Section 2
A recap of yesterday: The birth of Congress, the very one that has lasted to today. I’m sure some of you have heard of the Articles of Confederation. They made each newly minted state a member of a loose Confederation to say the least. Since America reached its Independence from 1776 to the election of George Washington in 1789 there were Presidents of the United States. They just weren’t presidents under the current system of government, that’s why you really haven’t heard of him. Remember John Hancock? He was one of them.
Now then onto the next piece of the constitution. Some sections are brief, amounting to just a sentence. Some are several paragraphs long. I will try to keep the information as digestible as possible. Onward:
Section 2: 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.
that isn’t all for Section 2, it is definitely a long passage, which is good, because the more fleshed-out the document is, the less chance of detrimental “interpretation” which, even though equality of the actual citizens and denizens of the USA was a LONG way off from 1789, at least the concept was there.
Oh, and a translation of this legal-ese masterpiece? Representatives elected every two years based on the population of the state.
I want to take this sentence by sentence, not only to keep your interest, but so it is way more understandable. Also, there is some splicing of the original document with the advent of 19th and 20th century amendments.
tomorrow: More on the length and breadth of a US House of Representatives Representatives!