have meant that the federal charter was ambiguous or weak, and that gray areas of federal activity had to be compensated for by dumping every official who had served long enough to learn how to enrich himself in the dark shadows of the system. The Constitution has no real gray areas, no shadows, no ambiguities. But because the anti-federalists provoked imaginary concerns, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay went to great lengths to explain exactly what was intended in all seven articles of the new Constitution. The efforts of these three men resulted in a compilation of enduring political analysis, The Federalist Papers. From this authoritative resource we learn much about the powers delegated to our federal government and those reserved to the states. According to Alexander Hamilton, the states did not reserve the power to determine qualifications for federal office. In The Federalist, #60, he explained: "The state's authority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the times, the places, and the manner, of elections. The qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the legislature". In Article I, Section 5 the Constitution further reserves to Congress the power to judge the qualifications of its members. Any restriction that is "fixed in the Constitution," can be "unfixed" only by an amendment. But the adoption of a term limit amendment would signal that disobedience to the Constitution is a forgivable sin, that a strict construction of its meaning is not necessary, that the Constitution does not really mean what it says, that impeachment is unthinkable, and that bad conduct will be tolerated for a specified number of terms. After all, if legislators were held to their oaths of office, there would not be a need for term limits. Such an amendment would drive the final nail into the coff...
