Section 3
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.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
The Senate shall chuse,(sic) their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
The framers of the Constitution created the United States Senate to protect the rights of individual states and safeguard minority opinion in a system of government designed to give greater power to the national government. They modeled the Senate on governors’ councils of the colonial era and on the state senates that had evolved since independence. The framers intended the Senate to be an independent body of responsible citizens who would share power with the president and the House of Representatives. James Madison, paraphrasing Edmund Randolph, explained in his notes that the Senate’s role was “first to protect the people against their rulers [and] secondly to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.” (SOURCE:https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Origins_Development.htm)
To balance power between the large and small states, the Constitution’s framers agreed that states would be represented equally in the Senate and in proportion to their populations in the House. Further preserving the authority of individual states, they provided that state legislatures would elect senators. To guarantee senators’ independence from short-term political pressures, the framers designed a six-year Senate term, three times as long as that of popularly elected members of the House of Representatives. Madison reasoned that longer terms would provide stability. “If it not be a firm body,” he concluded, “the other branch being more numerous, and coming immediately from the people, will overwhelm it.”
The Senate was invented, in part, to slow things down and hold things back. It was meant to be a check on the President, the House of Representatives and popular passions.
“The Founding Fathers hoped there would not be parties.”
But they certainly foresaw the possibility of gridlock, and they weren’t necessarily against it. They intended that the Senate should stop, deliberate, ponder and amend legislation more cautiously than the House. The Senate would “check the inconsiderate and hasty proceedings” of the House, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut explained at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Emboldened by a sense that President Trump is vulnerable and that they could oppose him with impunity, Democrats have laid waste to most of his legislative agenda this year. Whether they displayed the “weight and wisdom” that the authors of the Constitution hoped to find in senators is a matter, at the very least, for debate.
But the Senate’s performance was “not inconsistent” with the Founders’ intentions. “They felt that you don’t want the people’s representatives running free,” he said. “They saw the Senate as a check on popular passions, and they saw the people who would sit in the Senate as generally more conservative” than the House.
If something awful happens to someone you don’t know, or perhaps dislike, you are likely to ignore it in the first instance, or may even applaud it in the latter instance.
If something awful happens to you or your loved ones, well, that’s a different story altogether. There will be no applause from you; there will be scorn and retribution if you can make that happen.
As the old saying goes; “It all depends on whose ox is gored.
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