18 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

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.
In re Green, 134 U. S. 377. Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U S. 58.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have
attained to the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years
a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected,
be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

tend to advance the interests of the Union if the States by which they were
respectively delegated would concur, and use their endeavors to procure
the concurrence of the other States, in the appointment of commissioners
to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday of May following, to take
Into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise such
further provisions as should appear to them necessary to render the Con-
stitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the
Union; and to report such an act for that purpose to the United States m
Congress assembled as, when agreed to by them and afterwards confirmed
by the Legislatures of every State, would effectually provide (or the same.

Congress, on the 21st of February, 1787, adopted a resolution in favor of
a convention, and the Legislatures of those States which had not already
done so (with the exception of Rhode Island) promptly appointed delegates
On the 25th of May, seven States having convened, George Washington,
of Virginia, was unanimously elected President, and the consideration of
the proposed constitution was commenced On the 17th of September,
1787, the Constitution as engrossed and agreed upon was signed by all the
members present, except Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, and Messrs Mason
and Randolph, of Virginia The president of the convention transmitted
it to Congress, with a resolution stating how the proposed Federal "Govern-
ment should be put in operation, and an explanatory letter Congress, on
the 28th of September, 1787, directed the Constitution so framed, with the
resolutions and letter concerning the same, to "be transmitted to the
several Legislatures m order to be submitted to a convention of delegates
chosen in each State by the people thereof, in conformity to the resolves of
the convention. "

On the 4th of March, 1789, the day which had been fixed for commencing
the operations of Government under the new Constitution, it had been
ratified by the conventions chosen in each State to consider it, as follows:
Delaware, December 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787; New
Jersey, December 18, 1787; Georgia, January 2, 1788; Connecticut, January
9, 1788; Massachusetts, February 6, 1788; Maryland, April 26, 1788; South
Carolina, May 23, 1788, New Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June
26, 1788; and New York, July 26, 1788.