uccessive alterations.

Uniformity in the time of elections seems not less requisite for
executing the idea of a regular rotation in the Senate, and for
conveniently assembling the legislature at a stated period in each year.

It may be asked, Why, then, could not a time have been fixed in the
Constitution? As the most zealous adversaries of the plan of the
convention in this State are, in general, not less zealous admirers of
the constitution of the State, the question may be retorted, and it
may be asked, Why was not a time for the like purpose fixed in the
constitution of this State? No better answer can be given than that it
was a matter which might safely be entrusted to legislative discretion;
and that if a time had been appointed, it might, upon experiment, have
been found less convenient than some other time. The same answer may be
given to the question put on the other side. And it may be added that
the supposed danger of a gradual change being merely speculative, it
would have been hardly advisable upon that speculation to establish,
as a fundamental point, what would deprive several States of the
convenience of having the elections for their own governments and for
the national government at the same epochs.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 62

The Senate

For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, February 27, 1788

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

HAVING examined the constitution of the House of Representatives, and
answered such of the objections against it as seemed to merit notice, I
enter next on the examination of the Senate. The heads into which this
member of the government may be considered are: I. The qualification of
senators; II. The appointment of them by the State legislatures;
III. The equality of representation in the Senate; IV. The number of
senators, and the term for which they are to be elected; V. The powers
vested in the Senate.

I. The qualifications proposed for senators, as distinguished from those
of representatives, consist in a more advanced age and a longer period
of citizenship. A senator must be thirty years of age at least; as a
representative must be twenty-five. And the former must have been a
citizen nine years; as seven years are required for the latter. The
propriety of these distinctions is explained by the nature of the
senatorial trust, which, requiring greater extent of information and
stability of character, requires at the same time that the