Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
little in different parts of the same State. The attentive reader will
discern that the reasoning here used, to prove the sufficiency of a
moderate number of representatives, does not in any respect contradict
what was urged on another occasion with regard to the extensive
information which the representatives ought to possess, and the time
that might be necessary for acquiring it. This information, so far as
it may relate to local objects, is rendered necessary and difficult,
not by a difference of laws and local circumstances within a single
State, but of those among different States. Taking each State by
itself, its laws are the same, and its interests but little
diversified. A few men, therefore, will possess all the knowledge
requisite for a proper representation of them. Were the interests and
affairs of each individual State perfectly simple and uniform, a
knowledge of them in one part would involve a knowledge of them in
every other, and the whole State might be competently represented by a
single member taken from any part of it. On a comparison of the
different States together, we find a great dissimilarity in their laws,
and in many other circumstances connected with the objects of federal
legislation, with all of which the federal representatives ought to
have some acquaintance. Whilst a few representatives, therefore, from
each State, may bring with them a due knowledge of their own State,
every representative will have much information to acquire concerning
all the other States.
The changes of time, as was formerly remarked, on the comparative
situation of the different States, will have an assimilating effect.
The effect of time on the internal affairs of the States, taken singly,
will be just the contrary. At present some of the States are little
more than a society of husbandmen. Few of them have made much progress
in those branches of industry which give a variety and complexity to
the affairs of a nation. These, however, will in all of them be the
fruits of a more advanced population, and will require, on the part of
each State, a fuller representation. The foresight of the convention
has accordingly taken care that the progress of population may be
accompanied with a proper increase of the representative branch of the
government. The experience of Great Britain, which presents to mankind
so many political lessons, both of the monitory and exemplary kind, and
which has been frequently consulted in the course of these inquiries,
corroborates the result of the reflections which we have just made. The
number of inhabitants in the two kingdoms of England and Scotland
cannot be stated at less than eight millions. The representatives of
these eight millions in the House of Commons amount to five hundred and
fifty-eight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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