The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate
the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with
Representation
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, February 19, 1788.
To the People of the State of New York:
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.
PUBLIUS
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