same gentleman. Mr. Ferry was President pro tempore when Vice-President Wilson died in 1875.

When the Vice-President becomes President of the United States, the President pro tempore receives the salary of the Vice-President. The President pro tempore is not restricted to a casting vote; he has his vote as Senator.

Clause 6.-The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.

The Senate, whose principal functions are legislative, is here clothed with judicial powers. All those who are impeached by the House of Representatives must be tried by the Senate.

In Great Britain, the power of impeachment is with the Commons, and the power of trial with the Lords; but the Lords do not take a special oath, and a majority is sufficient to convict. Our method is thus more favorable to the party under trial than the British.

When the President is tried, the Chief Justice presides, because the Vice-President is interested in the result of the trial. If the President is convicted, the Vice-President succeeds to the office. When Andrew Johnson was tried in 1868, Chief Justice Chase presided. If Mr. Johnson had been convicted, the President pro tempore would, by the law of March 1st, 1792, have succeeded to the Presi-dency; on that account it was claimed that he ought not to participate in the trial. His own view of his right and his duty differed from this, however, and he voted on the case as other Senators.

As the Constitution provides (Art. II, Sec. 1, Clause 6) that, in case of the inability of the President to discharge the duties of his office, Congress may declare

what officer shall act as President till the disability be. removed, it has been claimed that Congress might make a trial under impeachment such a disability, and provide that during the trial the President should not exercise the office. No such law has been enacted, and President Johnson continued to discharge his official duties from the twenty-fourth of February, when the House of Representatives voted to impeach him, to the twenty-sixth of May, when the final vote was taken.

There have been seven cases of impeachment: William Blount, Senator from Tennessee, in 1798; John Pickering, District Judge of New Hampshire, in 1803; Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, in 1804; James H. Peck, District Judge of Missouri, in 1830; West H. Humphries, District Judge of Tennessee, in 1862; Andrew Johnson, President, in 1868; and W. W. Belknap, Secretary of War, in 1876. Judges Pickering and Humphries only were convicted.

Clause 7.-Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit, under the United States; but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law.

In England, there is no such limitation in the punishment. The person convicted may be fined, or imprisoned, or banished, or put to death. But in our country, the punishment is political-removal from office and disqualification for it. This judgment, however, does not prevent a subsequent trial by jury for the criminal violation of law.

In a subsequent Article it is provided that a civil officer of the United States, impeached and convicted, "shall be removed from office." This punishment is imperative; he may be punished further by disqualification to hold office. The punishment inflicted on such

C. G. 6.

an officer, who has been convicted by the Senate, can not be less than removal from office; it can not be greater than removal and disqualification combined. Judge Pickering was removed from office only; Judge Humphries was removed from office and declared disqualified to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Sec. 4, Clause 1.-The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

By Act of Congress, passed June 25th, 1842, it was provided that Representatives should be elected by districts of contiguous territory equal to the number of Representatives. This is believed to have been the first instance of any regulations by Congress touching elections of Senators or Representatives. In 1866 (July 25th), an act was passed to regulate the mode of choosing Senators, as already stated. In 1871 (February 28th), Congress enacted that all votes for Representatives in Congress should be by written or printed ballots, any law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. In 1872 (February 2d), provision was made that Representatives should be elected on the same day throughout the United States, viz., on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November; to go into effect in 1876. By act of 1875, states whose constitutions prescribed a different day were exempted from its effect.

This clause, giving to Congress the ultimate control as to elections for Senators and Representatives, met with little opposition in the Convention, but it was opposed in some of the State Conventions called to ratify the Constitution. "Its propriety," says Mr. Hamilton, "rests upon the evidence of this plain proposition, that every government ought to contain in itself the

means of its own preservation."1 But the opponents of the Constitution maintained that this clause gave to Congress the whole ultimate control of elections for members of Congress, including the qualifications of electors and elected, except as stated elsewhere in the Constitution. Patrick Henry said: "The control given to Congress over the time, place, and manner of holding elections will destroy the end of suffrage. *** Congress may tell you they have a right to make the vote of one gentleman go as far as the votes of a hundred poor men. ***They may regulate the number of votes by the quantity of property, without involving any repugnancy to the Constitution." 2

The practice has been for the States to prescribe the qualifications of voters in their constitutions. Mr. Farrar claims, on the other hand, that it was well understood by both parties at the time the Constitution was framed, "that the whole law of elections, subject to the provisions of the Constitution, was under the control of Congress."

The Constitution of the Confederate States says, "No person of foreign birth, not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall be allowed to vote for any officer, State or Federal." Thus their federal Constitution prescribed qualifications for voters at State elections.

The restricting clause, as to the place of choosing Senators, was inserted that Congress should not have the right to prescribe to the State legislatures their places of meeting.

Clause 2.- The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Annual sessions are thus made imperative. As the

1 Federalist, No. 59.

2 Elliot's Debates, III, pp. 60, 175.

3 Manual of the Constitution, p. 268.

term of each Congress is two years, there would be two regular sessions during each term. In eighty-eight years from March 4th, 1789, or to the end of the Fortyfourth Congress, there have been eleven instances of three sessions by the same Congress.' For the first thirty-two years, the regular sessions began on the first Monday in December about half the time: since that, all the regular sessions have begun on that day.

The first regular session of each Congress usually continues from December till the following spring or summer. The Thirty-first Congress was in session till the thirtieth of September-three hundred and two days. The second regular session closes at noon on the fourth of March, being thus about three months long. But though the constitutional term of Congress ends at noon on the fourth of March (it formerly ended at midnight of the third), the Journals of the Senate and House of Representatives bear the date of the third of March, and the laws signed by the President after midnight are dated on the third and not on the fourth.

By act of January 22d, 1867, each new Congress was required to meet "at twelve o'clock, meridian, on the fourth day of March, the day on which the term begins for which the Congress is elected." Under this act each Congress had three sessions; the first commencing on the fourth of March, the second on the first Monday of December of that year, and the third on the first Monday of December of the following year. The first session was very short, and the second and third were regarded as the regular sessions. This act has now been repealed. It was in force during the Fortieth, Forty-first, and Forty-second Congresses.

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress might

1 There were three sessions in the First Congress, the Fifth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-seventh, Thirty-fourth, Thirty-seventh, Fortieth, Forty-first, and Forty-second.