excerpts
from
FEDERALIST No. 58
Objection That The Number of Members
Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered
JAMES MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
. . . In this review of the Constitution of the House of
Representatives . . . one observation . . . I must be permitted to add . . . as claiming,
in my judgment, a very serious attention. It is, that in all legislative assemblies the
greater the number composing them may be, the fewer will be the men who will in fact
direct their proceedings. In the first place, the more numerous an assembly may be, of
whatever characters composed, the greater is known to be the ascendency of passion over
reason. In the next place, the larger the number, the greater will be the proportion of
members of limited information and of weak capacities. Now, it is precisely on characters
of this description that the eloquence and address of the few are known to act with all
their force. In the ancient republics, where the whole body of the people assembled in
person, a single orator, or an artful statesman, was generally seen to rule with as
complete a sway as if a sceptre had been placed in his single hand. On the same principle,
the more multitudinous a representative assembly may be rendered, the more it will partake
of the infirmities incident to collective meetings of the people. Ignorance will be the
dupe of cunning, and passion the slave of sophistry and declamation. The people can never
err more than in supposing that by multiplying their representatives beyond a certain
limit, they strengthen the barrier against the government of a few. Experience will
forever admonish them that, on the contrary, AFTER SECURING A SUFFICIENT NUMBER FOR THE
PURPOSES OF SAFETY, OF LOCAL INFORMATION, AND OF DIFFUSIVE SYMPATHY WITH THE WHOLE
SOCIETY, they will counteract their own views by every addition to their representatives.
The countenance of the government may become more democratic, but the soul that animates
it will be more oligarchic. The machine will be enlarged, but the fewer, and often the
more secret, will be the springs by which its motions are directed. . . .
PUBLIUS.
excerpts from
FEDERALIST No. 62
The Senate
For the Independent Journal.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON or JAMES MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
HAVING examined the constitution of the House of
Representatives . . . I enter next on the examination of the Senate.
The heads into which this member of the government may be
considered are: I. The qualification of senators; II. The appointment of them by the State
legislatures; III. The equality of representation in the Senate; IV. The number of
senators, and the term for which they are to be elected; V. The powers vested in the
Senate.
I. The qualifications proposed for senators, as distinguished
from those of representatives, consist in a more advanced age and a longer period of
citizenship. A senator must be thirty years of age at least; as a representative must be
twenty-five. And the former must have been a citizen nine years; as seven years are
required for the latter. The propriety of these distinctions is explained by the nature of
the senatorial trust, which, requiring greater extent of information and tability of
character, requires at the same time that the senator should have reached a period of life
most likely to supply these advantages . . .
II. It is equally unnecessary to dilate on the appointment of
senators by the State legislatures. Among the various modes which might have been devised
for constituting this branch of the government, that which has been proposed by the
convention is probably the most congenial with the public opinion. It is recommended by
the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the State
governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the
authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.
III. The equality of representation in the Senate is another
point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of
the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right,
that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have
a PROPORTIONAL share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States,
bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an
EQUAL share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a
compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government
ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal
representation . . .
. . . [T]he equal vote allowed to each State is at once a
constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual
States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality
ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not
less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation
of the States into one simple republic.
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the
constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper
acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence,
first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be
acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious
as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the
smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from
those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger. But as the
larger States will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat
unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser States, and as the faculty and
excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it
is not impossible that this part of the Constitution may be more convenient in practice
than it appears to many in contemplation.
IV. The number of senators, and the duration of their
appointment, come next to be considered. In order to form an accurate judgment on both of
these points, it will be proper to inquire into the purposes which are to be answered by a
senate; and in order to ascertain these, it will be necessary to review the inconveniences
which a republic must suffer from the want of such an institution.
First. It is a misfortune incident to
republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who
administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to
their important trust. In this point of view, a senate, as a second branch of the
legislative assembly, distinct from, and dividing the power with, a first, must be in all
cases a salutary check on the government. It doubles the security to the people, by
requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy,
where the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient. . . . [A]s the
improbability of sinister combinations will be in proportion to the dissimilarity in the
genius of the two bodies, it must be politic to distinguish them from each other by every
circumstance which will consist with a due harmony in all proper measures, and with the
genuine principles of republican government.
Secondly. The necessity of a senate is not
less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the
impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into
intemperate and pernicious resolutions. Examples on this subject might be cited without
number; and from proceedings within the United States, as well as from the history of
other nations. But a position that will not be contradicted, need not be proved. All that
need be remarked is, that a body which is to correct this infirmity ought itself to be
free from it, and consequently ought to be less numerous. It ought, moreover, to possess
great firmness, and consequently ought to hold its authority by a tenure of considerable
duration.
Thirdly. Another defect to be supplied by a
senate lies in a want of due acquaintance with the objects and principles of legislation.
It is not possible that an assembly of men called for the most part from pursuits of a
private nature, continued in appointment for a short time, and led by no permanent motive
to devote the intervals of public occupation to a study of the laws, the affairs, and the
comprehensive interests of their country, should, if left wholly to themselves, escape a
variety of important errors in the exercise of their legislative trust. It may be
affirmed, on the best grounds, that no small share of the present embarrassments of
America is to be charged on the blunders of our governments; and that these have proceeded
from the heads rather than the hearts of most of the authors of them. What indeed are all
the repealing, explaining, and amending laws, which fill and disgrace our voluminous
codes, but so many monuments of deficient wisdom; so many impeachments exhibited by each
succeeding against each preceding session; so many admonitions to the people, of the value
of those aids which may be expected from a well-constituted senate?
A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the
object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the
means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both
these qualities; most governments are deficient in the first. I scruple not to assert,
that in American governments too little attention has been paid to the last. The federal
Constitution avoids this error; and what merits particular notice, it provides for the
last in a mode which increases the security for the first.
Fourthly. The mutability in the public
councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be,
points out, in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the
government. Every new election in the States is found to change one half of the
representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions; and from a
change of opinions, a change of measures. But a continual change even of good measures is
inconsistent with every rule of prudence and every prospect of success. . . .
PUBLIUS.
excerpts from
FEDERALIST. No. 63
The Senate Continued
For the Independent Journal.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON or JAMES MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
A FIFTH desideratum, illustrating the utility of a senate, is
the want of a due sense of national character. Without a select and stable member of the
government, the esteem of foreign powers will not only be forfeited by an unenlightened
and variable policy . . . but the national councils will not possess that sensibility to
the opinion of the world, which is perhaps not less necessary in order to merit, than it
is to obtain, its respect and confidence. . . .
I add, as a SIXTH defect the want, in some important cases,
of a due responsibility in the government to the people, arising from that frequency of
elections which in other cases produces this responsibility. . . .
Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to
objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must
relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by
the constituents. The objects of government may be divided into two general classes: the
one depending on measures which have singly an immediate and sensible operation; the other
depending on a succession of well-chosen and well-connected measures, which have a gradual
and perhaps unobserved operation. The importance of the latter description to the
collective and permanent welfare of every country, needs no explanation. And yet it is
evident that an assembly elected for so short a term as to be unable to provide more than
one or two links in a chain of measures, on which the general welfare may essentially
depend, ought not to be answerable for the final result, any more than a steward or
tenant, engaged for one year, could be justly made to answer for places or improvements
which could not be accomplished in less than half a dozen years. Nor is it possible for
the people to estimate the SHARE of influence which their annual assemblies may
respectively have on events resulting from the mixed transactions of several years. It is
sufficiently difficult to preserve a personal responsibility in the members of a NUMEROUS
body, for such acts of the body as have an immediate, detached, and palpable operation on
its constituents.
The proper remedy for this defect must be an additional body
in the legislative department, which, having sufficient permanency to provide for such
objects as require a continued attention, and a train of measures, may be justly and
effectually answerable for the attainment of those objects.
Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out
the necessity of a well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the representatives of
the people. To a people as little blinded by prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those
whom I address, I shall not scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes
necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions. As
the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually
will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there
are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular
passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of
interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most
ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the
interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the
misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves,
until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind? What
bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had
contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular
liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens
the hemlock on one day and statues on the next.
It may be suggested, that a people spread over an extensive
region cannot, like the crowded inhabitants of a small district, be subject to the
infection of violent passions, or to the danger of combining in pursuit of unjust
measures. I am far from denying that this is a distinction of peculiar importance. I have,
on the contrary, endeavored in a former paper to show, that it is one of the principal
recommendations of a confederated republic. At the same time, this advantage ought not to
be considered as superseding the use of auxiliary precautions. It may even be remarked,
that the same extended situation, which will exempt the people of America from some of the
dangers incident to lesser republics, will expose them to the inconveniency of remaining
for a longer time under the influence of those misrepresentations which the combined
industry of interested men may succeed in distributing among them. . . .
PUBLIUS. |