Opinion ID: 107969
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Convention Debates.

Text: Relying heavily on Charles Warren's analysis [61] of the Convention debates, petitioners argue that the proceedings manifest the Framers' unequivocal intention to deny either branch of Congress the authority to add to or otherwise vary the membership qualifications expressly set forth in the Constitution. We do not completely agree, for the debates are subject to other interpretations. However, we have concluded that the records of the debates, viewed in the context of the bitter struggle for the right to freely choose representatives which had recently concluded in England and in light of the distinction the Framers made between the power to expel and the power to exclude, indicate that petitioners' ultimate conclusion is correct. The Convention opened in late May 1787. By the end of July, the delegates adopted, with a minimum of debate, age requirements for membership in both the Senate and the House. The Convention then appointed a Committee of Detail to draft a constitution incorporating these and other resolutions adopted during the preceding months. Two days after the Committee was appointed, George Mason, of Virginia, moved that the Committee consider a clause  `requiring certain qualifications of landed property & citizenship'  and disqualifying from membership in Congress persons who had unsettled accounts or who were indebted to the United States. 2 Farrand 121. A vigorous debate ensued. Charles Pinckney and General Charles C. Pinckney, both of South Carolina, moved to extend these incapacities to both the judicial and executive branches of the new government. But John Dickinson, of Delaware, opposed the inclusion of any statement of qualifications in the Constitution. He argued that it would be impossible to make a compleat one, and a partial one would by implication tie up the hands of the Legislature from supplying the omissions. Id., at 123. [62] Dickinson's argument was rejected; and, after eliminating the disqualification of debtors and the limitation to landed property, the Convention adopted Mason's proposal to instruct the Committee of Detail to draft a property qualification. Id., at 116-117. The Committee reported in early August, proposing no change in the age requirement; however, it did recommend adding citizenship and residency requirements for membership. After first debating what the precise requirements should be, on August 8, 1787, the delegates unanimously adopted the three qualifications embodied in Art. I,  2. Id., at 213. [63] On August 10, the Convention considered the Committee of Detail's proposal that the Legislature of the United States shall have authority to establish such uniform qualifications of the members of each House, with regard to property, as to the said Legislature shall seem expedient. Id., at 179. The debate on this proposal discloses much about the views of the Framers on the issue of qualifications. For example, James Madison urged its rejection, stating that the proposal would vest an improper & dangerous power in the Legislature. The qualifications of electors and elected were fundamental articles in a Republican Govt. and ought to be fixed by the Constitution. If the Legislature could regulate those of either, it can by degrees subvert the Constitution. A Republic may be converted into an aristocracy or oligarchy as well by limiting the number capable of being elected, as the number authorised to elect. . . . It was a power also, which might be made subservient to the views of one faction agst. another. Qualifications founded on artificial distinctions may be devised, by the stronger in order to keep out partizans of [a weaker] faction. Id., at 249-250. [64] Significantly, Madison's argument was not aimed at the imposition of a property qualification as such, but rather at the delegation to the Congress of the discretionary power to establish any qualifications. The parallel between Madison's arguments and those made in Wilkes' behalf is striking. [65] In view of what followed Madison's speech, it appears that on this critical day the Framers were facing and then rejecting the possibility that the legislature would have power to usurp the indisputable right [of the people] to return whom they thought proper [66] to the legislature. Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, noted that a legislative power to establish property qualifications was exceptional and dangerous because it would be much more liable to abuse. Id., at 250. Gouverneur Morris then moved to strike with regard to property from the Committee's proposal. His intention was to leave the Legislature entirely at large. Ibid. Hugh Williamson, of North Carolina, expressed concern that if a majority of the legislature should happen to be composed of any particular description of men, of lawyers for example, . . . the future elections might be secured to their own body. Ibid. [67] Madison then referred to the British Parliament's assumption of the power to regulate the qualifications of both electors and the elected and noted that the abuse they had made of it was a lesson worthy of our attention. They had made the changes in both cases subservient to their own views, or to the views of political or Religious parties. Ibid. [68] Shortly thereafter, the Convention rejected both Gouverneur Morris' motion and the Committee's proposal. Later the same day, the Convention adopted without debate the provision authorizing each House to be the judge of the . . . qualifications of its own members. Id., at 254. One other decision made the same day is very important to determining the meaning of Art. I,  5. When the delegates reached the Committee of Detail's proposal to empower each House to expel its members, Madison observed that the right of expulsion . . . was too important to be exercised by a bare majority of a quorum: and in emergencies [one] faction might be dangerously abused. Id., at 254. He therefore moved that with the concurrence of two-thirds be inserted. With the exception of one State, whose delegation was divided, the motion was unanimously approved without debate, although Gouverneur Morris noted his opposition. The importance of this decision cannot be over-emphasized. None of the parties to this suit disputes that prior to 1787 the legislative powers to judge qualifications and to expel were exercised by a majority vote. Indeed, without exception, the English and colonial antecedents to Art. I,  5, cls. 1 and 2, support this conclusion. Thus, the Convention's decision to increase the vote required to expel, because that power was too important to be exercised by a bare majority, while at the same time not similarly restricting the power to judge qualifications, is compelling evidence that they considered the latter already limited by the standing qualifications previously adopted. [69] Respondents urge, however, that these events must be considered in light of what they regard as a very significant change made in Art. I,  2, cl. 2, by the Committee of Style. When the Committee of Detail reported the provision to the Convention, it read: Every member of the House of Representatives shall be of the age of twenty five years at least; shall have been a citizen of [in] the United States for at least three years before his election; and shall be, at the time of his election, a resident of the State in which he shall be chosen. Id., at 178. However, as finally drafted by the Committee of Style, these qualifications were stated in their present negative form. Respondents note that there are no records of the deliberations of the Committee of Style. Nevertheless, they speculate that this particular change was designed to make the provision correspond to the form used by Blackstone in listing the standing incapacities for membership in the House of Commons. See 1 W. Blackstone's Commentaries -176. Blackstone, who was an apologist for the anti-Wilkes forces in Parliament, [70] had added to his Commentaries after Wilkes' exclusion the assertion that individuals who were not ineligible for the Commons under the standing incapacities could still be denied their seat if the Commons deemed them unfit for other reasons. [71] Since Blackstone's Commentaries was widely circulated in the Colonies, respondents further speculate that the Committee of Style rephrased the qualifications provision in the negative to clarify the delegates' intention only to prescribe the standing incapacities without imposing any other limit on the historic power of each house to judge qualifications on a case by case basis. [72] Respondents' argument is inherently weak, however, because it assumes that legislative bodies historically possessed the power to judge qualifications on a case-by-case basis. As noted above, the basis for that conclusion was the Walpole and Wilkes cases, which, by the time of the Convention, had been denounced by the House of Commons and repudiated by at least one State government. Moreover, respondents' argument misrepresents the function of the Committee of Style. It was appointed only to revise the stile of and arrange the articles which had been agreed to . . . . 2 Farrand 553. [T]he Committee . . . had no authority from the Convention to make alterations of substance in the Constitution as voted by the Convention, nor did it purport to do so; and certainly the Convention had no belief . . . that any important change was, in fact, made in the provisions as to qualifications adopted by it on August 10. [73] Petitioners also argue that the post-Convention debates over the Constitution's ratification support their interpretation of  5. For example, they emphasize Hamilton's reply to the antifederalist charge that the new Constitution favored the wealthy and well-born: The truth is that there is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended but by prescribing qualifications of property either for those who may elect or be elected. But this forms no part of the power to be conferred upon the national government. Its authority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the times, the places, the manner of elections. The qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the legislature.  The Federalist Papers 371 (Mentor ed. 1961). (Emphasis in last sentence added.) Madison had expressed similar views in an earlier essay, [74] and his arguments at the Convention leave no doubt about his agreement with Hamilton on this issue. Respondents counter that Hamilton was actually addressing himself to criticism of Art. I,  4, which authorizes Congress to regulate the times, places, and manner of electing members of Congress. They note that prominent antifederalists had argued that this power could be used to confer on the rich and well-born, all honours. Brutus No. IV, N. Y. Journal, Nov. 29, 1787, p. 7. (Emphasis in original.) Respondents' contention, however, ignores Hamilton's express reliance on the immutability of the qualifications set forth in the Constitution. [75] The debates at the state conventions also demonstrate the Framers' understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution. Before the New York convention, for example, Hamilton emphasized: [T]he true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. This great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed. 2 Debates on the Federal Constitution 257 (J. Elliot ed. 1876) (hereinafter cited as Elliot's Debates). [76] In Virginia, where the Federalists faced powerful opposition by advocates of popular democracy, Wilson Carey Nicholas, a future member of both the House and Senate and later Governor of the State, met the arguments that the new Constitution violated democratic principles with the following interpretation of Art. I,  2, cl. 2, as it respects the qualifications of the elected: It has ever been considered a great security to liberty, that very few should be excluded from the right of being chosen to the legislature. This Constitution has amply attended to this idea. We find no qualifications required except those of age and residence, which create a certainty of their judgment being matured, and of being attached to their state. 3 Elliot's Debates 8.