Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
ment that its premise was unsound, and that the power to add qualifications was one that the Constitution denied the States.27
27 Petitioners set forth several other arguments to support their contention that the Convention and ratification debates reveal that the qualifications in the Qualifications Clauses were not intended to be exclusive. We find none of these persuasive.
Petitioners first observe that the notes of Edmund Randolph, who was a member of the Committee of Detail, reveal that an early draft of the Qualifications Clause provided: "The qualifications of (a) delegates shall be the age of twenty-five years at least. and citizenship: (and any person possessing these qualifications may be elected except)." 2 Farrand 139 (footnote omitted). Petitioners suggest that the deletion of the parenthetical material from the Clause suggests that the Framers did not intend the Qualifications Clause to be exclusive. We reject this argument. First, there is no evidence that the draft in Randolph's notes was ever presented to the Convention, and thus the deletion of the Clause tells us little about the views of the Convention as a whole. Moreover, even assuming that the Convention had seen the draft, the deletion of the language without comment is at least as consistent with a belief—as suggested by Dickinson, see n. 9, supra—that the language was superfluous as with a concern that the language was inappropriate. Finally, contrary to the rather ingenious argument advanced in the dissent, see post, at 887-888, it seems to us irrelevant that the draft in question did not include a comparable parenthetical clause referring to "elected" Senators because the draft contemplated that Senators, unlike Representatives, would not be chosen by popular election.
Nor is there merit to the argument that the inclusion in the Committee's final draft of a provision allowing each House to add property qualifications, see 2 Farrand 179, is somehow inconsistent with our holding today. First, there is no conflict between our holding that the qualifications for Congress are fixed in the Constitution and a provision in the Constitution itself providing for property qualifications. Indeed, that is why our analysis is consistent with the other disqualifications contained in the Constitution itself. See n. 2, supra. The Constitution simply prohibits the imposition by either States or Congress of additional qualifications that are not contained in the text of the Constitution. Second, of course, the property provision was deleted, thus providing further evidence that the Framers wanted to minimize the barriers that would exclude the most able citizens from service in the National Government.
Respondent Republican Party of Arkansas also argues that the negative phrasing of the Qualifications Clauses suggests that they were not meant
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