ABSTRACT
The authors of the American Constitution realized that democratic logic permits few limitations on the public’s choice. The only qualifications they specified for senators are that “he” (the gender limitation was assumed) shall be thirty years of age, nine years a citizen of the United States, and, at the time of election, “an inhabitant of the state for which he shall be chosen.” There is still no prescribed method for training a prospective senator. More than a century ago, Woodrow Wilson wrote:
There cannot be a separate breed of public men reared especially for the Senate. It must be recruited from the lower branches of the representative system … [T]hough it may not be as good as one wished, the Senate is as good as it can be under the circumstances. It contains the most perfect product of our politics, whatever that product may be. 1
