Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/595

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CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT.
559

College; was Attorney-General of New Jersey, 1866-69. Appointed Secretary of the Navy, June 25, 1869.

5. Secretary of the Interior.—Columbus Delano, born at Shoreham, Vermont, 1809; removed to Mount Vermont, Ohio, 1817; admitted to the bar, 1831; elected representative of Ohio, in the 29th Congress, 1844; Commissary-General of Ohio, 1861; re-elected representative of Ohio in Congress, 1863 and 1865. Appointed Secretary of the Interior, October 29, 1870.

6. Postmaster-General.—John Cresswell, born in the State of Maryland, 1828; studied law, and graduated at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania; admitted to the bar in Maryland, 1850, and elected a member of the State Legislature, 1861; elected member of Congress 1863, and United States Senator, 1865. Appointed Postmaster-General, March 5, 1869.

7. Attorney-General—Amos T. Akerman, born in the State of New Hampshire, 1819; admitted to the bar 1841; removed from New Hampshire to Elberton, Georgia, 1850; United States Attorney for Georgia, 1866-70. Appointed Attorney-General, June 15, 1870.

Each of the above ministers has an annual salary of 8,000 dollars currency, or 1,200 ₤. All hold office under the will of the president.

The whole legislative power is vested by the constitution in a Congress, consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives. The Senate, or Upper House, consists of two members from each State, chosen by the State legislatures for six years. Senators must be not less than thirty years of age; must have been citizens of the United States for nine years; and be residents in the State for which they are chosen. Besides its legislative capacity, the Senate is invested with certain judicial functions, and its members constitute a High Court of Impeachment. The judgment only extends to removal from office and disqualification. Representatives have the sole power of impeachment.

The House of Representatives, or Lower House, is composed of members elected every second year by the vote of all male citizens over the age of 21 of the several States of the Union. To ascertain the number of members to which each State is entitled, a census is taken every ten years. By the law of May 23rd, 1850, under which the existing apportionment of representatives was originally made, it was enacted that the number of representatives in Congress should be 233, that the representative population determined by the census of that year and thereafter should be divided by said number 233, and that the quotient so found should be the ratio of representation for the several States. The ratio thus ascertained under the census of 1860 was 124,183; and upon this basis the 233 representatives were apportioned among the several States—one representative for every district containing that number