the
executive, however, there were many views. The New Jersey plan called
for a council selected by the Congress; the Virginia plan provided that
the executive branch should be chosen by the Congress but did not state
whether it should be composed of one or several persons. On this matter
the convention voted first one way and then another; finally it agreed
on a single executive chosen indirectly by electors selected as the
state legislatures might decide, serving for four years, subject to
impeachment, and endowed with regal powers in the command of the army
and the navy and in the enforcement of the laws.

_The Legislative Branch--Congress._--After the convention had made the
great compromise between the large and small commonwealths by giving
representation to states in the Senate and to population in the House,
the question of methods of election had to be decided. As to the House
of Representatives it was readily agreed that the members should be
elected by direct popular vote. There was also easy agreement on the
proposition that a strong Senate was needed to check the "turbulence" of
the lower house. Four devices were finally selected to accomplish this
purpose. In the first place, the Senators were not to be chosen directly
by the voters but by the legislatures of the states, thus removing their
election one degree from the populace. In the second place, their term
was fixed at six years instead of two, as in the case of the House. In
the third place, provision was made for continuity by having only
one-third of the members go out at a time while two-thirds remained in
service. Finally, it was provided that Senators must be at least thirty
years old while Representatives need be only twenty-five.

_The Judiciary._--The need for federal courts to carry out the law was
hardly open to debate. The feebleness of the Articles of Confederation
was, in a large measure, attributed to the want of a judiciary to hold
states and individuals in obedience to the laws and treaties of the
union. Nevertheless on this point the advocates of states' rights were
extremely sensitive. They looked with distrust upon judges appointed at
the national capital and emancipated from local interests and
traditions; they remembered with what insistence they had claimed
against Britain the right of local trial by jury and with what
consternation they had viewed the proposal to make colonial judges
independent of the assemblies in the matter