Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/548

532 and the judges may hold other offices of a lucrative nature, and their judgments be thereby warped.

That in all the cases enumerated, except where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, "they shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and facts, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the Congress shall make." From hence is inferred that the trial by jury is not secured.

That they have jurisdiction between citizens of different states.

Eighth. That there is no bill or declaration of rights in this Constitution.

Ninth. That this is a consolidation of the several states, and not a confederation.

Tenth. It is an aristocracy, and was intended to be so by the framers of it.

The first objection that I heard advanced against this Constitution, I say, sir, was, that " the elections of representatives and senators are not frequent enough to insure responsibility to their constituents."

This is a subject that most men differ about; but there are more considerations than that of mere responsibility. By this system the House of Representatives is composed of persons chosen every second year by the people of the several states; and the senators every six years by the legislatures. Whether the one or the other of these periods is of too long duration, is a question to which various answers will be given. Some persons are of opinion, that three years in the one case, and seven in the other, would be a more eligible term than that adopted in this Constitution. In Great Britain, we find the House of Commons elected for seven years; the House of Lords is perpetual, and the king never dies. The Parliament of Ireland is octennial. In various other parts of the British dominions, the House of Representatives sit during the royal pleasure, and have been continued twenty years. This, sir, is a term undoubtedly too long. In a single state, I think annual elections most proper; but then there ought to be more branches in the legislature than one. An annual legislature, possessed of supreme power, may be properly termed an annual despotism; and, like an individual, they are subject to caprice, and act as party spirit or spleen dictates; hence that instability to the laws which is the bane of republican governments.