supremacy of the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States over all citizens and States; and (3) requires that Senators and Representatives, members of State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers of the United States, and of the States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution, but no religious test shall be made a qualification for any National office or trust.

255. Article VII.-The subject of this Article is the ratification of the Constitution.

256. Amendments I.-X.-These Amendments were proposed by Congress September 25, 1789, and, having received the requisite ratifications, were proclaimed to be in force, December 15, 1791. Together they constitute a bill of rights. They are intended to protect the citizen against undue interference by the National authority. Thus, they guarantee freedom of worship, of speech, of the press, the right of petition, the right to bear arms, immunity of the citizen against the army, the right to be secure in person, home, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches by public officers, and other personal and civil rights. Criminal trials are regulated, jury trial in civil cases guaranteed, excessive bail forbidden, and the doctrine of delegated authority, as respects the Constitution, affirmed.

257. Amendment XI.--This Amendment, proposed March 5, 1794, declared in force January 8, 1798, worked a considerable limitation of the jurisdiction of the National courts. Compare the Amendment with Article III., Sec. 2.

258. Amendment XII. This Amendment was proposed December 12, 1803, and declared in force September 25, 1804. It materially changes the mode of electing the President and Vice-President after the electoral colleges have been appointed by the States.

259. Amendment XIII., 2 Sections.-This amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It was proposed January 31, 1865, and declared in force December 18 of the same year.

260. Amendment XIV., 5 Sections.-This amendment, which was proposed June 16, 1866, and which took effect July 28, 1868, relates to the reconstruction of the Union following the Civil War. It defines citizenship, guarantees the privileges and immunities of citizens against State interference, provides a mode of apportioning Representatives in certain cases (which never took effect), declares certain persons who have participated in rebellion against the United States ineligible to Congress, to the electoral colleges, and to any office, State or National, until their disabilities shall have been removed by Congress, affirms the validity of the public debt, prohibits the United States or any. State to pay debts contracted in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the Union, and to pay for any slaves lost or emancipated in the course of the same.

261. Amendment XV., 2 Sections.-This amendment had the practical effect to confer the right of suffrage upon all citizens of the United States, so far as previously existing limitations growing out of race, color, or previous condition of servitude were concerned.

262. Objects of Review. -A careful reading of the Constitution, accompanied by such a grouping of provisions as the foregoing, in addition to preparing the student for close study of the instrument itself, will subserve two or three other purposes. It will show how admirably the various provisions that the Federal Convention had elaborated and agreed to, were worded and grouped by the Committee of Revision. Furthermore, it will admirably illustrate the nature of a constitution as opposed to an ordinary law. It will give force to the words of C.-J. Marshall:

"A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked,

its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves."

NOTE. — "History knows few instruments which in so few words lay down equally momentous rules on a vast range of matters of the highest importance and complexity. The Convention of 1787 were well advised in making their draft short, because it was essential that the people should comprehend it, because fresh differences of view would have emerged the further they had gone into details, and because the more one specifies, the more one has to specify and to attempt the impossible task of providing beforehand for all contingencies. These sages were therefore content to lay down a few general rules and principles, leaving some details to be filled in by congressional legislation, and foreseeing that for others it would be necessary to trust to interpretation."-Bryce, Vol. I., p. 372 (1894).

1 McCulloch v. the State of Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 366.

CHAPTER XVI.

VESTING THE LEGISLATIVE POWER.

ARTICLE I.

Section I. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

263.-Congress Bicameral.-As a rule, the legislatures of English-speaking countries have consisted of two houses. The House of Commons, as a distinct house of Parliament, dates from 1265. With few exceptions, the State Legislatures in 1787 consisted of two houses. In some countries, and notably in France, one house, or the unicameral system, was formerly preferred. The great argument for two houses is, that one will check and balance the other. This plan tends to secure a more thorough consideration of subjects coming before the legislature, and so to prevent hasty and ill-considered legislation.'

264. Names of the Legislature and the Houses.— Naturally, the Federal Convention gave to the new Legislature the name that the old one had borne, and to the two Houses names by which corresponding State bodies were known. Congress, Senate, and House of Representatives were familiar names. It is both common and convenient to call the Houses the Upper and the Lower Houses, but this language is not found in the Constitution or laws, and is merely popular.

1 This is well illustrated by an anecdote. Soon after his return from France, in 1789, Mr. Jefferson, who was much influenced by French ideas, dined with Washington. He severely attacked the two-house plan as obstructive and mischievous. Washington replied that he adhered to the experience of England and America. "You yourself," he said, "have proved the excellence of two houses this very moment." "I," said Jefferson, "how is that, General?" "You have," replied Washington, "turned your hot tea from the cup into the saucer, to get it cool. It is the same thing we desire of the two houses."-Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 417. And yet there was strong objection made to introducing this system into the National Government, as has been shown in Part I.

265. True Theory of Representation.—This cannot be better stated than in Judge Cooley's words:

"Representatives are chosen in States and districts; but when chosen they are legislators for the whole country, and are bound in all they do to regard the interest of the whole. Their own immediate constituents have no more right than the rest of the Nation to address them through the press, to appeal to them by petition, or to have their local interests considered by them in legislation. They bring with them their knowledge of local wants, sentiments, and opinions, and may enlighten Congress respecting these, and thereby aid all the members to act wisely in matters which affect the whole country; but the moral obligation to consider the interest of one part of the country as much as that of another, and to legislate with a view to the best interests of all, is obligatory upon every member, and no one can be relieved from this obligation by instructions from any source. Moreover, the special fitness to legislate for all, which is acquired by the association, mutual information, and comparison of views of a legislative body, cannot be had by the constituency, and the advantages would be lost to legislation if the right of instruction were recognized.'

1

266. The Right of Instruction.-The traditional theory of the House of Commons is, that every member, although elected by a particular constituency, serves for the whole realm and not merely for the people that elected him. Blackstone says: "Therefore he is not bound like a deputy of the United Provinces to consult with, or take the advice of, his constituents upon any particular point, unless he himself thinks it proper or right to do so." Although a determined effort was made to establish the opposite one in the United States, the same theory has been established here both as respects the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In 1789 an unsuccessful attempt was made in the House of Representatives to insert in one of the proposed amendments to the Constitution a clause reserving to the people the right of instruction. Some advocates have affirmed the duty of a representative to obey such instructions when properly given, or to resign his office. Little is now heard of this right; but formerly it was common for State

1 The Principles of Constitutional Law, pp. 41, 42.