>FEDERALIST No. 60 (Hamilton)                                  .



The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of

 Members)

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, February 26, 1788.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:

WE HAVE seen, that an uncontrollable power over the elections to

 the federal government could not, without hazard, be committed to

 the State legislatures. Let us now see, what would be the danger on

 the other side; that is, from confiding the ultimate right of

 regulating its own elections to the Union itself. It is not

 pretended, that this right would ever be used for the exclusion of

 any State from its share in the representation. The interest of all

 would, in this respect at least, be the security of all. But it is

 alleged, that it might be employed in such a manner as to promote

 the election of some favorite class of men in exclusion of others,

 by confining the places of election to particular districts, and

 rendering it impracticable to the citizens at large to partake in

 the choice. Of all chimerical suppositions, this seems to be the

 most chimerical. On the one hand, no rational calculation of

 probabilities would lead us to imagine that the disposition which a

 conduct so violent and extraordinary would imply, could ever find

 its way into the national councils; and on the other, it may be

 concluded with certainty, that if so improper a spirit should ever

 gain admittance into them, it would display itself in a form

 altogether different and far more decisive.

The improbability of the attempt may be satisfactorily inferred

 from this single reflection, that it could never be made without

 causing an immediate revolt of the great body of the people, headed

 and directed by the State governments. It is not difficult to

 conceive that this characteristic right of freedom may, in certain

 turbulent and factious seasons, be violated, in respect to a

 particular class of citizens, by a victorious and overbearing

 majority; but that so fundamental a privilege, in a country so

 situated and enlightened, should be invaded to the prejudice of the

 great mass of the people, by the deliberate policy of the

 government, without occasioning a popular revolution, is altogether

 inconceivable and incredible.

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 Ustill 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 placedgwhether in their hands or in those of the

 Union.

But what is to be the object of this capricious partiality in

 the national councils? Is it to be exercised in a discrimination

 between the different departments of industry, or between the

 different kinds of property, or between the different degrees of

 property? Will it lean in favor of the landed interest, or the

 moneyed interest, or the mercantile interest, or the manufacturing

 interest? Or, to speak in the fashionable language of the

 adversaries to the Constitution, will it court the elevation of

 ``the wealthy and the well-born,'' to the exclusion and debasement

 of all the rest of the society?

If this partiality is to be exerted in favor of those who are

 concerned in any particular description of industry or property, I

 presume it will readily be admitted, that the competition for it

 will lie between landed men and merchants. And I scruple not to

 affirm, that it is infinitely less likely that either of them should

 gain an ascendant in the national councils, than that the one or the

 other of them should predominate in all the local councils. The

 inference will be, that a conduct tending to give an undue

 preference to either is much less to be dreaded from the former than

 from the latter.

The several States are in various degrees addicted to

 agriculture and commerce. In most, if not all of them, agriculture

 is predominant. In a few of them, however, commerce nearly divides

 its empire, and in most of them has a considerable share of

 influence. In proportion as either prevails, it will be conveyed

 into the national representation; and for the very reason, that

 this will be an emanation from a greater variety of interests, and

 in much more various proportions, than are to be found in any single

 State, it will be much less apt to espouse either of them with a

 decided partiality, than the representation of any single State.

In a country consisting chiefly of the cultivators of land,

 where the rules of an equal representation obtain, the landed

 interest must, upon the whole, preponderate in the government. As

 long as this interest prevails in most of the State legislatures, so

 long it must maintain a correspondent superiority in the national

 Senate, which will generally be a faithful copy of the majorities of

 those assemblies. It cannot therefore be presumed, that a sacrifice

 of the landed to the mercantile class will ever be a favorite object

 of this branch of the federal legislature. In applying thus

 particularly to the Senate a general observation suggested by the

 situation of the country, I am governed by the consideration, that

 the credulous votaries of State power cannot, upon their own

 principles, suspect, that the State legislatures would be warped

 from their duty by any external influence. But in reality the same

 situation must have the same effect, in the primative composition at

 least of the federal House of Representatives: an improper bias

 towards the mercantile class is as little to be expected from this

 quarter as from the other.

In order, perhaps, to give countenance to the objection at any

 rate, it may be asked, is there not danger of an opposite bias in

 the national government, which may dispose it to endeavor to secure

 a monopoly of the federal administration to the landed class? As

 there is little likelihood that the supposition of such a bias will

 have any terrors for those who would be immediately injured by it, a

 labored answer to this question will be dispensed with. It will be

 sufficient to remark, first, that for the reasons elsewhere

 assigned, it is less likely that any decided partiality should

 prevail in the councils of the Union than in those of any of its

 members. Secondly, that there would be no temptation to violate the

 Constitution in favor of the landed class, because that class would,

 in the natural course of things, enjoy as great a preponderancy as

 itself could desire. And thirdly, that men accustomed to

 investigate the sources of public prosperity upon a large scale,

 must be too well convinced of the utility of commerce, to be

 inclined to inflict upon it so deep a wound as would result from the

 entire exclusion of those who would best understand its interest

 from a share in the management of them. The importance of commerce,

 in the view of revenue alone, must effectually guard it against the

 enmity of a body which would be continually importuned in its favor,

 by the urgent calls of public necessity.

I the rather consult brevity in discussing the probability of a

 preference founded upon a discrimination between the different kinds

 of industry and property, because, as far as I understand the

 meaning of the objectors, they contemplate a discrimination of

 another kind. They appear to have in view, as the objects of the

 preference with which they endeavor to alarm us, those whom they

 designate by the description of ``the wealthy and the well-born.''

 These, it seems, are to be exalted to an odious pre-eminence over

 the rest of their fellow-citizens. At one time, however, their

 elevation is to be a necessary consequence of the smallness of the

 representative body; at another time it is to be effected by

 depriving the people at large of the opportunity of exercising their

 right of suffrage in the choice of that body.

But upon what principle is the discrimination of the places of

 election to be made, in order to answer the purpose of the meditated

 preference? Are ``the wealthy and the well-born,'' as they are

 called, confined to particular spots in the several States? Have

 they, by some miraculous instinct or foresight, set apart in each of

 them a common place of residence? Are they only to be met with in

 the towns or cities? Or are they, on the contrary, scattered over

 the face of the country as avarice or chance may have happened to

 cast their own lot or that of their predecessors? If the latter is

 the case, (as every intelligent man knows it to be,1) is it not

 evident that the policy of confining the places of election to

 particular districts would be as subversive of its own aim as it

 would be exceptionable on every other account? The truth is, that

 there is no method of securing to the rich the preference

 apprehended, but by prescribing qualifications of property either

 for those who may elect or be elected. But this forms no part of

 the power to be conferred upon the national government. Its

 authority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the

 TIMES, the PLACES, the MANNER of elections. The qualifications of

 the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon

 other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are

 unalterable by the legislature.

Let it, however, be admitted, for argument sake, that the

 expedient suggested might be successful; and let it at the same

 time be equally taken for granted that all the scruples which a

 sense of duty or an apprehension of the danger of the experiment

 might inspire, were overcome in the breasts of the national rulers,

 still I imagine it will hardly be pretended that they could ever

 hope to carry such an enterprise into execution without the aid of a

 military force sufficient to subdue the resistance of the great body

 of the people. The improbability of the existence of a force equal

 to that object has been discussed and demonstrated in different

 parts of these papers; but that the futility of the objection under

 consideration may appear in the strongest light, it shall be

 conceded for a moment that such a force might exist, and the

 national government shall be supposed to be in the actual possession

 of it. What will be the conclusion? With a disposition to invade

 the essential rights of the community, and with the means of

 gratifying that disposition, is it presumable that the persons who

 were actuated by it would amuse themselves in the ridiculous task of

 fabricating election laws for securing a preference to a favorite

 class of men? Would they not be likely to prefer a conduct better

 adapted to their own immediate aggrandizement? Would they not

 rather boldly resolve to perpetuate themselves in office by one

 decisive act of usurpation, than to trust to precarious expedients

 which, in spite of all the precautions that might accompany them,

 might terminate in the dismission, disgrace, and ruin of their

 authors? Would they not fear that citizens, not less tenacious than

 conscious of their rights, would flock from the remote extremes of

 their respective States to the places of election, to voerthrow

 their tyrants, and to substitute men who would be disposed to avenge

 the violated majesty of the people?

PUBLIUS.

1 Particularly in the Southern States and in this State.





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