Qualifications of Representatives.—Section 2, Clause 2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
In the original States there was great diversity of qualifications for members of the lower houses of their legislatures. But some uniform system was necessary for the National organization, and so the few simple requirements of this clause were introduced. It is understood, however, that the States may not add other qualifications. While a representative must be an inhabitant of the State in which he is chosen, he need not, so far as the Constitution requires, be an inhabitant of the district. But the instances have been few in which a member of the House has not been also an inhabitant of the district which he represents. According to the English system of representation, a member of the House of Commons frequently represents a borough or county in an entirely different part of the kingdom from that of which he is an inhabitant.
May the House refuse to admit a person duly elected and possessing the necessary qualifications? This question arose in the 56th Congress, in the case of Brigham Roberts of Utah. He was finally excluded.
Present System of Apportioning Representatives.—Section 2 of Amendment XIV contains the rule of apportionment that is now in operation. This became a part of the Constitution, July 28, 1868.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
The second sentence of this section was framed in the belief that the States, rather than lose a portion of their representatives in Congress, would grant the right of suffrage to negroes already declared to be citizens. But proportional reduction of representatives was never put into practical operation, for before the next apportionment of representatives, Amendment XV became a part of the Constitution, and negro suffrage was put on the same basis as white. However, the enforcement of Section 2 of Amendment XIV has been strongly urged in our own time. This is because it is estimated that many thousands have been disfranchised through the restrictions on the right of suffrage found in several of our State constitutions. Some require an educational test and others a property qualification for voting.
The "Indians not taxed" doubtless refers to those Indians who still maintain their tribal relations or who live on reservations in the several States. Their member, according to the census of 1910, was 129,518.
Early Apportionment.—The number of representatives to which each of the States was originally entitled is given in Section 2, Clause 3, of the article we are now considering as follows:—
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
The three-fifths rule was rendered void by the adoption of Amendment XIII, which abolished slavery, since there were no longer the "other persons." That part of the clause which provides for the laying of direct taxes is still in force.