Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
This cannot be said, without maintaining that five or six thousand
citizens are less capable of choosing a fit representative, or more
liable to be corrupted by an unfit one, than five or six hundred.
Reason, on the contrary, assures us, that as in so great a number a fit
representative would be most likely to be found, so the choice would be
less likely to be diverted from him by the intrigues of the ambitious
or the ambitious or the bribes of the rich. Is the CONSEQUENCE from
this doctrine admissible? If we say that five or six hundred citizens
are as many as can jointly exercise their right of suffrage, must we
not deprive the people of the immediate choice of their public
servants, in every instance where the administration of the government
does not require as many of them as will amount to one for that number
of citizens? Is the doctrine warranted by FACTS? It was shown in the
last paper, that the real representation in the British House of
Commons very little exceeds the proportion of one for every thirty
thousand inhabitants. Besides a variety of powerful causes not existing
here, and which favor in that country the pretensions of rank and
wealth, no person is eligible as a representative of a county, unless
he possess real estate of the clear value of six hundred pounds
sterling per year; nor of a city or borough, unless he possess a like
estate of half that annual value. To this qualification on the part of
the county representatives is added another on the part of the county
electors, which restrains the right of suffrage to persons having a
freehold estate of the annual value of more than twenty pounds
sterling, according to the present rate of money. Notwithstanding these
unfavorable circumstances, and notwithstanding some very unequal laws
in the British code, it cannot be said that the representatives of the
nation have elevated the few on the ruins of the many. But we need not
resort to foreign experience on this subject. Our own is explicit and
decisive. The districts in New Hampshire in which the senators are
chosen immediately by the people, are nearly as large as will be
necessary for her representatives in the Congress. Those of
Massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose; and
those of New York still more so.
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