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.



HAMILTON OR MADISON





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.









THE FEDERALIST.