Federalist Paper No. 63
The Senate Continued
For the Independent Journal.
HAMILTON OR MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
A FIFTH desideratum, illustrating the utility of a senate, is the want of a due
sense of national character. Without a select and stable member of the government, the
esteem of foreign powers will not only be forfeited by an unenlightened and variable
policy, proceeding from the causes already mentioned, but the national councils will not
possess that sensibility to the opinion of the world, which is perhaps not less necessary
in order to merit, than it is to obtain, its respect and confidence.
An attention to the judgment of other nations is important to every government
for two reasons: the one is, that, independently of the merits of any particular plan or
measure, it is desirable, on various accounts, that it should appear to other nations as
the offspring of a wise and honorable policy; the second is, that in doubtful cases,
particularly where the national councils may be warped by some strong passion or momentary
interest, the presumed or known opinion of the impartial world may be the best guide that
can be followed. What has not America lost by her want of character with foreign nations;
and how many errors and follies would she not have avoided, if the justice and propriety
of her measures had, in every instance, been previously tried by the light in which they
would probably appear to the unbiased part of mankind?
Yet however requisite a sense of national character may be, it is evident that
it can never be sufficiently possessed by a numerous and changeable body. It can only be
found in a number so small that a sensible degree of the praise and blame of public
measures may be the portion of each individual; or in an assembly so durably invested with
public trust, that the pride and consequence of its members may be sensibly incorporated
with the reputation and prosperity of the community. The half-yearly representatives of
Rhode Island would probably have been little affected in their deliberations on the
iniquitous measures of that State, by arguments drawn from the light in which such
measures would be viewed by foreign nations, or even by the sister States; whilst it can
scarcely be doubted that if the concurrence of a select and stable body had been
necessary, a regard to national character alone would have prevented the calamities under
which that misguided people is now laboring.
I add, as a SIXTH defect the want, in some important cases, of a due
responsibility in the government to the people, arising from that frequency of elections
which in other cases produces this responsibility. This remark will, perhaps, appear not
only new, but paradoxical. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, when explained, to be as
undeniable as it is important.
Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within
the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to
operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the
constituents. The objects of government may be divided into two general classes: the one
depending on measures which have singly an immediate and sensible operation; the other
depending on a succession of well-chosen and well-connected measures, which have a gradual
and perhaps unobserved operation. The importance of the latter description to the
collective and permanent welfare of every country, needs no explanation. And yet it is
evident that an assembly elected for so short a term as to be unable to provide more than
one or two links in a chain of measures, on which the general welfare may essentially
depend, ought not to be answerable for the final result, any more than a steward or
tenant, engaged for one year, could be justly made to answer for places or improvements
which could not be accomplished in less than half a dozen years. Nor is it possible for
the people to estimate the SHARE of influence which their annual assemblies may
respectively have on events resulting from the mixed transactions of several years. It is
sufficiently difficult to preserve a personal responsibility in the members of a NUMEROUS
body, for such acts of the body as have an immediate, detached, and palpable operation on
its constituents.
The proper remedy for this defect must be an additional body in the legislative
department, which, having sufficient permanency to provide for such objects as require a
continued attention, and a train of measures, may be justly and effectually answerable for
the attainment of those objects.
Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out the necessity of a
well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the representatives of the people. To a
people as little blinded by prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those whom I address, I
shall not scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a defense
to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions. As the cool and deliberate
sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free
governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular
moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some
illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call
for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and
condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some
temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to
suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and
truth can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the
people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a
safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have
escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day
and statues on the next.
It may be suggested, that a people spread over an extensive region cannot, like
the crowded inhabitants of a small district, be subject to the infection of violent
passions, or to the danger of combining in pursuit of unjust measures. I am far from
denying that this is a distinction of peculiar importance. I have, on the contrary,
endeavored in a former paper to show, that it is one of the principal recommendations of a
confederated republic. At the same time, this advantage ought not to be considered as
superseding the use of auxiliary precautions. It may even be remarked, that the same
extended situation, which will exempt the people of America from some of the dangers
incident to lesser republics, will expose them to the inconveniency of remaining for a
longer time under the influence of those misrepresentations which the combined industry of
interested men may succeed in distributing among them.
It adds no small weight to all these considerations, to recollect that history
informs us of no long-lived republic which had not a senate. Sparta, Rome, and Carthage
are, in fact, the only states to whom that character can be applied. In each of the two
first there was a senate for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less
known. Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in this
particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it had some quality or other
which rendered it an anchor against popular fluctuations; and that a smaller council,
drawn out of the senate, was appointed not only for life, but filled up vacancies itself.
These examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius, of
America, are, notwithstanding, when compared with the fugitive and turbulent existence of
other ancient republics, very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that
will blend stability with liberty. I am not unaware of the circumstances which distinguish
the American from other popular governments, as well ancient as modern; and which render
extreme circumspection necessary, in reasoning from the one case to the other. But after
allowing due weight to this consideration, it may still be maintained, that there are many
points of similitude which render these examples not unworthy of our attention. Many of
the defects, as we have seen, which can only be supplied by a senatorial institution, are
common to a numerous assembly frequently elected by the people, and to the people
themselves. There are others peculiar to the former, which require the control of such an
institution. The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may
possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be
evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of
men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every
public act.
The difference most relied on, between the American and other republics,
consists in the principle of representation; which is the pivot on which the former move,
and which is supposed to have been unknown to the latter, or at least to the ancient part
of them. The use which has been made of this difference, in reasonings contained in former
papers, will have shown that I am disposed neither to deny its existence nor to undervalue
its importance. I feel the less restraint, therefore, in observing, that the position
concerning the ignorance of the ancient governments on the subject of representation, is
by no means precisely true in the latitude commonly given to it. Without entering into a
disquisition which here would be misplaced, I will refer to a few known facts, in support
of what I advance.
In the most pure democracies of Greece, many of the executive functions were
performed, not by the people themselves, but by officers elected by the people, and
REPRESENTING the people in their EXECUTIVE capacity.
Prior to the reform of Solon, Athens was governed by nine Archons, annually
ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE AT LARGE. The degree of power delegated to them seems to be left in
great obscurity. Subsequent to that period, we find an assembly, first of four, and
afterwards of six hundred members, annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; and PARTIALLY
representing them in their LEGISLATIVE capacity, since they were not only associated with
the people in the function of making laws, but had the exclusive right of originating
legislative propositions to the people. The senate of Carthage, also, whatever might be
its power, or the duration of its appointment, appears to have been ELECTIVE by the
suffrages of the people. Similar instances might be traced in most, if not all the popular
governments of antiquity.
Lastly, in Sparta we meet with the Ephori, and in Rome with the Tribunes; two
bodies, small indeed in numbers, but annually ELECTED BY THE WHOLE BODY OF THE PEOPLE, and
considered as the REPRESENTATIVES of the people, almost in their PLENIPOTENTIARY capacity.
The Cosmi of Crete were also annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE, and have been considered by
some authors as an institution analogous to those of Sparta and Rome, with this difference
only, that in the election of that representative body the right of suffrage was
communicated to a part only of the people.
From these facts, to which many others might be added, it is clear that the
principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor wholly overlooked in
their political constitutions. The true distinction between these and the American
governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from
any share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER. The distinction, however, thus qualified,
must be admitted to leave a most advantageous superiority in favor of the United States.
But to insure to this advantage its full effect, we must be careful not to separate it
from the other advantage, of an extensive territory. For it cannot be believed, that any
form of representative government could have succeeded within the narrow limits occupied
by the democracies of Greece.
In answer to all these arguments, suggested by reason, illustrated by examples,
and enforced by our own experience, the jealous adversary of the Constitution will
probably content himself with repeating, that a senate appointed not immediately by the
people, and for the term of six years, must gradually acquire a dangerous pre-eminence in
the government, and finally transform it into a tyrannical aristocracy.
To this general answer, the general reply ought to be sufficient, that liberty
may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power; that there
are numerous instances of the former as well as of the latter; and that the former, rather
than the latter, are apparently most to be apprehended by the United States. But a more
particular reply may be given.
Before such a revolution can be effected, the Senate, it is to be observed,
must in the first place corrupt itself; must next corrupt the State legislatures; must
then corrupt the House of Representatives; and must finally corrupt the people at large.
It is evident that the Senate must be first corrupted before it can attempt an
establishment of tyranny. Without corrupting the State legislatures, it cannot prosecute
the attempt, because the periodical change of members would otherwise regenerate the whole
body. Without exerting the means of corruption with equal success on the House of
Representatives, the opposition of that coequal branch of the government would inevitably
defeat the attempt; and without corrupting the people themselves, a succession of new
representatives would speedily restore all things to their pristine order. Is there any
man who can seriously persuade himself that the proposed Senate can, by any possible means
within the compass of human address, arrive at the object of a lawless ambition, through
all these obstructions?
If reason condemns the suspicion, the same sentence is pronounced by
experience. The constitution of Maryland furnishes the most apposite example. The Senate
of that State is elected, as the federal Senate will be, indirectly by the people, and for
a term less by one year only than the federal Senate. It is distinguished, also, by the
remarkable prerogative of filling up its own vacancies within the term of its appointment,
and, at the same time, is not under the control of any such rotation as is provided for
the federal Senate. There are some other lesser distinctions, which would expose the
former to colorable objections, that do not lie against the latter. If the federal Senate,
therefore, really contained the danger which has been so loudly proclaimed, some symptoms
at least of a like danger ought by this time to have been betrayed by the Senate of
Maryland, but no such symptoms have appeared. On the contrary, the jealousies at first
entertained by men of the same description with those who view with terror the
correspondent part of the federal Constitution, have been gradually extinguished by the
progress of the experiment; and the Maryland constitution is daily deriving, from the
salutary operation of this part of it, a reputation in which it will probably not be
rivalled by that of any State in the Union.
But if any thing could silence the jealousies on this subject, it ought to be
the British example. The Senate there instead of being elected for a term of six years,
and of being unconfined to particular families or fortunes, is an hereditary assembly of
opulent nobles. The House of Representatives, instead of being elected for two years, and
by the whole body of the people, is elected for seven years, and, in very great
proportion, by a very small proportion of the people. Here, unquestionably, ought to be
seen in full display the aristocratic usurpations and tyranny which are at some future
period to be exemplified in the United States. Unfortunately, however, for the
anti-federal argument, the British history informs us that this hereditary assembly has
not been able to defend itself against the continual encroachments of the House of
Representatives; and that it no sooner lost the support of the monarch, than it was
actually crushed by the weight of the popular branch.
As far as antiquity can instruct us on this subject, its examples support the
reasoning which we have employed. In Sparta, the Ephori, the annual representatives of the
people, were found an overmatch for the senate for life, continually gained on its
authority and finally drew all power into their own hands. The Tribunes of Rome, who were
the representatives of the people, prevailed, it is well known, in almost every contest
with the senate for life, and in the end gained the most complete triumph over it. The
fact is the more remarkable, as unanimity was required in every act of the Tribunes, even
after their number was augmented to ten. It proves the irresistible force possessed by
that branch of a free government, which has the people on its side. To these examples
might be added that of Carthage, whose senate, according to the testimony of Polybius,
instead of drawing all power into its vortex, had, at the commencement of the second Punic
War, lost almost the whole of its original portion.
Besides the conclusive evidence resulting from this assemblage of facts, that
the federal Senate will never be able to transform itself, by gradual usurpations, into an
independent and aristocratic body, we are warranted in believing, that if such a
revolution should ever happen from causes which the foresight of man cannot guard against,
the House of Representatives, with the people on their side, will at all times be able to
bring back the Constitution to its primitive form and principles. Against the force of the
immediate representatives of the people, nothing will be able to maintain even the
constitutional authority of the Senate, but such a display of enlightened policy, and
attachment to the public good, as will divide with that branch of the legislature the
affections and support of the entire body of the people themselves.
PUBLIUS.
(Continue to Page 64)
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