is the House of Commons in Great Britain. The history of
this branch of the English Constitution, anterior to the date of Magna
Charta, is too obscure to yield instruction. The very existence of
it has been made a question among political antiquaries. The earliest
records of subsequent date prove that parliaments were to SIT only every
year; not that they were to be ELECTED every year. And even these annual
sessions were left so much at the discretion of the monarch, that,
under various pretexts, very long and dangerous intermissions were often
contrived by royal ambition. To remedy this grievance, it was provided
by a statute in the reign of Charles II, that the intermissions should
not be protracted beyond a period of three years. On the accession of
William III, when a revolution took place in the government, the subject
was still more seriously resumed, and it was declared to be among the
fundamental rights of the people that parliaments ought to be held
FREQUENTLY. By another statute, which passed a few years later in the
same reign, the term "frequently," which had alluded to the triennial
period settled in the time of Charles II, is reduced to a precise
meaning, it being expressly enacted that a new parliament shall be
called within three years after the termination of the former. The last
change, from three to seven years, is well known to have been introduced
pretty early in the present century, under on alarm for the Hanoverian
succession. From these facts it appears that the greatest frequency of
elections which has been deemed necessary in that kingdom, for binding
the representatives to their constituents, does not exceed a triennial
return of them. And if we may argue from the degree of liberty retained
even under septennial elections, and all the other vicious ingredients
in the parliamentary constitution, we cannot doubt that a reduction of
the period from seven to three years, with the other necessary
reforms, would so far extend the influence of the people over their
representatives as to satisfy us that biennial elections, under the
federal system, cannot possibly be dangerous to the requisite dependence
of the House of Representatives on their constituents.

Elections in Ireland, till of late, were regulated entirely by the
discretion of the crown, and were seldom repeated, except on the
accession of a new prince, or some other contingent event. The
parliament which commenced with George II. was conti