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.
SECTION II.
I. The house of representatives shall be composed of members, chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.
II. 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.
III. 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 servitude for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.[[63]] 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 30,000, 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.
IV. When vacancies happen in the representation from any state, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.
V. The house of representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
Much was said in the convention on the question of the elective franchise. Franklin’s argument is worth remembering. He was opposed to any restriction on the right of suffrage. He said that it was of “great consequence not to depress the virtue and public spirit of the common people, of which they had displayed a great deal during the war, and which contributed principally to the favourable issue of it; and he did not think that the elected had any right, in any case, to narrow the privileges of the electors;” and universal suffrage was established. A member of the house must be twenty-five years of age, and have been for seven years a citizen of the United States, being an inhabitant, at the time he is elected, of the State for which he is chosen. No person, however, holding any civil office under the authority of the United States, can, at the same time, become a member of congress.
By the constitutional rule of appointment, three-fifths of the slaves in the Southern States are computed in establishing the appointment of the representatives of the lower house, which is supposed to be delegated by the free citizens of the United States. This is considered as a necessary consequence of the previously existing state of domestic slavery in that portion of the country.