>FEDERALIST No. 57 (Hamilton or Madison)                       .



The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the

Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation

From the New York Packet. Tuesday, February 19, 1788.



HAMILTON OR MADISON



To the People of the State of New York:

THE THIRD charge against the House of Representatives is, that it

will be taken from that class of citizens which will have least

sympathy with the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim

at an ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of

the few. Of all the objections which have been framed against the

federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary.

Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended

oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of

republican government. The aim of every political constitution

is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess

most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common

good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most

effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they

continue to hold their public trust. The elective mode of

obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican

government. The means relied on in this form of government for

preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various. The most

effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments

as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people. Let me

now ask what circumstance there is in the constitution of the

House of Representatives that violates the principles of

republican government, or favors the elevation of the few on the

ruins of the many? Let me ask whether every circumstance is not,

on the contrary, strictly conformable to these principles, and

scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every

class and description of citizens? Who are to be the electors of

the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor;

not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of

distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and

unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of

the people of the United States. They are to be the same who

exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding

branch of the legislature of the State. Who are to be the objects

of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to

the esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of

wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil profession is

permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination

of the people. If we consider the situation of the men on whom

the free suffrages of their fellow-citizens may confer the

representative trust, we shall find it involving every security

which can be devised or desired for their fidelity to their

constituents. In the first place, as they will have been

distinguished by the preference of their fellow-citizens, we are

to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished

also by those qualities which entitle them to it, and which

promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their

engagements. In the second place, they will enter into the public

service under circumstances which cannot fail to produce a

temporary affection at least to their constituents. There is in

every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of

esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations

of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns.

Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human

nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too

frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But

the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself

a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.

In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to

his constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish

nature. His pride and vanity attach him to a form of government

which favors his pretensions and gives him a share in its honors

and distinctions. Whatever hopes or projects might be entertained

by a few aspiring characters, it must generally happen that a

great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their

influence with the people, would have more to hope from a

preservation of the favor, than from innovations in the

government subversive of the authority of the people. All these

securities, however, would be found very insufficient without the

restraint of frequent elections. Hence, in the fourth place, the

House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the

members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the

people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the

mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power,

they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power

is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and

when they must descend to the level from which they were raised;

there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their

trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it. I

will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House

of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures,

that they can make no law which will not have its full operation

on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of

the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest

bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people

together. It creates between them that communion of interests and

sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished

examples; but without which every government degenerates into

tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of

Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of

themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the

genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional

laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates

the people of America g a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in

return is nourished by it. If this spirit shall ever be so far

debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature,

as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate

any thing but liberty. Such will be the relation between the

House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty, gratitude,

interest, 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?

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.

In the last State the members of Assembly for the cities and

counties of New York and Albany are elected by very nearly as

many voters as will be entitled to a representative in the

Congress, calculating on the number of sixty-five representatives

only. It makes no difference that in these senatorial districts

and counties a number of representatives are voted for by each

elector at the same time. If the same electors at the same time

are capable of choosing four or five representatives, they cannot

be incapable of choosing one. Pennsylvania is an additional

example. Some of her counties, which elect her State

representatives, are almost as large as her districts will be by

which her federal representatives will be elected. The city of

Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty and sixty

thousand souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts for

the choice of federal representatives. It forms, however, but

one county, in which every elector votes for each of its

representatives in the State legislature. And what may appear to

be still more directly to our purpose, the whole city actually

elects a SINGLE MEMBER for the executive council. This is the

case in all the other counties of the State. Are not these facts

the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy which has been

employed against the branch of the federal government under

consideration? Has it appeared on trial that the senators of New

Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, or the executive council

of Pennsylvania, or the members of the Assembly in the two last

States, have betrayed any peculiar disposition to sacrifice the

many to the few, or are in any respect less worthy of their

places than the representatives and magistrates appointed in

other States by very small divisions of the people? But there are

cases of a stronger complexion than any which I have yet quoted.

One branch of the legislature of Connecticut is so constituted

that each member of it is elected by the whole State. So is the

governor of that State, of Massachusetts, and of this State, and

the president of New Hampshire. I leave every man to decide

whether the result of any one of these experiments can be said to

countenance a suspicion, that a diffusive mode of choosing

representatives of the people tends to elevate traitors and to

undermine the public liberty. PUBLIUS.





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