THE THIRD CHARGE against the House of Representatives asserts it will be composed of 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 framed against the Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary.
The objection is leveled against a pretended oligarchy.
The principle of it also strikes at the very root of republican government.
The first aim of every political constitution is (or ought to be) to obtain for rulers individuals who possess the most wisdom to discern the common good of the society and the most virtue to pursue it.
In the next place, a political constitution must take the most effectual precautions for keeping rulers virtuous while they continue to hold their public trust.
Republican Government Is Signified by Representative Elections
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 a limitation of the term of appointments such as will maintain a proper responsibility to the People.
The Great Body of the People of America Will Choose their Representatives
What part of the constitution of the House of Representatives 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.
The first aim of every political constitution is (or ought to be) to obtain for rulers individuals who possess the most wisdom to discern the common good of the society and the most virtue to pursue it. In the next place, a political constitution must take the most effectual precautions for keeping rulers virtuous while they continue to hold their public trust.
House Membership Is Open to All
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 individuals 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.
Representatives Will Be Distinguished by the Traits which Earned Them Election
In the first place, representatives will be distinguished by the preference of their fellow-citizens, and in general we ought to presume they will be distinguished also by those qualities which earned that preference, and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements.
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 judgment or disappoint the inclination of the People. If we consider the situation of the individuals 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.
Representatives Will Have the Favor of their Constituents
In the second place, representatives 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.
Self-interest in Self-Preservation Will Foster Reliance on the People’s Choices
In the third place, those ties which bind representatives to constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature.
Pride and vanity will attach the representative to a form of government favoring those pretensions and give a share in its honors and distinctions.
Whatever hopes or projects may be entertained by a few aspiring characters, the great proportion of individuals 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 are strengthened by the restraint of frequent elections.
The House Is Designed for Dependence on the People
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, where they will remain forever unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.
The Laws Will Apply Equally to House Members and Citizens Alike
As a fifth circumstance favoring the fidelity of representatives to the People, they will 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, for it creates between them a communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments.
Few governments have furnished examples in history, but without it every government degenerates into tyranny.
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, where they will remain forever unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.
If one asks what restrains the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society, I would 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 Congress as well as the People, the People will be prepared to tolerate anything 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.
We Must Trust Republican Principles
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 relies for the attainment of these important ends?
What then is the basis of the objection this paper has combated?
What are we to say to the individuals who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government, yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it?
Are those who pretend to be champions for the right and the capacity of the People to choose their own rulers also maintaining that the People will prefer only those who will immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them?
Were the objection that the House will be an oligarchy be heard by an individual who had not seen the mode prescribed by the Constitution for the choice of representatives, that individual would reasonably suppose that a prerequisite to House membership required family or fortune, or that the right to vote was unreasonably restricted, or that some other gross departure from the standards prevalent in the States existed. But none of these is true.
The only difference between State and Federal elections is that each representative of the United States will be elected initially by 5,000 or 6,000 citizens, while some elections the States are left to 500 or 600 electors.
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?
Representatives will 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, for it creates between them a communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments. Few governments have furnished examples in history, but without it every government degenerates into tyranny.
Are 5,000 or 6,000 citizens less capable of choosing a fit representative – or more liable to be corrupted by an unfit one – than 500 or 600?
On the contrary, reason assures us that a fit representative would most likely be found in the greater number, and that the choice would less likely be diverted by the intrigues of the ambitious or the bribes of the rich.
Further, if we are to assume that 500 or 600 is the highest number of citizens who can jointly exercise the right to elect representatives, does it not follow we must deprive the People of the immediate choice of their public servants in those instances where the administration of the government does not require as many of them as will amount to one for that number of citizens?
It was shown in Federalist 56 that the real representation in the British House of Commons very little exceeds the proportion of 1 for every 30,000 inhabitants.
Besides a variety of powerful causes not existing here – and which in Britain favor the pretensions of rank and wealth – no person there is eligible as a representative of a county unless he possess real estate of the value of £600 per year. To represent a city or borough, one must possess real estate of £300 per year. A further qualification in Britain is that the voters in county elections must possess a freehold estate generating an annual value of more than £20,000.
Notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances and other 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.
Several States Already Have Large Voting Districts
We need not even resort to foreign experience on this subject. Our own is explicit and decisive.
The districts for election senators in the State of New Hampshire are nearly as large as will be necessary for election of her representatives in the Congress. The districts of Massachusetts also are larger than will be necessary for that purpose, and those of New York still more so.
The Ratio of Electors to Elected in New York Is Comparable to the Federal Ratio
In New York, the members of the senate 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.
In these districts and counties, an elector votes for a number of representatives at the same time.
If the same electors at the same time are capable of choosing four or five representatives for State offices, they cannot be incapable of choosing one Federal representative.
The Same Is True in Pennsylvania and Other States
Pennsylvania is an additional example. Some of the counties which elect her State representatives are almost as large as the districts which will elect Federal representatives. The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between 50,000 and 60,000 souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts for the choice of Federal representatives.
The city, however, forms but a single county, in which all electors therein vote 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 to that State’s executive council. This also is the case in all the other counties in Pennsylvania.
These facts are the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy of the argument that the Federal districts are too large for the election of representatives.
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 assemblies in New York and Pennsylvania, 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?
There also are cases of a stronger complexion elsewhere.
One branch of the legislature of Connecticut is so constituted that each of its members is elected by the entire electorate of the State.
The same is true for the governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York, and the president of New Hampshire.
I leave every individual 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.
Hamilton or Madison