prospect of public danger, or of a dishonourable stagnation in public affairs. To those causes we are to ascribe the continual triumph of the British House of Commons over the other branches of the Government, whenever the engine of a money bill has been employed. An absolute inflexibility on the side of the latter, although it could not have failed to involve every department of the State in the general confusion, has neither been apprehended nor experienced. The utmost degree of firmness that can be displayed by the Federal State or Senate or President, will not be more than equal to a resistance, in which they will be supported by constitutional and patriotic principles.

In this review of the Constitution of the House of Representatives, I have passed over the circumstance of economy, which, in the present state of affairs, might have had some effect in lessening the temporary number of representatives; and a disregard of which would probably have been as rich a theme of declamation against the Constitution, as has been furnished by the smallness of the number proposed. I omit also any remarks on the difficulty which might be found, under present circumstances, in engaging in the Federal service a large number of such characters as the people will probably elect. One observation, however, I must be permitted to add on this subject, as claiming, in my judgment, a very serious attention. It is, that in all Legislative assemblies, the greater the number composing them may be, the fewer will be the men who will in fact direct their proceedings. In the first place, the more numerous any assembly may be, of whatever characters composed, the greater is known to be the ascendency of passion over reason. In the next place, the larger the number, the greater will be the proportion of members of limited information and of weak capacities. Now it is precisely on characters of this description, that the eloquence and address of the few are known to act with all their force. In the ancient republics, where the whole body of the people assembled in person, a single orator, or an artful statesman, was generally seen to rule with as complete a sway, as if a sceptre had been placed in his single hands. On the same principle, the more multitudinous a representative assembly may be rendered, the more it will partake of the infirmities inci dent to collective meetings of the people. Ignorance will be the dupe of cunning; and passion the slave of sophistry and declamation. The people can never err more than in supposing, that by

applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country; and it will, therefore, not be denied, that the 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 organized; 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 intrust 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 the 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 to recommend their admission into the system, equally cogent with that which must have regulated the conduct of the Convention, in respect to the formation of the Senate. So far as that mode of formation 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 principles; 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 also be easily discerned, that the National Government would run a much greater risk, from a power in the State Legislatures over the elections in 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 anything 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 inapitude of the General Government to the advancement of their happiness; in 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 interest 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 interests of the people in the public felicity, and the interest of their local rulers in the power and consequences 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 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 multiply 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 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.

NUMBER LX.

BY MR. HAMILTON.

The same Subject continued.

We have seen, that an uncontrollable power over the elections for the Federal Government could not, without hazard, be committed to the State Legislatures. Let us now see what are the dangers on the other side; that is, from confiding the ultimate right of regulating its own elections to the Union itself. It is not