Antifederalist No. 58 WILL THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES BE GENUINELY
REPRESENTATIVE? (PART 4)
It is said that our people have a high sense of freedom, possess power,
property, and the strong arm; meaning, I presume, that the body of the people
can take care of themselves, and awe their rulers; and, therefore, particular
provision in the constitution for their security may not be essential. When I
come to examine these observations, they appear to me too trifling and loose to
deserve a serious answer.
To palliate for the smallness of the representation, it is observed, that
the state governments in which the people are fully represented, necessarily
form a part of the system. This idea ought to be fully examined. We ought to
inquire if the convention have made the proper use of these essential parts.
The state governments then, we are told, will stand between the arbitrary
exercise of power and the people. True they may, but armless and helpless,
perhaps, with the privilege of making a noise when hurt. This is no more than
individuals may do. Does the constitution provide a single check for a single
measure by which the state governments can constitutionally and regularly check
the arbitrary measures of congress? Congress may raise immediately fifty
thousand men and twenty millions of dollars in taxes, build a navy, model the
militia, etc., and all this constitutionally. Congress may arm on every point,
and the state governments can do no more than an individual, by petition to
congress, suggest their measures are alarming and not right.
I conceive the position to be undeniable, that the federal government will
be principally in the hands of the natural aristocracy, and the state
governments principally in the hands of the democracy, the representatives of
the body of the people. These representatives in Great Britain hold the purse,
and have a negative upon all laws. We must yield to circumstances and depart
something from this plan, and strike out a new medium so as to give efficacy to
the whole system, supply the wants of the union, and leave the several states,
or the people assembled in the state legislatures, the means of defense.
It has been often mentioned that the objects of congress will be few and
national, and require a small representation; that the objects of each state
will be many and local, and require a numerous representation. This
circumstance has not the weight of a feather in my mind. It is certainly
inadvisable to lodge in 65 representatives, and 26 senators, unlimited power to
establish systems of taxation, armies, navies, model the militia, and to do
every thing that may essentially tend soon to change, totally, the affairs of
the community; and to assemble 1500 state representatives, and 160 senators, to
make fence laws and laws to regulate the descent and conveyance of property, the
administration of justice between man and man, to appoint militia officers, etc.
It is not merely the quantity of information I contend for. Two taxing
powers may be inconvenient; but the point is, congress, like the senate of Rome,
will have taxing powers, and the people no check. When the power is abused, the
people may complain and grow angry, so may the state governments; they may
remonstrate and counteract, by passing laws to prohibit the collection of
congressional taxes. But these will be acts of the people, acts of sovereign
power, the dernier resort unknown to the constitution; acts operating in
terrorum, acts of resistance, and not the exercise of any constitutional power
to stop or check a measure before matured. A check properly is the stopping, by
one branch in the same legislature, a measure proposed by the other in it. In
fact the constitution provides for the states no check, properly speaking, upon
the measures of congress. Congress can immediately enlist soldiers, and apply
to the pockets of the people.
These few considerations bring us to the very strong distinction between the
plan that operates on federal principles, and the plan that operates on
consolidated principles. A plan may be federal or not as to its organization
each state may retain its vote or not; the sovereignty of the state may be
represented, or the people of it. A plan may be federal or not as to its
operation-federal when it requires men and monies of the states, and the states
as such make the laws for raising the men and monies; not federal when it leaves
the states' governments out of the question, and operates immediately upon the
persons and property of the citizens. The first is the case with the
confederation; the second with the new plan. In the first the state governments
may be [a] check; in the last none at all. . . .
It is also said that the constitution gives no more power to congress than
the confederation, respecting money and military matters; that congress under
the confederation, may require men and monies to any amount, and the states are
bound to comply. This is generally true; but, I think . . . that the states
have well founded checks for securing their liberties. I admit the force of the
observation that all the federal powers, by the confederation, are lodged in a
single assembly. However, I think much more may be said in defense of the
leading principles of the confederation. I do not object to the qualifications
of the electors of representatives, and I fully agree that the people ought to
elect one branch.
Further, it may be observed, that the present congress is principally an
executive body, which ought not to be numerous; that the house of
representatives will be a mere legislative branch, and being the democratic on
ought to be numerous. It is one of the greatest advantages of a government of
different branches, that each branch may be conveniently made conformable to the
nature of the business assigned it, and all be made conformable to the condition
of the several orders of the people. After all the possible checks and
limitations we can devise, the powers of the union must be very extensive; the
sovereignty of the nation cannot produce the object in view, the defense and
tranquility of the whole, without such powers, executive and judicial. I
dislike the present congress-a single assembly-because it is impossible to fit
it to receive those powers. The executive and judicial powers, in the nature of
things, ought to be lodged in a few hands; the legislature in many hands.
Therefore, want of safety and unavoidable hasty measures out of the question,
they never can all be lodged in one assembly properly-it, in its very formation,
must imply a contradiction.
In objection to increasing the representation, it has also been observed
that it is difficult to assemble a hundred men or more without making the
tumultuous and a mere mob. Reason and experience do not support this
observation. The most respectable assemblies we have any knowledge of and the
wisest, have been those, each of which consisted of several hundred members - as
the senate of Rome, of Carthage, of Venice, the British Parliament, etc. I
think I may, without hazarding much, affirm that our more numerous state
assemblies and conventions have universally discovered more wisdom, and as much
order, as the less numerous ones. There must be also a very great difference
between the characters of two or three hundred men assembled from a single
state, and the characters of that number or half the number assembled from all
the united states.
It is added, that on the proposed plan the house of representatives in fifty
or a hundred years will consist of several hundred members. The plan will begin
with sixty-five, and we have no certainty that the number ever will increase,
for this plain reason-that all that combination of interests and influence which
has produced this plan, and supported [it] so far, will constantly oppose the
increase of the representation, knowing that thereby the government will become
more free and democratic. But admitting, after a few years, there will be a
member for each 30,000 inhabitants, the observation is trifling; the government
is in a considerable measure to take its tone from its early movements, and by
means of a small representation it may in half of 50 or 100 years, get moved
from its basis, or at least so far as to be incapable of ever being recovered.
We ought, therefore, . . . now to fix the government on proper principles, and
fit to our present condition. When the representation shall become too
numerous, alter it. Or we may now make provision, that when the representation
shall be increased to a given number, that then there shall be one for each
given number of inhabitants, etc.
Another observation is, that congress will have no temptations to do wrong.
The men that make it must be very uninformed, or suppose they are talking to
children. In the first place, the members will be governed by all those motives
which govern the conduct of men, and have before them all the allurements of
offices and temptations to establish unequal burdens, before described. In the
second place, they and their friends, probably, will find it for their interests
to keep up large armies, navies, salaries, etc., and in laying adequate taxes.
In the third place, we have no good grounds to presume, from reason or
experience, that it will be agreeable to their characters or views, that the
body of the people should continue to have power effectually to interfere in the
affairs of government. But it is confidently added, that congress will not have
it in their power to oppress or enslave the people; that the people will not
bear it. It is not supposed that congress will act the tyrant immediately, and
in the face of daylight. It is not supposed congress will adopt important
measures without plausible pretenses, especially those which may tend to alarm
or produce opposition. We are to consider the natural progress of things-that
men unfriendly to republican equality will go systematically to work, gradually
to exclude the body of the people from any share in the government, first of the
substance, and then of the forms. The men who will have these views will not be
without their agents and supporters. When we reflect, that a few years ago we
established democratic republics, and fixed the state governments as the
barriers between congress and the pickets of the people, what great progress has
been made in less than seven years to break down those barriers, and essentially
to change the principles of our governments, even by the armless few-is it
chimerical to suppose that in fifteen or twenty years to come, that much more
can be performed, especially after the adoption of the constitution, when the
few will be so much better armed with power and influence, to continue the
struggle? Probably they will be wise enough never to alarm, but gradually
prepare the minds of the people for one specious change after another, till the
final object shall be obtained. Say the advocates, these are only
possibilities. They are probabilities a wise people ought to guard against; and
the address made use of to keep the evils out of sight, and the means to prevent
them, confirm my opinion.
But to obviate all objections to the proposed plan in the last resort, it is
said our people will be free, so long as they possess the habits of freemen, and
when they lose them, they must receive some other forms of government. To this
I shall only observe, that this is very humiliating language, and can, I trust,
never suit a manly people who have contended nobly for liberty, and declared to
the world they will be free.
THE FEDERAL FARMER
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