HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

government. The popular branch of the legislature. 2. The Constitution of the United States, art. 1, s. 2, 1, provides, that the house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of, the several states; and the electors of each state, shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. 3. The general qualifications of electors of the assembly, or most numerous branch of the legislature, in the several state governments, are, that they be of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, and free resident citizens of the state in which they vote, and have paid taxes: several of the state constitutions have prescribed the same or higher qualifications, as to property, in the elected, than in the electors. 4. The constitution of the United States, however, requires no evidence of property in the representatives, nor any declarations as to his religious belief. He must be free from undue bias or dependence, by not holding any office under the United States. Art. 1, s. 6, 2. 5. By the constitutions of the several states, the most numerous branch of the legislature generally bears the name of the house of representatives. Vide Story on Constitution of the United States, chap. 9 1 Kent’s Com. 228. 6. … the house of representatives shall be composed of members elected agreeably to a ratio of one representative for every … persons in each state, and of one additional representative for each state having a fraction greater than one moiety of the said ratio, computed according to the rule prescribed by the constitution of the United States; 7.Section 2. That in every case where a state is entitled to more than one representative, the number to which each state shall be entitled under this apportionment shall be elected by districts. composed of contiguous territory, equal in number to the number of representatives to which said state may be entitled, no one district electing more than one representative.