826
Opinion of the Court
state officers,38 four placed limits on delegates to the Continental Congress,39 and several States voiced support for term limits for Members of Congress.40 Despite this widespread support, no State sought to impose any term limits on its own federal representatives. Thus, a proper assessment of contemporaneous state practice provides further persuasive evidence of a general understanding that the qualifications in the Constitution were unalterable by the States.41
space of [blank] after the expiration of their term of service"). See also n. 22, supra.
38 See, e. g., G. Wood, Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, p. 140 (1969) (noting that 7 of the 10 State Constitutions drafted in 1776- 1777 provided for term limits on their state executives); see also App. to Brief for State Petitioner 1b-34b (describing provisions of State Constitutions).
39 3 Thorpe 1695-1697 (Maryland); 4 id., at 2467 (New Hampshire); 5 id., at 3085 ((Pennsylvania); 5 id., at 2793 (North Carolina).
40 New York attached to its ratification a list of proposed amendments and "enjoin[ed] it upon their representatives in Congress to exert all their influence, and use all reasonable means, to obtain a ratification." 1 Elliot's Debates 329. One of the proposed amendments was "That no person be eligible as a senator for more than six years in any term of twelve years." Id., at 330. In Virginia, the Convention similarly "enjoin[ed] it upon their representatives," 2 Bailyn 564, to adopt "a Declaration or Bill of Rights," id., at 558, which would include the statement that members of the Executive and Legislative Branches "should at fixed periods be reduced to a private station, return into the mass of the people; and the vacancies be supplied by certain and regular elections; in which all or any part of the former members to be eligible or ineligible, as the rules of the Constitution of Government, and the laws shall direct," id., at 559. The North Carolina Convention proposed nearly identical language, see id., at 566, though that Convention ultimately did not ratify the Constitution, see 4 Elliot's Debates 250-251. Thus, at least three States proposed some form of constitutional amendment supporting term limits for Members of Congress.
41 Petitioners and the dissent also point out that Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina added district residency requirements, and petitioners note that New Jersey and Connecticut established nominating processes for congressional candidates. They rely on
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