Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/218

202 They are chosen by the people for two years. Who are your senators? They are chosen by the legislatures, and a third of them go out of the Senate at the end of every second year. They may also be impeached. There are no better checks upon earth. Are there better checks in the government of Virginia? There is not a check in the one that is not in the other. The difference consists in the length of time, and in the nature of the objects. Any man may be impeached here—so he may there. If the people of Virginia can remove their delegates for misbehavior, by electing other men at the end of the year, so, in like manner, the federal representatives may be removed at the end of two, and the senators at the end of six years.

The honorable gentleman has praised the Virginia government. We can prove that the federal Constitution is equally excellent. The legislature of Virginia may conceal their transactions as well as the general government. There is no clause in the Constitution of Virginia to oblige its legislature to publish its proceedings at any period. The clause in this Constitution which provides for a periodical publication, and which the honorable gentleman reprobates so much, renders the federal Constitution superior to that of Virginia in this respect. The expression, from time to time, renders us sufficiently secure: it will compel them to publish their proceedings as often as it can conveniently and safely be done; and must satisfy every mind, without an illiberal perversion of its meaning. His bright ideas are very much obscured by torturing the explication of words. His interpretation of elections must be founded on a misapprehension. The Constitution says, that "the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulation, except as to the place of choosing senators." It says, in another place, "that the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous blanch of the state legislature." Who would have conceived it possible to deduce, from these clauses, that the power of election was thrown into the hands of the rich? As the electors of the federal representatives are to have the same qualifications with those of the representatives of this state legislature,—or, in other words, as the electors of the one are