The Senate Continued



For the Independent Journal.



HAMILTON OR 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, proceeding from the

causes already mentioned, 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.



An attention to the judgment of other nations is important to every

government for two reasons: the one is, that, independently of the

merits of any particular plan or measure, it is desirable, on various

accounts, that it should appear to other nations as the offspring of a

wise and honorable policy; the second is, that in doubtful cases,

particularly where the national councils may be warped by some strong

passion or momentary interest, the presumed or known opinion of the

impartial world may be the best guide that can be followed. What has

not America lost by her want of character with foreign nations; and how

many errors and follies would she not have avoided, if the justice and

propriety of her measures had, in every instance, been previously tried

by the light in which they would probably appear to the unbiased part

of mankind?



Yet however requisite a sense of national character may be, it is

evident that it can never be sufficiently possessed by a numerous and

changeable body. It can only be found in a number so small that a

sensible degree of the praise and blame of public measures may be the

portion of each individual; or in an assembly so durably invested with

public trust, that the pride and consequence of its members may be

sensibly incorporated with the reputation and prosperity of the

community. The half-yearly representatives of Rhode Island would

probably have been little affected in their deliberations on the

iniquitous measures of that State, by arguments drawn from the light in

which such measures would be viewed by foreign nations, or even by the

sister States; whilst it can scarcely be doubted that if the

concurrence of a select and stable body had been necessary, a regard to

national character alone would have prevented the calamities under

which that misguided people is now laboring.



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. This remark will, perhaps, appear not only new, but

paradoxical. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, when explained, to

be as undeniable as it is important.



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.



It adds no small weight to all these considerations, to recollect that

history informs us of no long-lived republic which had not a senate.

Sparta, Rome, and Carthage are, in fact, the only states to whom that

character can be applied. In each of the two first there was a senate

for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less known.

Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in

this particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it

had some quality or other which rendered it an anchor against popular

fluctuations; and that a smaller council, drawn out of the senate, was

appointed not only for life, but filled up vacancies itself. These

examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to

the genius, of America, are, notwithstanding, when compared with the

fugitive and turbulent existence of other ancient republics, very

instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend

stability with liberty. I am not unaware of the circumstances which

distinguish the American from other popular governments, as well

ancient as modern; and which render extreme circumspection necessary,

in reasoning from the one case to the other. But after allowing due

weight to this consideration, it may still be maintained, that there

are many points of similitude which render these examples not unworthy

of our attention. Many of the defects, as we have seen, which can only

be supplied by a senatorial institution, are common to a numerous

assembly frequently elected by the people, and to the people

themselves. There are others peculiar to the former, which require the

control of such an institution. The people can never wilfully betray

their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the

representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater

where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of

men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is

required in every public act.



The difference most relied on, between the American and other

republics, consists in the principle of representation; which is the

pivot on which the former move, and which is supposed to have been

unknown to the latter, or at least to the ancient part of them. The use

which has been made of this difference, in reasonings contained in

former papers, will have shown that I am disposed neither to deny its

existence nor to undervalue its importance. I feel the less restraint,

therefore, in observing, that the position concerning the ignorance of

the ancient governments on the subject of representation, is by no

means precisely true in the latitude commonly given to it. Without

entering into a disquisition which here would be misplaced, I will

refer to a few known facts, in support of what I advance.



In the most pure democracies of Greece, many of the executive functions

were performed, not by the people themselves, but by officers elected

by the people, and REPRESENTING the people in their EXECUTIVE capacity.



Prior to the reform of Solon, Athens was governed by nine Archons,

annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE AT LARGE. The degree of power delegated

to them seems to be left in great obscurity. Subsequent to that period,

we find an assembly, first of four, and afterwards of six hundred

members, annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; and PARTIALLY representing

them in their LEGISLATIVE capacity, since they were not only associated

with the people in the function of making laws, but had the exclusive

right of originating legislative propositions to the people. The senate

of Carthage, also, whatever might be its power, or the duration of its

appointment, appears to have been ELECTIVE by the suffrages of the

people. Similar instances might be traced in most, if not all the

popular governments of antiquity.



Lastly, in Sparta we meet with the Ephori, and in Rome with the

Tribunes; two bodies, small indeed in numbers, but annually ELECTED BY

THE WHOLE BODY OF THE PEOPLE, and considered as the REPRESENTATIVES of

the people, almost in their PLENIPOTENTIARY capacity. The Cosmi of

Crete were also annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE, and have been

considered by some authors as an institution analogous to those of

Sparta and Rome, with this difference only, that in the election of

that representative body the right of suffrage was communicated to a

part only of the people.



From these facts, to which many others might be added, it is clear that

the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor

wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true

distinction between these and the American governments, lies IN THE

TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any

share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER.

The distinction, however, thus qualified, must be admitted to leave a

most advantageous superiority in favor of the United States. But to

insure to this advantage its full effect, we must be careful not to

separate it from the other advantage, of an extensive territory. For it

cannot be believed, that any form of representative government could

have succeeded within the narrow limits occupied by the democracies of

Greece.



In answer to all these arguments, suggested by reason, illustrated by

examples, and enforced by our own experience, the jealous adversary of

the Constitution will probably content himself with repeating, that a

senate appointed not immediately by the people, and for the term of six

years, must gradually acquire a dangerous pre-eminence in the

government, and finally transform it into a tyrannical aristocracy.



To this general answer, the general reply ought to be sufficient, that

liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the

abuses of power; that there are numerous instances of the former as

well as of the latter; and that the former, rather than the latter, are

apparently most to be apprehended by the United States. But a more

particular reply may be given.



Before such a revolution can be effected, the Senate, it is to be

observed, must in the first place corrupt itself; must next corrupt the

State legislatures; must then corrupt the House of Representatives; and

must finally corrupt the people at large. It is evident that the Senate

must be first corrupted before it can attempt an establishment of

tyranny. Without corrupting the State legislatures, it cannot prosecute

the attempt, because the periodical change of members would otherwise

regenerate the whole body. Without exerting the means of corruption

with equal success on the House of Representatives, the opposition of

that coequal branch of the government would inevitably defeat the

attempt; and without corrupting the people themselves, a succession of

new representatives would speedily restore all things to their pristine

order. Is there any man who can seriously persuade himself that the

proposed Senate can, by any possible means within the compass of human

address, arrive at the object of a lawless ambition, through all these

obstructions?



If reason condemns the suspicion, the same sentence is pronounced by

experience. The constitution of Maryland furnishes the most apposite

example. The Senate of that State is elected, as the federal Senate

will be, indirectly by the people, and for a term less by one year only

than the federal Senate. It is distinguished, also, by the remarkable

prerogative of filling up its own vacancies within the term of its

appointment, and, at the same time, is not under the control of any

such rotation as is provided for the federal Senate. There are some

other lesser distinctions, which would expose the former to colorable

objections, that do not lie against the latter. If the federal Senate,

therefore, really contained the danger which has been so loudly

proclaimed, some symptoms at least of a like danger ought by this time

to have been betrayed by the Senate of Maryland, but no such symptoms

have appeared. On the contrary, the jealousies at first entertained by

men of the same description with those who view with terror the

correspondent part of the federal Constitution, have been gradually

extinguished by the progress of the experiment; and the Maryland

constitution is daily deriving, from the salutary operation of this

part of it, a reputation in which it will probably not be rivalled by

that of any State in the Union.



But if any thing could silence the jealousies on this subject, it ought

to be the British example. The Senate there instead of being elected

for a term of six years, and of being unconfined to particular families

or fortunes, is an hereditary assembly of opulent nobles. The House of

Representatives, instead of being elected for two years, and by the

whole body of the people, is elected for seven years, and, in very

great proportion, by a very small proportion of the people. Here,

unquestionably, ought to be seen in full display the aristocratic

usurpations and tyranny which are at some future period to be

exemplified in the United States. Unfortunately, however, for the

anti-federal argument, the British history informs us that this

hereditary assembly has not been able to defend itself against the

continual encroachments of the House of Representatives; and that it no

sooner lost the support of the monarch, than it was actually crushed by

the weight of the popular branch.



As far as antiquity can instruct us on this subject, its examples

support the reasoning which we have employed. In Sparta, the Ephori,

the annual representatives of the people, were found an overmatch for

the senate for life, continually gained on its authority and finally

drew all power into their own hands. The Tribunes of Rome, who were the

representatives of the people, prevailed, it is well known, in almost

every contest with the senate for life, and in the end gained the most

complete triumph over it. The fact is the more remarkable, as unanimity

was required in every act of the Tribunes, even after their number was

augmented to ten. It proves the irresistible force possessed by that

branch of a free government, which has the people on its side. To these

examples might be added that of Carthage, whose senate, according to

the testimony of Polybius, instead of drawing all power into its

vortex, had, at the commencement of the second Punic War, lost almost

the whole of its original portion.



Besides the conclusive evidence resulting from this assemblage of

facts, that the federal Senate will never be able to transform itself,

by gradual usurpations, into an independent and aristocratic body, we

are warranted in believing, that if such a revolution should ever

happen from causes which the foresight of man cannot guard against, the

House of Representatives, with the people on their side, will at all

times be able to bring back the Constitution to its primitive form and

principles. Against the force of the immediate representatives of the

people, nothing will be able to maintain even the constitutional

authority of the Senate, but such a display of enlightened policy, and

attachment to the public good, as will divide with that branch of the

legislature the affections and support of the entire body of the people

themselves.



PUBLIUS.









THE FEDERALIST.