_This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or
term of any senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the
Constitution_.
This provision makes the Senate a permanent body, since only one-third
of the members go out of office every two years. In the first session of
the first Congress, the senators were divided into three classes. It has
been the custom to place the senators from new States in different
classes. This is done in order to preserve, so far as possible, the
equality of numbers in each class. Besides, a State is thus enabled to
keep one man of experience in the Senate. When a new State is admitted,
the senators from that State determine by lot, drawn in the presence of
the Senate, which classes they are to enter.
Qualifications of Senators.--Section 3, Clause 3. _No person shall
be a senator who shall not hove 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 from which he shall be chosen_.
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