Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/214

 206 of youth must be chastised by the sober lessons of experience; and if knowledge, and solid judgment, and tried integrity, are to be deemed indispensable qualifications for senatorial service, it would be rashness to affirm, that thirty years is too long a period for a due maturity and probation.

§ 728. The next qualification is citizenship. The propriety of some limitation upon admissions to office, after naturalization, cannot well be doubted. The senate is to participate largely in transactions with foreign governments; and it seems indispensable, that time should have elapsed sufficient to wean a senator from all prejudices, resentments, and partialities, in relation to the land of his nativity, before he should be entrusted with such high and delicate functions. Besides; it can scarcely be presumed, that any foreigner can have acquired a thorough knowledge of the institutions and interests of a country, until he has been permanently incorporated into its society, and has acquired by the habits and intercourse of life the feelings and the dudes of a citizen. And if he has acquired the requisite knowledge, he can scarcely feel that devoted attachment to them, which constitutes the great security for fidelity and promptitude in the discharge of official duties. If eminent exceptions could be stated, they would furnish no safe rule; and should rather teach us to fear our being misled by brilliancy of talent, or disinterested patriotism, into a confidence, which might betray, or an acquiescence, which might weaken, that jealousy of foreign influence, which is one of the main supports of republics. In the convention