to on account of the biennial election of the House of Representatives.

Judge DANA. Mr. President, the feeble state of my health will not permit me to enter so largely into the debates of this house, as I should be otherwise inclined to do. The intention of my rising, at present, is to express my perfect acquiescence in the sentiments advanced by the honorable gentleman from Newbury port, [Mr. King,] in favor of the expediency of biennial elections of our federal representatives. From my own experience, I think them preferable to annual elections. I have, sir, seen gentlemen in Congress, and delegates from this state too, sitting in that honorable body, without a voice; without power to open their mouths, or lift up their hands, when matters of the highest importance to their state have been under consideration. I have seen members in Congress, for the space of three months,