“A practical question arises here, whether this rule should be applied to the whole body of population, including women, children, and unnaturalized foreigners, or to those only who exercise the electoral franchise,--in other words, to voters. It is probable that the rule would produce nearly similar results in both cases, as voters, except in few places, would bear a uniform proportion to the whole population. But it is easy to determine what the principle of the Representative system requires. Since its object is to provide a practical substitute for meetings of the people, it should be founded, in just proportion, on the numbers of those who, according to our Constitution, can take part in those meetings,--that is, upon the qualified voters. The representative body should be a miniature or abridgment of the electoral body,--in other words, of those allowed to participate in public affairs.”[253] In this view I found myself supported by two illustrious names in our history. Mr. Jefferson, shortly after the victory at Yorktown had rescued Virginia from invasion and secured national independence, prepared the draught of a Constitution for his native State, which expressly provided that “the number of delegates which each county may send shall be _in proportion to the number of its qualified electors_, and the whole number of delegates for the State shall be _proportioned to the whole number of qualified electors in it_.”[254] This proposition, which is substantially the Rule of Three applied to voters, was not adopted, but it remains a record of opinion. Some time afterward, in the debates in the Convention which framed the National Constitution, Mr. Madison gave his authority to the same conclusion. “It had been very properly observed that representation was an expedient by which the meeting of the people themselves was rendered unnecessary, and _that the representatives ought, therefore, to bear a proportion to the voters which their constituents, if convened, would respectively have_.”[255] Thus representation founded on voters seems commended by authority and principle. Its adoption would at least give symmetry to our national system, and make the representative more precisely the embodied presence of his constituents, while at the same time it would tend to enlarge the suffrage, and to harmonize sectional pretensions with the national will, when exerted for human rights. If representation were founded on voters, the States would care little, if Congress should annul all inequality in the elective franchise on account of color. The way would be open to Congress. * * * * *