Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
In addition to this general reflection, there are considerations of a
more precise nature, which forbid all apprehension on the subject. The
dissimilarity in the ingredients which will compose the national
government, and still more in the manner in which they will be brought
into action in its various branches, must form a powerful obstacle to a
concert of views in any partial scheme of elections. There is
sufficient diversity in the state of property, in the genius, manners,
and habits of the people of the different parts of the Union, to
occasion a material diversity of disposition in their representatives
towards the different ranks and conditions in society. And though an
intimate intercourse under the same government will promote a gradual
assimilation in some of these respects, yet there are causes, as well
physical as moral, which may, in a greater or less degree, permanently
nourish different propensities and inclinations in this respect. But
the circumstance which will be likely to have the greatest influence in
the matter, will be the dissimilar modes of constituting the several
component parts of the government. The House of Representatives being
to be elected immediately by the people, the Senate by the State
legislatures, the President by electors chosen for that purpose by the
people, there would be little probability of a common interest to
cement these different branches in a predilection for any particular
class of electors.
As to the Senate, it is impossible that any regulation of “time and
manner,” which is all that is proposed to be submitted to the national
government in respect to that body, can affect the spirit which will
direct the choice of its members. The collective sense of the State
legislatures can never be influenced by extraneous circumstances of
that sort; a consideration which alone ought to satisfy us that the
discrimination apprehended would never be attempted. For what
inducement could the Senate have to concur in a preference in which
itself would not be included? Or to what purpose would it be
established, in reference to one branch of the legislature, if it could
not be extended to the other? The composition of the one would in this
case counteract that of the other. And we can never suppose that it
would embrace the appointments to the Senate, unless we can at the same
time suppose the voluntary co-operation of the State legislatures. If
we make the latter supposition, it then becomes immaterial where the
power in question is placed whether in their hands or in those of the
Union.
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