Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/107

 CH. IX.] to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether yov.ng- or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or any particular profession of religious faith.

§ 623. A question, however, has been suggested upon this subject, which ought not to be passed over without notice. And that is, whether the states can superadd any qualifications to those prescribed by the constitution of the United States. The laws of some of the states have already required, that the representative should be a freeholder, and be resident within the district, for which he is chosen. If a state legislature has authority to pass laws to this effect, they may impose any other qualifications beyond those provided by the constitution, however inconvenient, restrictive, or even mischievous they may be to the interests of the Union. The legislature of one state may require, that none but a Deist, a Catholic, a Protestant, a Calvinist, or a Universalist, shall be a representative. The legislature of another state may require, that none shall be a representative but a planter, a farmer, a mechanic, or a manufacturer. It may exclude merchants, and divines, and physicians, and lawyers. Another legislature may require a high monied qualification, a freehold of great value, or personal estate of great amount. Another legislature may require, that the party shall have been born, and always lived in the state, or district; or that he shall be an inhabitant of a particular town or city, free of a corporation, or eldest son. In short, there is no end to the varieties of qualifications, which, without insisting upon extravagant cases, may be imagined. A state may, with the