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elected by the people directly, and so long secured even against those who do elect them. -To JOHN TAYLOR. vi, 607. FORD ED., X, 30. (M., 1816.)

7818. SENATE (United States), Rules of. The rules of the [British] Parliament are probably as wisely constructed for governing the debates of a considerative body, and obtaining its true sense, as any which can become known to us; and the acquiescence of the Senate hitherto under the references to them, has given them the sanction of their approbation.-PARLIAMENTARY MANUAL. ix,

3. (1797.) 7819.

I have begun a sketch which those who come after me will successively correct and fill up, till a code of rules shall be formed for the use of the Senate, the effects of which may be accuracy in business, economy of time, order, uniformity, and impartiality.-PARLIAMENTARY MANUAL. ix, 4.

(1797.)

7820.

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7821. SENATE (United States), Wisdom.-The Senate must from its constitution be a wise and steady body.-To C. W. F. DUMAS. ii, 367. (A., 1788.) See CONGRESS and JUDICIARY.

7822. SENATE (Virginia), Defects in. The Senate [of Virginia] is, by its constitution, too homogeneous with the House of Delegates. Being chosen by the same electors, at the same time, and out of the same subjects, the choice falls of course on men of the same description. The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles. Thus in Great Britain it is said their constitution relies on the House of Commons for honesty, and the Lords for wisdom; which would be a rational reliance, if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary. In some of the American States, the delegates and Senators are so chosen, as that the first

7823. SENATE (Virginia), Election of members.-For the election of Senators, let the several counties be allotted by the Senate, from time to time, into such and so many districts as they shall find best; and let each county at the time of electing its delegates, choose senatorial electors, qualified as themselves are, and four in number for each delegate their county is entitled to send, who shall convene, and conduct themselves in such manner as the legislature shall direct, with the senatorial electors from the other counties of their district, and then choose, by ballot, one senator for every six delegates which their district is entitled to choose.-PROPOSED CONSTITUTION FOR VIRGINIA. viii, 443. FORD ED., iii, 323. (1783.)

In the old Congress [of represent the persons, and the second the the confederation] the mode of managing the property of the State. But with us, wealth business of the House was not only unpar- into both houses. We do not, therefore, deand wisdom have equal chance for admission liamentary, but the forms were so awkward rive from the separation of our Legislature and inconvenient that it was impossible sometimes to get at the true sense of the majority. into two houses, those benefits which a proper The House of Representatives of the United complication of principles is capable of proStates are now pretty much in the same sit-ducing, and those which alone can compenuation. In the Senate it is in our power to sate the evils which may be produced by their viii, 361. get into a better way. Our ground is this: dissensions.-NOTES ON VIRGINIA. FORD ED., iii, 223. (1782.) The Senate have established a few rules for their government, and have subjected the decisions on these and on all other points of order without debate, and without appeal, to the judgment of their President. He, for his own sake, as well as theirs, must prefer recurring to some system of rules ready formed; and there can be no question that the parliamentary rules are the best known to us for managing the debates, and obtaining the sense of a deliberative body. I have, therefore, made them my rule of decision, rejecting those of the old Congress altogether, and it gives entire satisfaction to the Senate; insomuch that we shall not only have a good system there, but probably, by the example of its effects, produce a conformity in the other branch. But in the course of this business I find perplexities, * and so little has the parliamentary branch of the law been attended to, that I not only find no person here [Philadelphia], but not even a book to aid me. * * * You will see by the enclosed paper what they are. I know with what pain you write; therefore, I have left a margin in which you can write a simple negative or affirmative opposite every position. This is what I earnestly solicit from you, and I would not give you the trouble if I had any other resource. But you are, in fact, the only spark of parliamentary science now remaining to us. I am the more anxious, because I have been forming a Manual of Parliamentary Law, which I mean to deposit with the Senate as the standard by which I judge, and am willing to be judged.-To GEORGE WYTHE. ix, 5. FORD ED., vii, 426. (Pa., Feb. 1800.) See PARLIAMENTARY LAW.

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SENATORS (United States), Election of. See CONSTITUTION (Federal).

7824. SENATORS (United States), Term of office.-The term of office to our Senate, like that of the judges, is too long for my approbation.-TO JAMES MARTIN. vi, 213. FORD ED., ix, 420. (M., Sep. 1813.)

7825. SENECA, Moral system of.-Seneca is a fine moralist, disfiguring his work at times with some Stoicisms and affecting too much antithesis and point, yet giving us on the whole a great deal of sound and practical morality.-TO WILLIAM SHORT. vii, 139. FORD ED., X, 144. (M., 1819.)

7826. SENILITY, Abhorrent.-Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.-To JOHN ADAMS. vii, 27. (M., 1816.)

7827. SENILITY, Unconscious.-The misfortune of a weakened mind is an insensibility of its weakness.-TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON. vii, 405. (M., 1825.)

7828. SENSE, Directed by.-The good sense of our people w 11 direct the boat ultimately to its proper point.-To MARQUIS LAFAYETTE. FORD ED., X, 234. (M., 1822.)

7829. SENSE, National.—My chief object is to let the good sense of the nation have fair play, believing it will best take care of itself. To DR. JOSEPH PRiestley. FORD ED., viii, 181. (W., 1802.)

7830. SENSE, People and.-I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army.-To EDWARD CARRINGTON. ii, 99. FORD ED., iv, 359. (P., 1787.)

7831.

I have such reliance on the good sense of the body of the people, and the honesty of their leaders, that am not afraid of their letting things go wrong to any length in any cause.-To M. DUMAS. ii, 358. (P., 1788.)

7832. The operations which have lately taken place in America [adoption of Constitution] fill me with pleasure. They realize the confidence I had, that whenever our affairs go, obviously wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose, and set them to rights. -TO DAVID HUMPHREYS. iii, 12. FORD ED., V, 89. (P., 1789.)

7833. SENSE, Republicanism and.-It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back. -To ARTHUR CAMPBELL. iv, 198. FORD ED., vii, 170. (M., 1797.) See COMMON SENSE.

7834. SERVICE, Civic.-Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him.-To F. W. GILMER. vii, 3. FORD ED., X, 32. (M., 1816.)

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See DUTY. 7835. SERVICE, Credit for.-The inquiries in your printed letter would lead to the writing the history of my whole life, than which nothing could be more repugnant to my feelings. I have been connected, as many fellow laborers were, with the great events which happened to mark the epoch of our lives. these belong to no one in particular, all of us did our parts, and no one can claim the transactions to himself.-To SKELTON JONES. v, 462. (M., 1809.)

But

7836. I was only of a band devoted to the cause of Independence, all of whom exerted equally their best endeavors for its success, and have a common right to the merits of its acquisition. So also is the civil revolution of 1801. Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack.-To WILLIAM T. BARRY. vii, 255. (M., 1822.)

7837. SERVICE, Old age and.-Had it been my good fortune to preserve at the age of seventy, all the activity of body and mind which I enjoyed in earlier life, I should have employed it now, as then, in incessant labors to serve those to whom I could be useful.To M. DE LOMERIE. vi, 107. (M., 1813.)

7838. SERVICE, Rendering.-Nothing makes me more happy than to render any service in my power, of whatever description.-To SAMUEL OSGOOD. i, 451. (P., 1785.)

7839. SERVICE, Reward of.-If, in the course of my life, it has been in any degree useful to the cause of humanity, the fact itself bears its full reward.-TO DAVID BARROW. vi, 456. FORD ED., ix, 515. (M., 1815.)

7840. SERVICE, Tours of.-You say I must not make my final exit from public life till it will be marked with just fying circumstances which all good citizens will respect. and to which my friends can appeal". To my fellow-citizens the debt of service has been fully and faithfully paid. I acknowledge that such a debt exists, that a tour of duty, in whatever line he can be most useful to his country. is due from every individual. It is not easy, perhaps, to say of what length exactly this tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slavenot even of a very large portion of it. I have now been in the public service four and twenty years; one-half of which has been spent in total occupation with their affairs, and absence from my own. I have served my tour then. No positive engagement, by word or deed, binds me to ther further service. No commitment of their interests in any enterprise by me requires that I should see them through it. I am pledged by no act which gives any tribunal a call upon me before I withdraw. Even my enemies do not pretend this. I stand clear, then, of public right on all points. My friends I have not committed. No circumstances have attended my passage from office to office, which could lead them, and others through them, into deception as to the time I might remain, and particularly they and all have known with what reluctance I engaged and have continued in the present one [Secretary of State], and of my uniform determination to retire from it at an early day. If the public, then, has no claim on me, and my friends nothing to justify, the decision will rest on my own feelings alone. There has been a time when these were very different from what they are now; when perhaps the esteem of the world was of higher value in my eye than everything in it. But age, experience and reflection preserving to that only its due value, have set a higher on tranquillity.-To JAMES MADISON. 111. 577. FORD ED., vi, 290. (June 1793.) See JEF

FERSON.

7841. SHAYS'S REBELLION, Conduct and motives of.-Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconce ve. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.-To W. S. SMITH. i, 318. FORD ED.. iv, 467. (P., 1787.)

7842. SHAYS'S REBELLION, European opinion of.-The tumults in America, I expected, would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the

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