Federalist Paper No. 57
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, 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.
(Continue to Page 58)
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