Section III of Article I of the Constitution is all about the Senate. When reading the original Section III before modern amendments, right away one might notice some differences in the Senate today from when the Founders created it, and I have found that most Americans are surprised. Article I, Section III, Clause I of the Constitution States, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.”The first, third and fourth parts have not changed: each state has two senators, each senator serves for six years, and each senator has one vote. The number of senators was a result of the “Great Compromise.” One of the largest points of contention in drafting the Constitution was should representation be the same for all states as it was in the Articles of Confederation or should representation be based on population of the state. As you can guess the larger states wanted proportional representation, but smaller states wanted equality. New Hampshire for one instructed its delegates to vote against any document that had proportional representation. These smaller states had become used to equal power in the Articles of Confederation. This debate was so contentious that a special committee was formed to make a final decision. It was decided that the lower house, the House of Representatives, the house that represented the people directly should be based on population while the upper house, the Senate, the house that represented the states or the elites as it mimicked the House of Lords back in England should be equal, two each. Having the Senate equal also protected the states from new amendments to the Constitution. In the House, larger states would have the votes necessary to get a two-thirds majority to pass any amendment over the smaller ones, but it would be impossible to do so in the Senate.If how senators were chosen might sound confusing and shows that there was not originally as much democracy as we often think, “[Senators were]chosen by the Legislature thereof.” According to the original Constitution, members of the House of Representatives were the only positions elected by the people. The members of the Senate were not chosen by the people until an amendment changed it in 1913. This goes back to the discussion of a republic verses a democracy.
