The President Is Elected By Universal Suffrage, Once In Four Years.
He
receives a salary of 5000l. per annum, and is assisted by five
secretaries, who, with two other executive officers, are paid at the rate
of 1600l. a-year.
This officer has considerable power and enormous patronage. He makes
treaties, which merely require the ratification of the Senate; he grants
pardons, and may place his veto on the acts of the two other estates,
provided that they have not been returned by two-thirds of the members of
the respective houses.
There are sixty-two Senators, or two from each State. These are elected by
the local legislatures for a term of six years, and one-third of the
number retire every two years. Each Senator must be thirty years of age;
he must be a resident of the State which he represents, and he must have
been naturalised for nine years.
The Lower House, or House of Representatives, is perhaps the most purely
popular body in the world. The members are elected for two years by
universal suffrage, that is, by the votes of all the free male citizens of
America who have attained the age of 21. Each member of the Lower House
must have been naturalised for seven years, and he must have passed the
age of 25. Population has been taken as the basis of representation, in
the following very simple manner. The number of Representatives was fixed
by Act of Congress at 233, although a new one has recently been added for
California.
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