Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/23

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We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.

—All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

—The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.

No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term often years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the state of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five. New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five. South Carolina five, and Georgia three. When vacancies happen in the representation from any state, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment.

Mr. NICHOLAS. Mr. Chairman, the time being now come when this state is to decide on this important question, of rejecting or receiving this plan of government, it gave me great pleasure, yesterday, when the Convention determined to proceed with the fullest deliberation on the subject; as every gentleman will, in the course of the discussion, have an opportunity to urge every objection that may arise in his mind against this system. I beg gentlemen to offer all their objections here, and that none may be insisted on elsewhere; and I hope nothing urged without these walls will influence the mind of any one. If this part of the plan now under consideration be materially defective, I will readily