Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/211

 CH. X.] of the popular will, and has never been found to resist any solid improvements. Let it be added, that it has given a dignity, a solidity, and an enlightened spirit to the operations of the government, which have maintained respect abroad, and confidence at home.

§ 724. At the first session of congress under the constitution, the division of the senators into three classes was made in the following manner. The senators present were divided into three classes by name, the first consisting of six persons, the second of seven, and the third of six. Three papers of an equal size, numbered one, two, and three, were, by the secretary, rolled up, and put into a box, and drawn by a committee of three persons, chosen for the purpose in behalf of the respective classes, in which each of them was placed; and the classes were to vacate their seats in the senate, according to the order of the numbers drawn for them, beginning with number one. It was also provided, that when senators should take their seats from states, which had not then appointed senators, they should be placed by lot in the foregoing classes, but in such a manner, as should keep the classes as nearly equal, as possible. In arranging the original classes, care was taken, that both senators from the same state should not be in the same class, so that there never should be a vacancy, at the same time, of the seats of both senators.

§ 725. As vacancies might occur in the senate during the recess of the state legislature, it became indispensable to provide for that exigency. Accordingly the same clause proceeds to declare: "And if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess