LER) were to be excluded from the service of their country in the Legislature, he wished also to provide for the exclusion of the gentleman from Indiana. He was very glad that the gentleman was not a member of the Convention of 1790, which framed the present Constitution, ás his weight and influence might have effected the adoption of such a provision as he had now offered, in which case, he and his friend near him, would not have had the honor of a seat here.

Mr. DICKEY hoped, he said, that the gentleman from Butler, (Mr. PURVIANCE) would withdraw his proposition, and that the gentleman from Indiana also would withdraw his motion. He regreted that the gentleman from Indiana had thought proper to offer it. Age can no more give competence to an officer of the public, than property can qualify a man for voting; and a man of twenty-one may be as highly fitted for any duty as a man of more mature age. A Senator must be twenty-five years old, and the gentleman from Indiana should recollect that the Senate was constituted for the very purpose of checking the popular branch, and of keeping watch over those youthful legislators, if any such there were, whose experience and tact lie principally in curling their mustachoes and tying their cravats. It was a sufficient proof of the competence of the person elected, that his constituents thought him fit.

Mr. REIGART said, he hoped neither motion would be adopted. For forty-seven years this Constitution had been in operation, and no inconvenience was ever yet complained of, or felt in consequence of this part of its provisions. Are not the people as well qualified as this Convention can be to say who shall represent them-whether a young man or an old man-a professional man or a farmer? We have nothing to do with the fitness or unfitness of those whom the people select as representatives. The ground of the objection which the gentleman makes to the election of persons of the age of twenty-one was, that young men of that age have not sufficient experience in public matters, and not sufficient gravity of character for the station; but of their qualifications in these respects, the constituents were to be the judges. The law has always supposed a man to arrive at the discretion and judgment of manhood at the age of twenty-one, at which time it puts him in possession of his property. There had been some striking instances of maturity of talent and judgment at an earlier age than twenty-one. AARON BURR, according to the statement of his biographer, was aid to Gen. MONTGOMERY at the age of nineteen. One man might be a good representative at twenty-one, while another would not be fit for the station at fifty-one. It was said by the gentleman that at twenty-eight the judgment was mature; but he could point to instances wherein men of twenty were riper in judgment than many men of fifty. As no inconvenience had arisen from the existing provision, he hoped that it would not be lightly changed. Unless very good reason was given for the motion-better reason than any he had yet heard-he should vote against either propositions to strike out twenty, for the purpose of filling the blank with twenty-eight or twenty-five.

Mr. PURVIANCE withdrew his motion to amend.

The motion of Mr. CLARKE, of Indiana, to amend, was negatived. Mr. KREBS moved to amend the section by striking out "three years and inserting "two years ", so as to make two years' residence in this State sufficient to render a person, who was otherwise qualified, eligible to

a seat in the House of Representatives. He had known a case, he said, in which a man was elected as a member of the House of Representatives, and could not take his seat because he had not been a resident of the State for the required time. The people who elected him, and were entitled to his services, were obliged to choose another representative, at a special election. The gentleman had moved into Franklin county from Maryland, and had lived previously in Pennsylvania, where he was well known. The case was one of great hardship. He asked the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. EARLE was in favor of the amendment, he said, and was for going still further in opening the elections.

Mr. DICKEY, of Beaver, said he should vote against the proposition of the gentleman from Schuylkill, because he thought we had Pennsylvanians enough to fill our offices, without going to other States for suitable persons. He thought the important office of Representative should not be filled by persons from other States, until, at least, they acquired a residence, and a knowledge of our institutions.

Mr. MARTIN: The vote of the gentleman from Beaver, then, will go to disfranchise the citizens of Pennsylvania, as well as of any other State; for Pennsylvanians frequently change their residence, and when they choose to return home again, they ought not to be excluded from office for three years. It might, he thought, be very safely left to the citizens of the State to judge who were fit and suitable persons to represent them in the Legislature; and there was no danger of choosing persons who were unacquainted with, or hostile to, their interests. He was willing to reduce the residence to two years.

Mr. STEVENS thought, he said, there ought to be some alteration in the clause. If it was modified so as to provide that, if a person who has been a voter and a citizen of the Commonwealth, shall loose his residence, he may recover it again by a residence of one year, he would vote for it.

Mr. KREBS accepted the suggestion, and modified his motion to amend, so as to insert the following after the words "three years": "unless he shall have been previously a qualified voter in this State, when he shall be eligible by one year's residence".

Those

Mr. STEVENS thought this ought to be satisfactory to every one. who live on the borders of the State, frequently pass the boundary into one State or the other, and when our citizens return they cannot be elected to the Legislature for three years afterwards. In the case of the member elect from Franklin county whose seat was vacated on the ground that he had not been a resident for three years, the individual had been a citizen almost all his life, of this State, but had removed over into the State of Maryland for a short time, and returned.

Mr. EARLE said the arguments used against the existing provision went to break down all this system of exclusion. He had no doubt himself, that all distinctions made by our laws between the privileges of our own citizens and those of other States, were a direct violation of that clause of the Constitution which declared that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States". He was desirous of breaking down this limitation, having no doubt that it was contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. Whether all citizens of any of the United States had not a right to come

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into this State as citizens, upon an equal footing with other citizens of the State, in every respect, was a question deserving of consideration. Whether we had the right to say to one man, you shall be eligible after one year's residence, and to another you shall not have the same right till after three years, he very much doubted.

Mr. FORWARD: The question is, who is a citizen? In the meaning of the clause in the Constitution, a minor is a citizen, and so is a female ; and yet neither are eligible to office or entitled to vote. The gentleman's difficulty probably, arose from his not taking the proper

distinction between a " citizen” and a qualified voter. The amendment, he thought a very satisfactory one, and he hoped it would be agreed to.

Mr. CHAMBERS was acquainted, he said, with the case in Franklin county, which had been mentioned. A native citizen of that county, who had lived there forty years, moved over the line into Washington county, Maryland, where he resided one year, and then moved back again. The community hardly knew that he had been out of the county. He was taken up by his fellow citizens, and elected to the Legislature; but in consequence of finding that he was not eligible-not having resided quite three years in the State since his return from Maryland—he did not take his seat, and the people of the county were obliged to hold another election. He thought that this amendment commended itself to our support, inasmuch, as it would enable persons who had lost their elegibility merely by removing into some other State of the Union, to regain it, within a reasonable time. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, this provision was introduced to exclude foreigners. At that time, there was not so much interchange of residence between citizens of adjoining States, as there now is. Many persons, now, have to change their residence from one side of the line to the other, as tenants or proprietors. It frequently happened, therefore, that a citizen, after residing in a neighboring state, for a while, returned to this State. The reason of the rule, therefore, did not apply to him. He was not prepared to say that the amendment was drawn with that precision that it ought to be. If it went beyond its professed object, it could be modified. He could not agree with the gentleman from Philadelphia county, that no qualification of residence ought to be imposed upon the citizens of another State coming into this. He would not be willing to confer offices of profit or trust upon strangers to the State and its interests.

Mr. Bell said the question struck him as one of great importance. The gentleman from the county seemed to think, that any one who was a citizen of the United States, upon coming within the borders of Pennsylvania, should be eligible to all the offices and honors which may be enjoyed by any of its inhabitants. He also formed this opinion upon the democratic principle, that the people have a right to choose whom they please ; a principle which, though correct in theory, it would not answer to carry out in practice, so far as to permit the people of Pennsylvania to elect any vagabond or stranger to our laws, habits or feelings, without evidence of his fitness, or of his having any interest in common with ours. He saw in the papers lately, an account, which afforded a striking example of the impolicy of abolishing these restrictions. In a western State a strauger took up his residence, and by his intelligence, correct deportment, and suavity of imanners, soon won the entire confidence of the commų,

nity in which he resided, and was elected to the Legislature in opposition to a gentleman well known and much respected, and who had faithfully served the people as their representative. Before he took his seat, it was discovered that he was a fugitive from justice. It was some time before the people would believe it; but, at length, it became so well known that the member elect thought proper to abscond.

He would ask the gentleman whether he would be willing to place his own constituents in a predicament like that? No matter how slight the qualifications imposed might be, say a residence of one month, or one day, still it would be a de

a parture from the principle, that the people were at liberty to choose whom they pleased as a representative. He was not now willing to record his vote on the adoption or rejection of this proposition, and he moved that the committee rise.

The motion was lost.

Mr. WOODWARD agreed that the principle was a good one, and he did not know but if we were adopting a new Constitution he might vote for it , but he could not see any good reason for its going into the Constitution as an amendment to be submitted to the people. He had on one or two occasions expressed himself unfavorable to the amendments which were not of importance to the people and demanded by them. This amendment was of a character not demanded by the people; and if the amendment providing for future amendments of the Constitution should be adopted, these suggestions could be made to the people and they could consider them and introduce them into the Constitution if they saw fit so to do. It seemed to him that this was the most proper mode of getting rid of these amendments ; and that there was no necessity for laying them before the people.

The amendment was then agreed to—ayes 67 ; noes not counted.

Mr. HOPKINSON said the argument in favor of this amendment was on presumption of persons moving from one Siate to another. This might not however be the case in every instance. It might be possible that some persons may have gone to Europe, and been away twenty years in a country where they become attached to institutions entirely at variance with those of our own country. He would move no amendment on this subject, but he merely suggested it for the consideration of gentlemen whether there ought not to be a distinction between these two classes of persons.

Mr. EARLE then moved an amendment providing, that no member of the Assembly should be elected for more than three years

in

any term of

four years.

Mr. E. said he should like to have the yeas and nays on this amendment, as he did not know that they should come to a second reading before the Convention adjourned. If gentlemen would grant him this favor he might vote with them for a call of the yeas and nays on some of their propositions. He went upon the principle that the people had the right to select whom they pleased for officers; but he went upon the further principle that the people had the right to prescribe the rules by which they would act, and he believed this proposition would be acceptable to the people. It had been adopted in many of the counties of the State without a constitutional provision, and he thought the people generally would adopt it as a salutary measure. Power generally tends to beget corruption, and

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the officer long in the public service generally forgets the people who placed him there. The history of mankind is full of examples of this kind. It would also afford the people an opportunity of ridding themselves of a public servant whose services they might no longer desire, but whose situation had given him an influence which made it difficult to turn him out. Every one knew that a person who had long held an official situation had opportunities of being selected, which individuals who had never held any place of trust had not. We know, too, that when a man has been in office for some time he begins to look upon it as his property, and that he looked upon every person who attempted to oust him from this situation as his enemy. The adoption of this amendment, then, would leave the people more free in making their selections, and would save them trouble in getting out a man who did not faithfully represent their interests, but whose influence, brought to bear in various ways, might elect him. If, however, an officer was faithful and honest after three years service, the people could elect him to the Senate or to some other office. He would beg leave to refer to a clause in the old Constätution, which provided that no person should hold an office in the House of Representatives for more than four years out of seven. Now this clause deprived men of holding office for a term of three years in every seven,

whereas the amendment he proposed would only deprive them of holding the same situation one year in four. He was aware this subject might lead to a controversy in which it would be contended on one side that it was right in principle, and on the other that it was wrong in principle; but as the people had decided in many of the counties of the State that it was right in principle, he had no doubt, if we adopted it, they would readily accept of it. You have a restriction of this kind in relation to the office of Governor, and if it was a good restriction in that case he thought it would be a good one in this case. He believed, there was no place where a provision of this kind should sooner be applied than to the House of Representatives, for although a long continued fellowship with brother members, gives a member more experience, still he becomes more careless of the interests of his constituents, and paid more attention to maneuvreing for the purpose of keeping himself in power, than he did to the good of the Commonwealth. He meant to say nothing of those patriotic gentlemen in this body who had long served their constituents faithfully as their representa. tives, because there were always exceptions to every rule, but after gentlemen had served their constituents for three years faithfully, they could after one year's retirement be again elected to the place they had before filled so ably, and go back with renewed vigor after a temporary retirement. It had been frequently said, that a man long in office allowed the cob-webs to accumulate in it, and it was necessary a new man should come in to clear them out. The old proverb that, a new broom sweeps clean, would apply in this case as well as in any other he knew of. It had been said, that the officers of the General Government ought to be more frequently changed, and he agreed with gentlemen that frequent changes were necessary ; because be had scarcely ever known it to fail, that where officers had held their situations for many years, they became negligent of duty.

Mr. CLEAVINGER said he entirely favored the proposition of the gentleman from the county of Philadelphia; but he had risen merely to say

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