As to the power of nominating Senators, that was not a characteristic peculiar to the Brazilian legal order, but to something common in all countries of that era. In the United Kingdom, the House of Lords was composed of life members and hereditary members and reserved solely to the nobility; similarly, in France, Senators, also with life terms, were named rather than elected; in the United States, a presidential republic, Senators were chosen by the state legislatures (until this was modified by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913). None of these three countries, considered at that time to be democracies alongside Brazil, there was any popular participation in the selection of Senators. In contrast, in Brazil Senators were supposed to be named from a list of three candidates who had received the most votes from the Brazilian people.