Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
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?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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