[163] Cf. American History and Government, § 205 b. The first census was taken in 1790, the second year of the new government, and one has been taken in the closing year of each decade since.
[164] The First Congress made the number 33,000. It is now (1911) 193,284.
[165] Superseded by the Seventeenth Amendment.
[166] Precedents for this principle of "partial renewals" were found in several State Constitutions.
[167] What is the antecedent?
[168] A law of 1872 requires all Representatives to be chosen on "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November" in each even-numbered year; and a law of 1871 had already ordered that all such elections should be by ballot. An Act of 1866 provided a uniform method of electing Senators: the legislation of each state (in which such an election is to be made) to vote first in separate Houses, and, if no one candidate received a majority in each House, then thereafter in joint session, taking at least one ballot daily until some candidate received a majority, or until the legislative session came to an end without an election. Forty-seven years later (1913), this law was superseded by the Seventeenth Amendment.
[169] How does this compare with the rule of the Articles of Confederation?
[170] This paragraph, designed to prevent corruption by direct use of the executive patronage, was vehemently opposed by Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris. See also a similar clause in Articles of Confederation.
[171] The first veto provision in a State Constitution (New York, 1777) ran as follows:—
"Section III. And whereas laws inconsistent with the spirit of this constitution, or with the public good, may be hastily and unadvisedly passed: Be it ordained that the governor for the time being, the chancellor, and the judges of the supreme court, or any two of them together with the governor, shall be and hereby are constituted a council to revise all bills about to be passed into laws by the legislature. ... [Provision for veto procedure and reconsideration in language essentially the same as in Massachusetts provision given below.]