Federalist Paper No. 61
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.
THE more candid opposers of the provision respecting elections, contained in
the plan of the convention, when pressed in argument, will sometimes concede the propriety
of that provision; with this qualification, however, that it ought to have been
accompanied with a declaration, that all elections should be had in the counties where the
electors resided. This, say they, was a necessary precaution against an abuse of the
power. A declaration of this nature would certainly have been harmless; so far as it would
have had the effect of quieting apprehensions, it might not have been undesirable. But it
would, in fact, have afforded little or no additional security against the danger
apprehended; and the want of it will never be considered, by an impartial and judicious
examiner, as a serious, still less as an insuperable, objection to the plan. The different
views taken of the subject in the two preceding papers must be sufficient to satisfy all
dispassionate and discerning men, that if the public liberty should ever be the victim of
the ambition of the national rulers, the power under examination, at least, will be
guiltless of the sacrifice.
If those who are inclined to consult their jealousy only, would exercise it in
a careful inspection of the several State constitutions, they would find little less room
for disquietude and alarm, from the latitude which most of them allow in respect to
elections, than from the latitude which is proposed to be allowed to the national
government in the same respect. A review of their situation, in this particular, would
tend greatly to remove any ill impressions which may remain in regard to this matter. But
as that view would lead into long and tedious details, I shall content myself with the
single example of the State in which I write. The constitution of New York makes no other
provision for LOCALITY of elections, than that the members of the Assembly shall be
elected in the COUNTIES; those of the Senate, in the great districts into which the State
is or may be divided: these at present are four in number, and comprehend each from two to
six counties. It may readily be perceived that it would not be more difficult to the
legislature of New York to defeat the suffrages of the citizens of New York, by confining
elections to particular places, than for the legislature of the United States to defeat
the suffrages of the citizens of the Union, by the like expedient. Suppose, for instance,
the city of Albany was to be appointed the sole place of election for the county and
district of which it is a part, would not the inhabitants of that city speedily become the
only electors of the members both of the Senate and Assembly for that county and district?
Can we imagine that the electors who reside in the remote subdivisions of the counties of
Albany, Saratoga, Cambridge, etc., or in any part of the county of Montgomery, would take
the trouble to come to the city of Albany, to give their votes for members of the Assembly
or Senate, sooner than they would repair to the city of New York, to participate in the
choice of the members of the federal House of Representatives? The alarming indifference
discoverable in the exercise of so invaluable a privilege under the existing laws, which
afford every facility to it, furnishes a ready answer to this question. And, abstracted
from any experience on the subject, we can be at no loss to determine, that when the place
of election is at an INCONVENIENT DISTANCE from the elector, the effect upon his conduct
will be the same whether that distance be twenty miles or twenty thousand miles. Hence it
must appear, that objections to the particular modification of the federal power of
regulating elections will, in substance, apply with equal force to the modification of the
like power in the constitution of this State; and for this reason it will be impossible to
acquit the one, and to condemn the other. A similar comparison would lead to the same
conclusion in respect to the constitutions of most of the other States.
If it should be said that defects in the State constitutions furnish no apology
for those which are to be found in the plan proposed, I answer, that as the former have
never been thought chargeable with inattention to the security of liberty, where the
imputations thrown on the latter can be shown to be applicable to them also, the
presumption is that they are rather the cavilling refinements of a predetermined
opposition, than the well-founded inferences of a candid research after truth. To those
who are disposed to consider, as innocent omissions in the State constitutions, what they
regard as unpardonable blemishes in the plan of the convention, nothing can be said; or at
most, they can only be asked to assign some substantial reason why the representatives of
the people in a single State should be more impregnable to the lust of power, or other
sinister motives, than the representatives of the people of the United States? If they
cannot do this, they ought at least to prove to us that it is easier to subvert the
liberties of three millions of people, with the advantage of local governments to head
their opposition, than of two hundred thousand people who are destitute of that advantage.
And in relation to the point immediately under consideration, they ought to convince us
that it is less probable that a predominant faction in a single State should, in order to
maintain its superiority, incline to a preference of a particular class of electors, than
that a similar spirit should take possession of the representatives of thirteen States,
spread over a vast region, and in several respects distinguishable from each other by a
diversity of local circumstances, prejudices, and interests.
Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the provision in
question, on the ground of theoretic propriety, on that of the danger of placing the power
elsewhere, and on that of the safety of placing it in the manner proposed. But there
remains to be mentioned a positive advantage which will result from this disposition, and
which could not as well have been obtained from any other: I allude to the circumstance of
uniformity in the time of elections for the federal House of Representatives. It is more
than possible that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of great importance to
the public welfare, both as a security against the perpetuation of the same spirit in the
body, and as a cure for the diseases of faction. If each State may choose its own time of
election, it is possible there may be at least as many different periods as there are
months in the year. The times of election in the several States, as they are now
established for local purposes, vary between extremes as wide as March and November. The
consequence of this diversity would be that there could never happen a total dissolution
or renovation of the body at one time. If an improper spirit of any kind should happen to
prevail in it, that spirit would be apt to infuse itself into the new members, as they
come forward in succession. The mass would be likely to remain nearly the same,
assimilating constantly to itself its gradual accretions. There is a contagion in example
which few men have sufficient force of mind to resist. I am inclined to think that treble
the duration in office, with the condition of a total dissolution of the body at the same
time, might be less formidable to liberty than one third of that duration subject to
gradual and successive alterations.
Uniformity in the time of elections seems not less requisite for executing the
idea of a regular rotation in the Senate, and for conveniently assembling the legislature
at a stated period in each year.
It may be asked, Why, then, could not a time have been fixed in the
Constitution? As the most zealous adversaries of the plan of the convention in this State
are, in general, not less zealous admirers of the constitution of the State, the question
may be retorted, and it may be asked, Why was not a time for the like purpose fixed in the
constitution of this State? No better answer can be given than that it was a matter which
might safely be entrusted to legislative discretion; and that if a time had been
appointed, it might, upon experiment, have been found less convenient than some other
time. The same answer may be given to the question put on the other side. And it may be
added that the supposed danger of a gradual change being merely speculative, it would have
been hardly advisable upon that speculation to establish, as a fundamental point, what
would deprive several States of the convenience of having the elections for their own
governments and for the national government at the same epochs.
PUBLIUS.
(Continue to Page 62)
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