fp57.txt

THE THIRD charge against the House of Representatives is, that it will 
        be taken from that class of citizens which will have least sympathy with 
        the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice 
        of the many to the aggrandizement of the few. Of all the objections which 
        have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the 
        most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, 
        the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government. 
        The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain 
        for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to 
        pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take 
        the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue 
        to hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the 
        characteristic policy of republican government. The means relied on in 
        this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and 
        various. The most effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments 
        as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people. Let me now ask 
        what circumstance there is in the constitution of the House of Representatives 
        that violates the principles of republican government, or favors the elevation 
        of the few on the ruins of the many? Let me ask whether every circumstance 
        is not, on the contrary, strictly conformable to these principles, and 
        scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every class and 
        description of citizens? Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? 
        Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; 
        not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons 
        of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great 
        body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise 
        the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature 
        of the State. Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen 
        whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. 
        No qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil 
        profession is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination 
        of the people. If we consider the situation of the men on whom the free 
        suffrages of their fellow-citizens may confer the representative trust, 
        we shall find it involving every security which can be devised or desired 
        for their fidelity to their constituents. In the first place, as they 
        will have been distinguished by the preference of their fellow-citizens, 
        we are to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished 
        also by those qualities which entitle them to it, and which promise a 
        sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements. In the 
        second place, they will enter into the public service under circumstances 
        which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents. 
        There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of 
        esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, 
        is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and 
        it must be confessed that instances of it are but too frequent and flagrant, 
        both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation 
        which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the 
        contrary sentiment. In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to his constituents 
        are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature. His pride and vanity 
        attach him to a form of government which favors his pretensions and gives 
        him a share in its honors and distinctions. Whatever hopes or projects 
        might be entertained by a few aspiring characters, it must generally happen 
        that a great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their 
        influence with the people, would have more to hope from a preservation 
        of the favor, than from innovations in the government subversive of the 
        authority of the people. All these securities, however, would be found 
        very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections. Hence, 
        in the fourth place, the House of Representatives is so constituted as 
        to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence 
        on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode 
        of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will 
        be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when 
        their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to 
        the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless 
        a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title 
        to a renewal of it. I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation 
        of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, 
        that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves 
        and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has 
        always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can 
        connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that 
        communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments 
        have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates 
        into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives 
        from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular 
        class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature 
        of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly 
        spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes 
        freedom, and in return is nourished by it. If this spirit shall ever be 
        so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, 
        as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any 
        thing but liberty. Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives 
        and their constituents. Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are 
        the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the 
        great mass of the people. It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice 
        and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, 
        and that human prudence can devise? Are they not the genuine and the characteristic 
        means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness 
        of the people? Are they not the identical means on which every State government 
        in the Union relies for the attainment of these important ends? What then 
        are we to understand by the objection which this paper has combated? What 
        are we to say to the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican 
        government, yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it; who pretend 
        to be champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose 
        their own rulers, yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will 
        immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them? Were the 
        objection to be read by one who had not seen the mode prescribed by the 
        Constitution for the choice of representatives, he could suppose nothing 
        less than that some unreasonable qualification of property was annexed 
        to the right of suffrage; or that the right of eligibility was limited 
        to persons of particular families or fortunes; or at least that the mode 
        prescribed by the State constitutions was in some respect or other, very 
        grossly departed from. We have seen how far such a supposition would err, 
        as to the two first points. Nor would it, in fact, be less erroneous as 
        to the last. The only difference discoverable between the two cases is, 
        that each representative of the United States will be elected by five 
        or six thousand citizens; whilst in the individual States, the election 
        of a representative is left to about as many hundreds. Will it be pretended 
        that this difference is sufficient to justify an attachment to the State 
        governments, and an abhorrence to the federal government? If this be the 
        point on which the objection turns, it deserves to be examined. Is it 
        supported by REASON? This cannot be said, without maintaining that five or six thousand citizens 
        are less capable of choosing a fit representative, or more liable to be 
        corrupted by an unfit one, than five or six hundred. Reason, on the contrary, 
        assures us, that as in so great a number a fit representative would be 
        most likely to be found, so the choice would be less likely to be diverted 
        from him by the intrigues of the ambitious or the ambitious or the bribes 
        of the rich. Is the CONSEQUENCE from this doctrine admissible? If we say 
        that five or six hundred citizens are as many as can jointly exercise 
        their right of suffrage, must we not deprive the people of the immediate 
        choice of their public servants, in every instance where the administration 
        of the government does not require as many of them as will amount to one 
        for that number of citizens? Is the doctrine warranted by FACTS? It was 
        shown in the last paper, that the real representation in the British House 
        of Commons very little exceeds the proportion of one for every thirty 
        thousand inhabitants. Besides a variety of powerful causes not existing 
        here, and which favor in that country the pretensions of rank and wealth, 
        no person is eligible as a representative of a county, unless he possess 
        real estate of the clear value of six hundred pounds sterling per year; 
        nor of a city or borough, unless he possess a like estate of half that 
        annual value. To this qualification on the part of the county representatives 
        is added another on the part of the county electors, which restrains the 
        right of suffrage to persons having a freehold estate of the annual value 
        of more than twenty pounds sterling, according to the present rate of 
        money. Notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances, and notwithstanding 
        some very unequal laws in the British code, it cannot be said that the 
        representatives of the nation have elevated the few on the ruins of the 
        many. But we need not resort to foreign experience on this subject. Our 
        own is explicit and decisive. The districts in New Hampshire in which 
        the senators are chosen immediately by the people, are nearly as large 
        as will be necessary for her representatives in the Congress. Those of 
        Massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose; and 
        those of New York still more so. In the last State the members of Assembly for the cities and counties 
        of New York and Albany are elected by very nearly as many voters as will 
        be entitled to a representative in the Congress, calculating on the number 
        of sixty-five representatives only. It makes no difference that in these 
        senatorial districts and counties a number of representatives are voted 
        for by each elector at the same time. If the same electors at the same 
        time are capable of choosing four or five representatives, they cannot 
        be incapable of choosing one. Pennsylvania is an additional example. Some 
        of her counties, which elect her State representatives, are almost as 
        large as her districts will be by which her federal representatives will 
        be elected. The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty 
        and sixty thousand souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts 
        for the choice of federal representatives. It forms, however, but one 
        county, in which every elector votes for each of its representatives in 
        the State legislature. And what may appear to be still more directly to 
        our purpose, the whole city actually elects a SINGLE MEMBER for the executive 
        council. This is the case in all the other counties of the State. Are 
        not these facts the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy which has 
        been employed against the branch of the federal government under consideration? 
        Has it appeared on trial that the senators of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
        and New York, or the executive council of Pennsylvania, or the members 
        of the Assembly in the two last States, have betrayed any peculiar disposition 
        to sacrifice the many to the few, or are in any respect less worthy of 
        their places than the representatives and magistrates appointed in other 
        States by very small divisions of the people? But there are cases of a 
        stronger complexion than any which I have yet quoted. One branch of the legislature of Connecticut is so constituted that each 
        member of it is elected by the whole State. So is the governor of that 
        State, of Massachusetts, and of this State, and the president of New Hampshire. 
        I leave every man to decide whether the result of any one of these experiments 
        can be said to countenance a suspicion, that a diffusive mode of choosing 
        representatives of the people tends to elevate traitors and to undermine 
        the public liberty.