Section 4 - Elections, Meetings
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 Place of Chusing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall (be on the first Monday in December,) (The preceding words in parentheses were superseded by the 20th Amendment, section 2.) unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
Amendment 20 - Presidential, Congressional Terms. Ratified 1/23/1933.
2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Wouldn't bother me abit if they met once a year, but that would be crazy. Okay -- once a month would be fine.
5 comments:
another section that is pretty cut and dry. there are a couple of implications that can be derived from this section though.
that implication being that the founding fathers saw the federal government as having so little powers that Congress could do their job in a short period of time. in other words they did not see the role of a Congressman as a full time job.
this implication could be carried out a little further by saying that the most important job of Congress was to create a budget for the federal government for the next year.
the second implication would be that the day in and day out duties of the federal government could be carried out by the the office of the Presidency. and this might have been the reason for creating the third branch of the federal government in this Constitution since it wasn't in the first Constitution.
Since these are only implications, further reading or additional evidence could prove me wrong.
Not that I want to prove you wrong but I'll do that reading tonight. Think that I may speed up this little project by doing the entire artical or cutting it to a one day between sections. I don't know, but since its me and you kiddo - what do you think?
its your project, my friend. I'm just enjoying it.
As for proving me wrong, I have no problem with that. Learning something new is always a positive for me even when that learning proves me wrong in my assumptions.
this project has given me new thoughts on what the fathers were trying to accomplish just as the implications above were thoughts I never had before.
Griper -- I searched thru the Federist papers and as lenghthy as they are I couldn't really find anything definitely pretaining to the reasoning to why they would consider just a mininal amount other than just knowing that history had proven it grows government and something interesting to me. In I think it was papers 57-59?, the corruption that comes with human nature of power.
I wasn't trying to prove wrongs or rights, just trying to ease my own thoughts and questions on your implications brought forth.
As you know the federalist papers bring keen insight to their thought process of writing the Constitution. I know with more research into them, the answers may be found.
Thank you for giving me a new line of reasoning and challenges of thought. sharky
I understand Sharky.
My reasoning was based on simple deduction which is why I acknowledged that I may be wrong.
1. they had Congress meet at the end of the year instead of the beginning of the year.
2. they set up the government in such a way that the President could only execute laws not make them. thus any laws he could enforce had to be enacted first.
3. the collection of taxes was the primary reason for the need of a new Constitution. in the old Constitution, States was suppose to pay the tax on a voluntary and consensual basis. in the new one, the people were taxed.
4. the federal government was set up for the primary purpose of foreign affairs. and in that area most of the power was given to the office of the Presidency.
5. and where treaties needed affirmation, the only house necessary to meet was the Senate to give advice and consent.
6. the only reason for the house to meet were for bills in regards to money to be spent since all bills dealing with money must originate in the house.
6. the day to day affairs in regards to the governing of the people were a part of the powers that the States kept.
Post a Comment