Madison said, If we aren't careful, the President will serve at the pleasure
of the Legislature. The Senate, he said. And then they went to "treason
and bribery," and somebody said, that's still not quite enough, and so they
went to "treason, bribery" and George Mason added, "or other high
crimes and misdemeanors against the United States."
And they voted on it and on Sept. 10 they sent the entire Constitution to a
committee they called the Committee on Style and Arrangement, which
was the committee that would draft the language in a way that everybody
would understand. It would be well-crafted, from a grammatical
standpoint. But that committee, which was dominated by Madison and
Hamilton, dropped "against the United States."
And historians will tell you that the reason they did that was because it
was redundant. Because that committee had no right to change the
substance of anything, and they would not have dropped it if they hadn't
felt that it was redundant. And then they put in for good measure -- and
we can always be grateful -- the two-thirds majority.
nytimes.com
Full Text: Dale Bumpers, Former
Democratic Senator From Arkansas |
