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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
Leon de Nicaragua July 31st 1858. respecting the Declaration signed m Rivas 1st May. No. 2654. "NATIONALITY" IN EL NACIONAL, VOL. I, NO. VIII Leon, Nicaragua July 31, 1858 [Translation from the Spanish.] It is proper likewise that the representatives should at least be resi- dents of the Department to which the district or division which ap- poi:r;i.ts them may belong and that the senators be residents of the State which they are to represent for two years before their election in order to avoid the people appointing them without knowing them, with the mis- taken idea of freedom of choice in electing them from the republic at large, and in order to avoid the parties seeking their followers in the farthest corners in order to appoint them. Thus, we will have rep- resentatives actuated by the opinions of their people, who may know their sufferings and their necessities, and who on their return may inform them of how they have been remedied, and of all the rest that may have been done in the matter of legislation, government, and national justice. With respect to the senators securing the same rela- tive advantages for their respective States, they may likewise guard against the inconveniences which must result to the State that ap- points them from the outside; in the same proportion that the one is lacking in its representation, the other of those [deputies and senators 1 who had been appointed from residence would double its representa- tion and perhaps triple it with equal blunders that the other State would commit, because men are always affected by their surroundings and what touches nearest t-0 their comfort. (The Constitution of 24 did not require residence for a Deputy nor for a Senator, leaving the liberty of appointing them from the Republic at large. Over and above all the defects, which already have been related in the foregoing notes, let us consider what this poorly conceived liberty would pro- duce; the deputies would not know the people· who appointed them, neithei: would the senators, nor would they need for their small func- tions to know the authorities of the State which they represented, nor have any relations with them: the parties on directing the elections, would seek their followers and if they did not find any within the elec- toral district, they would stretch their vision over all the Republic, and discovering him they would have him appointed and they would call him even though he were in the farthest corner. What good could such an election produce? when those who sought to choose would not know the one chosen? This very enormous defect of the Constitution of 24, was also chosen by the reform of 35, because it was not possible to bring it about, that many interested in being appointed in this vicious and prejudicial manner, which existed in the Congress, would not wish to renounce the right which that gave them of being able to be elected deputies or senators from the whole republic. In all the States of the North residence is demanded for these offices as has been said of the National Constitution of those same States, and the State which demanded least, demands the residence of the appointee in the place at the time of thEt election.)
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