When President Harding took office (1921) he gave Vice President Coolidge a seat at the Cabinet table. Theretofore the Vice President had been practically apart from the executive affairs of the Nation. Of course much of his time is devoted to the Legislative Department as the constitutional presiding officer of the Senate.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

24 The "concurrence of two thirds of the members present" in an impeachment trial may produce widely varying numerical results. To illustrate: in 1922 the Senate has ninety-six members, of whom forty-nine (a majority) are a quorum for doing business. If the whole membership should be present the two thirds necessary to impeach would be sixty-four. But if only the quorum of forty-nine should be present, the accused might be convicted by two thirds of that number, or by thirty-three.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States: 25

25 This means that none of the imprisonments, confiscations of property, or degradations of name and family, common under European law, should be known to our

system of government. Any law of Congress prescribing punishments upon impeachment beyond those named the courts would be in duty bound to declare void and for that reason to decline to give it effect.

but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.26

26 That is, if one be impeached and removed from an office of honor, trust, or profit because of theft or other crime, he will, notwithstanding the judgment in impeachment, be liable to punishment for such theft or other crime.

Section 4. The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. 26a

26 This provision respecting the time and manner of holding elections was not touched by Congress until 1842, when it was enacted that members of the House of Representatives should be elected by districts. Until that time they had been elected by "general ticket", each voter in a State voting for as many candidates as the State was entitled to; but that method gave undue preponderance of power to the political party having a majority of votes in the State, when it might not have a majority in each district.

In 1872, to cure various evils, Congress required all elections for the House to be held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, beginning in 1876.

To prevent the failure of the election of a senator by the legislature, where one House voted for one candidate

and the other for another and they refused to reconcile their differences, Congress directed the two bodies to meet in joint session on a fixed day and required their meeting every day thereafter.

Congress also fixed the day for the voting in all States for President and Vice President, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

In 1921 the Supreme Court of the United States passed upon the Corrupt Practices Act of Congress of June 25, 1910, which forbids a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives or for a seat in the Senate to contribute or expend "in procuring his nomination and election any sum, in the aggregate, in excess of the amount which he may lawfully give, contribute, expend or promise, under the laws of the State in which he resides." The defendant was charged with having made use of more money than the law of his State permitted, not in an effort to control a nominating convention or a general election, but in the primary election which has in some of the States superseded the nominating convention. The decision was that the Act of Congress could not constitutionally include the primary election. The selection of a party candidate who will later run for election "is in no real sense", said the Court, "part of the manner of holding the election." However the candidate may be offered - by convention, by primary, by petition, or voluntarily that "does not directly affect", said the Court, "the manner of holding the election." The "manner of holding elections for Senators" is the only subject, the Supreme Court held, that the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate.

Elections in the United States to-day are cleanness itself in comparison with what they were in earlier years and in England. "The elections for the new Parliament which met in 1768," says Green's "English People", Section 1501, "were more corrupt than any that had as yet been witnessed; and even the stoutest opponents of

reform shrank aghast from the open bribery of constituencies and the prodigal barter of seats."

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year,27 and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

27 This rendered impossible such conflicts as existed in England when the King convened and dissolved Parliament at pleasure; and when, in retaliation, Parliament resolved that it could be dismissed only by its own action. During those troublous times the Short Parliament sat three weeks and the Long Parliament over nineteen years. Charles I ruled England eleven years (1629-1640) without calling a Parliament. He obtained money for his needs by so-called loans from wealthy barons, by taxes upon ships, which were called tonnage, by many kinds of fines for trumped-up offenses, and by reviving monopolies which Elizabeth and other Tudor sovereigns had employed. The hopes of the country were finally raised by the sitting of the so-called Short Parliament, which was abruptly dismissed by the King at the end of three weeks because it would not vote money to carry on a war against the Scots. With England in defection and the Scots invading the North, Charles was driven (1640) "with wrath and shame in his heart" to "summon again the Houses to Westminster." This was the Long Parliament, which lasted for nearly twenty years. This Parliament having determined upon perpetuating itself, Cromwell and his soldiers dissolved it. "But you mistake, sir," said John Bradshaw, "if you think the Parliament dismissed. No power on earth can dissolve the Parliament but itself, be sure of that!" Subsequently it was revived and again expelled. In 1640 it called the election of a new Parliament and then dissolved itself.

As far back as the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) it had been enacted that Parliament "should be held every year or oftener if need be"; but Hallam ("Constitutional History of England") says that this enactment had been respected in no age. A complaint in the Declaration of Independence was that King George III "has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion of the rights of the people; he has refused for a long time after such dissolution to cause others to be elected."

The Canadian Constitution requires a session of Parliament every year, and it forbids that twelve months intervene between sessions, and the like provision is in the Australian Constitution and in the Constitution of South Africa.

It is required by the Constitution of Brazil that the National Congress (the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies) shall convene every year in May for four months. The duration of a Congress is three years, as compared with ours of two years.

The Constitution of France requires the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate to convene at least once each year for at least five months, and the sessions of the Houses must begin and end together.

In Froissart's time (1396) it was the custom (Chronicles, Ch. 174) for the English Parliament to sit in the King's palace at Westminster for forty days; but as Richard II was going to Calais to marry Isabella of France, he attended only five days and that ended the session.

Until May, 1789, the month after Washington entered upon his duties as President, the States General of France had not been convened by the King for 175 years. Upon coming together they immediately precipitated the Revolution.

Enough has been stated to make plain what lies back of this clause for orderly and stable government, which has been copied throughout the world.