11. When the draft of the completed Constitution was laid before the Congress of the Confederation, did that body make any changes in it before submitting it to the states? 12. Might North Carolina and Rhode Island have remained permanently out of the Union? If so, what would have been their status? 13. Do you think the time has come when the best interests of the country require a new Constitution? What is your opinion of the proposition that the country has outgrown the Constitution? 14. What, in the light of more than a century's experience, do you consider some of the defects of the Constitution? CHAPTER X THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS =The House of Representatives.=--The Constitution provides that the national house of representatives--the lower house of Congress--shall consist of members chosen every second year by popular election. Under the Articles of Confederation members of the old Congress were chosen annually, but that term was too short to enable them to acquire that familiarity with their duties which is essential to efficient legislation. The term of a representative begins on the 4th of March in the odd-numbered years, though Congress does not meet until the first Monday in December following, unless the President calls it together in extraordinary session earlier. =Sessions of Congress.=--There are two regular sessions of every Congress; the long session which begins on the first Monday in December of the odd-numbered years and lasts until some time in the following spring or summer; and the short session which begins on the same date in the even-numbered years and lasts until the 4th of March following, when the terms of all representatives expire. Each Congress is numbered, beginning with the first, which began March 4th, 1789. The sixty-seventh Congress began March 4, 1921, and will end March 4, 1923. Extraordinary sessions are sometimes called by the President to consider matters of special importance which need to be acted upon before the meeting of the regular session. From 1789 to 1921 there were only nineteen such sessions, the last being that called by President Harding to meet in April, 1921, to consider tariff and revenue measures and readjustment of international relationships.