>FEDERALIST No. 59 (Hamilton)                                  .



Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of

Members

From the New York Packet. Friday, February 22, 1788.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:

THE natural order of the subject leads us to consider, in this

place, that provision of the Constitution which authorizes the

national legislature to regulate, in the last resort, the

election of its own members. It is in these words: ``The TIMES,

PLACES, and MANNER of holding elections for senators and

representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the

legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law,

make or alter SUCH REGULATIONS, except as to the PLACES of

choosing senators. ''1 This provision has not only been declaimed

against by those who condemn the Constitution in the gross, but

it has been censured by those who have objected with less

latitude and greater moderation; and, in one instance it has been

thought exceptionable by a gentleman who has declared himself the

advocate of every other part of the system. I am greatly

mistaken, notwithstanding, if there be any article in the whole

plan more completely defensible than this. Its propriety rests

upon the evidence of this plain proposition, that EVERY

GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN IN ITSELF THE MEANS OF ITS OWN

PRESERVATION. Every just reasoner will, at first sight, approve

an adherence to this rule, in the work of the convention; and

will disapprove every deviation from it which may not appear to

have been dictated by the necessity of incorporating into the

work some particular ingredient, with which a rigid conformity to

the rule was incompatible. Even in this case, though he may

acquiesce in the necessity, yet he will not cease to regard and

to regret a departure from so fundamental a principle, as a

portion of imperfection in the system which may prove the seed of

future weakness, and perhaps anarchy. It will not be alleged,

that an election law could have been framed and inserted in the

Constitution, which would have been always applicable to every

probable change in the situation of the country; and it will

therefore not be denied, that a discretionary power over

elections ought to exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as

readily conceded, that there were only three ways in which this

power could have been reasonably modified and disposed: that it

must either have been lodged wholly in the national legislature,

or wholly in the State legislatures, or primarily in the latter

and ultimately in the former. The last mode has, with reason,

been preferred by the convention. They have submitted the

regulation of elections for the federal government, in the first

instance, to the local administrations; which, in ordinary

cases, and when no improper views prevail, may be both more

convenient and more satisfactory; but they have reserved to the

national authority a right to interpose, whenever extraordinary

circumstances might render that interposition necessary to its

safety. Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive

power of regulating elections for the national government, in the

hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the

Union entirely at their mercy. They could at any moment

annihilate it, by neglecting to provide for the choice of persons

to administer its affairs. It is to little purpose to say, that

a neglect or omission of this kind would not be likely to take

place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an

equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection. Nor has

any satisfactory reason been yet assigned for incurring that

risk. The extravagant surmises of a distempered jealousy can

never be dignified with that character. If we are in a humor to

presume abuses of power, it is as fair to presume them on the

part of the State governments as on the part of the general

government. And as it is more consonant to the rules of a just

theory, to trust the Union with the care of its own existence,

than to transfer that care to any other hands, if abuses of power

are to be hazarded on the one side or on the other, it is more

rational to hazard them where the power would naturally be

placed, than where it would unnaturally be placed. Suppose an

article had been introduced into the Constitution, empowering the

United States to regulate the elections for the particular

States, would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an

unwarrantable transposition of power, and as a premeditated

engine for the destruction of the State governments? The

violation of principle, in this case, would have required no

comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will not be less

apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the

national government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of the

State governments. An impartial view of the matter cannot fail

to result in a conviction, that each, as far as possible, ought

to depend on itself for its own preservation. As an objection to

this position, it may be remarked that the constitution of the

national Senate would involve, in its full extent, the danger

which it is suggested might flow from an exclusive power in the

State legislatures to regulate the federal elections. It may be

alleged, that by declining the appointment of Senators, they

might at any time give a fatal blow to the Union; and from this

it may be inferred, that as its existence would be thus rendered

dependent upon them in so essential a point, there can be no

objection to intrusting them with it in the particular case under

consideration. The interest of each State, it may be added, to

maintain its representation in the national councils, would be a

complete security against an abuse of the trust. This argument,

though specious, will not, upon examination, be found solid. It

is certainly true that the State legislatures, by forbearing the

appointment of senators, may destroy the national government. But

it will not follow that, because they have a power to do this in

one instance, they ought to have it in every other. There are

cases in which the pernicious tendency of such a power may be far

more decisive, without any motive equally cogent with that which

must have regulated the conduct of the convention in respect to

the formation of the Senate, to recommend their admission into

the system. So far as that construction may expose the Union to

the possibility of injury from the State legislatures, it is an

evil; but it is an evil which could not have been avoided without

excluding the States, in their political capacities, wholly from

a place in the organization of the national government. If this

had been done, it would doubtless have been interpreted into an

entire dereliction of the federal principle; and would certainly

have deprived the State governments of that absolute safeguard

which they will enjoy under this provision. But however wise it

may have been to have submitted in this instance to an

inconvenience, for the attainment of a necessary advantage or a

greater good, no inference can be drawn from thence to favor an

accumulation of the evil, where no necessity urges, nor any

greater good invites. It may be easily discerned also that the

national government would run a much greater risk from a power in

the State legislatures over the elections of its House of

Representatives, than from their power of appointing the members

of its Senate. The senators are to be chosen for the period of

six years; there is to be a rotation, by which the seats of a

third part of them are to be vacated and replenished every two

years; and no State is to be entitled to more than two senators;

a quorum of the body is to consist of sixteen members. The joint

result of these circumstances would be, that a temporary

combination of a few States to intermit the appointment of

senators, could neither annul the existence nor impair the

activity of the body; and it is not from a general and permanent

combination of the States that we can have any thing to fear. The

first might proceed from sinister designs in the leading members

of a few of the State legislatures; the last would suppose a

fixed and rooted disaffection in the great body of the people,

which will either never exist at all, or will, in all

probability, proceed from an experience of the inaptitude of the

general government to the advancement of their happinessgin which

event no good citizen could desire its continuance. But with

regard to the federal House of Representatives, there is intended

to be a general election of members once in two years. If the

State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive power of

regulating these elections, every period of making them would be

a delicate crisis in the national situation, which might issue in

a dissolution of the Union, if the leaders of a few of the most

important States should have entered into a previous conspiracy

to prevent an election. I shall not deny, that there is a degree

of weight in the observation, that the interests of each State,

to be represented in the federal councils, will be a security

against the abuse of a power over its elections in the hands of

the State legislatures. But the security will not be considered

as complete, by those who attend to the force of an obvious

distinction between the interest of the people in the public

felicity, and the interest of their local rulers in the power and

consequence of their offices. The people of America may be

warmly attached to the government of the Union, at times when the

particular rulers of particular States, stimulated by the natural

rivalship of power, and by the hopes of personal aggrandizement,

and supported by a strong faction in each of those States, may be

in a very opposite temper. This diversity of sentiment between a

majority of the people, and the individuals who have the

greatest credit in their councils, is exemplified in some of the

States at the present moment, on the present question. The

scheme of separate confederacies, which will always nultiply the

chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such

influential characters in the State administrations as are

capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the

public weal. With so effectual a weapon in their hands as the

exclusive power of regulating elections for the national

government, a combination of a few such men, in a few of the most

considerable States, where the temptation will always be the

strongest, might accomplish the destruction of the Union, by

seizing the opportunity of some casual dissatisfaction among the

people (and which perhaps they may themselves have excited), to

discontinue the choice of members for the federal House of

Representatives. It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm

union of this country, under an efficient government, will

probably be an increasing object of jealousy to more than one

nation of Europe; and that enterprises to subvert it will

sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign powers, and will

seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them. Its

preservation, therefore ought in no case that can be avoided, to

be committed to the guardianship of any but those whose situation

will uniformly beget an immediate interest in the faithful and

vigilant performance of the trust. PUBLIUS. Ist clause, 4th

section, of the Ist article.





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