It was quite possible, as all were ready to concede, that the time might arrive, when the qualification of so extended a period of citizenship as seven years might not be practically very important; since the people, after having been long accustomed to the duty of selecting their representatives, would not often be induced to confer their suffrages upon a foreigner recently admitted to the position of a citizen. The mischiefs, too, that might be apprehended from such appointments would be far less, after the policy of the government had been settled and the fundamental legislation necessary to put the Constitution into activity had been accomplished. But the first Congress that might be assembled under the Constitution would have a work of great magnitude and importance to perform. Indeed, the character which the government was to assume would depend upon the legislation of the few first years of its existence. Its commercial regulations would then be mainly determined. The relations of the country with foreign nations, its position towards Europe, its rights and duties of neutrality, its power to maintain a policy of its own, would all then be ascertained and settled. Nothing, therefore, could be more important, than to prevent persons having foreign attachments from insinuating themselves into the public councils; and with this great leading object in view, the Convention refused, though by a mere majority only of the States, to exempt from the rule those foreigners who had been made citizens under the naturalization laws of the States.[138]