on alike of the federal and of the national
feature in government, in a word, that in the Lower House the
national, and in the upper the federal principle should have
full recognition. This was a departure from the Virginia plan
to the extent that it in effect proposed the establishment of a
federal republic,--in the concrete, that the House should be composed
of representatives chosen directly by the people from districts of
equal population; while representation in the Senate should be that
of the States, each, regardless of population, to have two members,
to be chosen at stated periods by their respective legislatures.

After heated debate, this compromise was carried by a bare majority,
and the provision for popular representation in the House, and
equal State representation in the Senate, became engrafted upon
our Federal Constitution. This feature, an eminent foreign writer has
declared, "is the chief American contribution to the common treasures
of political civilization." The eminent writer, De Tocqueville,
has well said: "The principle of the independence of the States
triumphed in the formation of the Senate, and that of the sovereignty
of the nation in the composition of the House of Representatives."

The success of the Connecticut plan made possible that of other
essential compromises which followed; and the result was, as the
sublime consummation of wise deliberation and patriotic concession,
the establishment of the Government of the United States.

It is the proud boast of the Briton, that "the British Constitution
has no single date from which its duration is to be reckoned,
and that the origin of English law is as undiscoverable as that of
the Nile." Our Government, buttressed upon a written Constitution
of enumerated and logically implied powers, had its historic
beginning upon that masterful day, April 30, 1789, when Washington
took solemn oath of office as our first President.

The Senate of the United States has been truly declared "the greatest
deliberative body known to men." By Constitutional provision it
consists of two members from each State, chosen by the Legislature
thereof, for the term of six years. No person has the legal
qualification for Senator "unless he shall have attained the age
of thirty years, be an inhabitant of the State for which he is
chosen, and have been nine years a citizen of the United States."
No State, without its consent, can ever be deprived, even by
Co