The Same Subject Continued



(Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members)



From the New York Packet.



Tuesday, February 26, 1788.



HAMILTON





To the People of the State of New York:



The more candid opposers of the provision respecting elections,

contained in the plan of the convention, when pressed in argument, will

sometimes concede the propriety of that provision; with this

qualification, however, that it ought to have been accompanied with a

declaration, that all elections should be had in the counties where the

electors resided. This, say they, was a necessary precaution against an

abuse of the power. A declaration of this nature would certainly have

been harmless; so far as it would have had the effect of quieting

apprehensions, it might not have been undesirable. But it would, in

fact, have afforded little or no additional security against the danger

apprehended; and the want of it will never be considered, by an

impartial and judicious examiner, as a serious, still less as an

insuperable, objection to the plan. The different views taken of the

subject in the two preceding papers must be sufficient to satisfy all

dispassionate and discerning men, that if the public liberty should

ever be the victim of the ambition of the national rulers, the power

under examination, at least, will be guiltless of the sacrifice.



If those who are inclined to consult their jealousy only, would

exercise it in a careful inspection of the several State constitutions,

they would find little less room for disquietude and alarm, from the

latitude which most of them allow in respect to elections, than from

the latitude which is proposed to be allowed to the national government

in the same respect. A review of their situation, in this particular,

would tend greatly to remove any ill impressions which may remain in

regard to this matter. But as that view would lead into long and

tedious details, I shall content myself with the single example of the

State in which I write. The constitution of New York makes no other

provision for LOCALITY of elections, than that the members of the

Assembly shall be elected in the COUNTIES; those of the Senate, in the

great districts into which the State is or may be divided: these at

present are four in number, and comprehend each from two to six

counties. It may readily be perceived that it would not be more

difficult to the legislature of New York to defeat the suffrages of the

citizens of New York, by confining elections to particular places, than

for the legislature of the United States to defeat the suffrages of the

citizens of the Union, by the like expedient. Suppose, for instance,

the city of Albany was to be appointed the sole place of election for

the county and district of which it is a part, would not the

inhabitants of that city speedily become the only electors of the

members both of the Senate and Assembly for that county and district?

Can we imagine that the electors who reside in the remote subdivisions

of the counties of Albany, Saratoga, Cambridge, etc., or in any part of

the county of Montgomery, would take the trouble to come to the city of

Albany, to give their votes for members of the Assembly or Senate,

sooner than they would repair to the city of New York, to participate

in the choice of the members of the federal House of Representatives?

The alarming indifference discoverable in the exercise of so invaluable

a privilege under the existing laws, which afford every facility to it,

furnishes a ready answer to this question. And, abstracted from any

experience on the subject, we can be at no loss to determine, that when

the place of election is at an INCONVENIENT DISTANCE from the elector,

the effect upon his conduct will be the same whether that distance be

twenty miles or twenty thousand miles. Hence it must appear, that

objections to the particular modification of the federal power of

regulating elections will, in substance, apply with equal force to the

modification of the like power in the constitution of this State; and

for this reason it will be impossible to acquit the one, and to condemn

the other. A similar comparison would lead to the same conclusion in

respect to the constitutions of most of the other States.



If it should be said that defects in the State constitutions furnish no

apology for those which are to be found in the plan proposed, I answer,

that as the former have never been thought chargeable with inattention

to the security of liberty, where the imputations thrown on the latter

can be shown to be applicable to them also, the presumption is that

they are rather the cavilling refinements of a predetermined

opposition, than the well-founded inferences of a candid research after

truth. To those who are disposed to consider, as innocent omissions in

the State constitutions, what they regard as unpardonable blemishes in

the plan of the convention, nothing can be said; or at most, they can

only be asked to assign some substantial reason why the representatives

of the people in a single State should be more impregnable to the lust

of power, or other sinister motives, than the representatives of the

people of the United States? If they cannot do this, they ought at

least to prove to us that it is easier to subvert the liberties of

three millions of people, with the advantage of local governments to

head their opposition, than of two hundred thousand people who are

destitute of that advantage. And in relation to the point immediately

under consideration, they ought to convince us that it is less probable

that a predominant faction in a single State should, in order to

maintain its superiority, incline to a preference of a particular class

of electors, than that a similar spirit should take possession of the

representatives of thirteen States, spread over a vast region, and in

several respects distinguishable from each other by a diversity of

local circumstances, prejudices, and interests.



Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the

provision in question, on the ground of theoretic propriety, on that of

the danger of placing the power elsewhere, and on that of the safety of

placing it in the manner proposed. But there remains to be mentioned a

positive advantage which will result from this disposition, and which

could not as well have been obtained from any other: I allude to the

circumstance of uniformity in the time of elections for the federal

House of Representatives. It is more than possible that this uniformity

may be found by experience to be of great importance to the public

welfare, both as a security against the perpetuation of the same spirit

in the body, and as a cure for the diseases of faction. If each State

may choose its own time of election, it is possible there may be at

least as many different periods as there are months in the year. The

times of election in the several States, as they are now established

for local purposes, vary between extremes as wide as March and

November. The consequence of this diversity would be that there could

never happen a total dissolution or renovation of the body at one time.

If an improper spirit of any kind should happen to prevail in it, that

spirit would be apt to infuse itself into the new members, as they come

forward in succession. The mass would be likely to remain nearly the

same, assimilating constantly to itself its gradual accretions. There

is a contagion in example which few men have sufficient force of mind

to resist. I am inclined to think that treble the duration in office,

with the condition of a total dissolution of the body at the same time,

might be less formidable to liberty than one third of that duration

subject to gradual and successive alterations.



Uniformity in the time of elections seems not less requisite for

executing the idea of a regular rotation in the Senate, and for

conveniently assembling the legislature at a stated period in each

year.



It may be asked, Why, then, could not a time have been fixed in the

Constitution? As the most zealous adversaries of the plan of the

convention in this State are, in general, not less zealous admirers of

the constitution of the State, the question may be retorted, and it may

be asked, Why was not a time for the like purpose fixed in the

constitution of this State? No better answer can be given than that it

was a matter which might safely be entrusted to legislative discretion;

and that if a time had been appointed, it might, upon experiment, have

been found less convenient than some other time. The same answer may be

given to the question put on the other side. And it may be added that

the supposed danger of a gradual change being merely speculative, it

would have been hardly advisable upon that speculation to establish, as

a fundamental point, what would deprive several States of the

convenience of having the elections for their own governments and for

the national government at the same epochs.



PUBLIUS.









THE FEDERALIST.