The Federalist Papers
distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America,
the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two
distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided
among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises
to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each
other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.
Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the
society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of
the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests
necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority
be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be
insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil:
the one by creating a will in the community independent of the
majority--that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in
the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an
unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not
impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing
an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a
precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as
well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests
of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The
second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United
States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent
on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts,
interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or
of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations
of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must
be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in
the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of
sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of
interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent
of country and number of people comprehended under the same government.
This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal
system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican
government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of
the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States
oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best
security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class
of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and
independence of some member of the government, the only other security,
must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It
is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued
until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a
society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite
and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a
state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the
violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger
individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to
submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves;
so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be
gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will
protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be
little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from
the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the
popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed
by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power
altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the
voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of
it. In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great
variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition
of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other
principles than those of justice and the general good; whilst there
being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there
must be less pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former,
by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter,
or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no
less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions
which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided
it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of
self-government. And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the practicable
sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious
modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.
PUBLIUS
FEDERALIST No. 52
The House of Representatives
From the New York Packet. Friday, February 8, 1788.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
FROM the more general inquiries pursued in the four last papers, I
pass on to a more particular examination of the several parts of the
government. I shall begin with the House of Representatives.
The first view to be taken of this part of the government relates to the
qualifications of the electors and the elected. Those of the former are
to be the same with those of the electors of the most numerous branch of
the State legislatures. The definition of the right of suffrage is very
justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. It
was incumbent on the convention, therefore, to define and establish
this right in the Constitution. To have left it open for the occasional
regulation of the Congress, would have been improper for the reason just
mentioned. To have submitted it to the legislative discretion of the
States, would have been improper for the same reason; and for the
additional reason that it would have rendered too dependent on the State
governments that branch of the federal government which ought to
be dependent on the people alone. To have reduced the different
qualifications in the different States to one uniform rule, would
probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the States as it
would have been difficult to the convention. The provision made by the
convention appears, therefore, to be the best that lay within
their option. It must be satisfactory to every State, because it
is conformable to the standard already established, or which may be
established, by the State itself. It will be safe to the United States,
because, being fixed by the State constitutions, it is not alterable by
the State governments, and it cannot be feared that the people of the
States will alter this part of their constitutions in such a manner as
to abridge the rights secured to them by the federal Constitution.
The qualifications of the elected, being less carefully and properly
defined by the State constitutions, and being at the same time more
susceptible of uniformity, have been very properly considered and
regulated by the convention. A representative of the United States must
be of the age of twenty-five years; must have been seven years a
citizen of the United States; must, at the time of his election, be an
inhabitant of the State he is to represent; and, during the time of
his service, must be in no office under the United States. Under these
reasonable limitations, the door of this part of the federal government
is open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive,
whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any
particular profession of religious faith.
The term for which the representatives are to be elected falls under a
second view which may be taken of this branch. In order to decide on
the propriety of this article, two questions must be considered: first,
whether biennial elections will, in this case, be safe; secondly,
whether they be necessary or useful.
First. As it is essential to liberty that the government in general
should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly
essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an
immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.
Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this
dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured. But what particular
degree of frequency may be absolutely necessary for the purpose, does
not appear to be susceptible of any precise calculation, and must depend
on a variety of circumstances with which it may be connected. Let us
consult experience, the guide that ought always to be followed whenever
it can be found.
The scheme of representation, as a substitute for a meeting of the
citizens in person, being at most but very imperfectly known to
ancient polity, it is in more modern times only that we are to expect
instructive examples. And even here, in order to avoid a research too
vague and diffusive, it will be proper to confine ourselves to the few
examples which are best known, and which bear the greatest analogy
to our particular case. The first to which this character ought to be
applied, is the House of Commons in Great Britain. The history of
this branch of the English Constitution, anterior to the date of Magna
Charta, is too obscure to yield instruction. The very existence of
it has been made a question among political antiquaries. The earliest
records of subsequent date prove that parliaments were to SIT only every
year; not that they were to be ELECTED every year. And even these annual
sessions were left so much at the discretion of the monarch, that,
under various pretexts, very long and dangerous intermissions were often
contrived by royal ambition. To remedy this grievance, it was provided
by a statute in the reign of Charles II, that the intermissions should
not be protracted beyond a period of three years. On the accession of
William III, when a revolution took place in the government, the subject
was still more seriously resumed, and it was declared to be among the
fundamental rights of the people that parliaments ought to be held
FREQUENTLY. By another statute, which passed a few years later in the
same reign, the term "frequently," which had alluded to the triennial
period settled in the time of Charles II, is reduced to a precise
meaning, it being expressly enacted that a new parliament shall be
called within three years after the termination of the former. The last
change, from three to seven years, is well known to have been introduced
pretty early in the present century, under an alarm for the Hanoverian
succession. From these facts it appears that the greatest frequency of
elections which has been deemed necessary in that kingdom, for binding
the representatives to their constituents, does not exceed a triennial
return of them. And if we may argue from the degree of liberty retained
even under septennial elections, and all the other vicious ingredients
in the parliamentary constitution, we cannot doubt that a reduction of
the period from seven to three years, with the other necessary
reforms, would so far extend the influence of the people over their
representatives as to satisfy us that biennial elections, under the
federal system, cannot possibly be dangerous to the requisite dependence
of the House of Representatives on their constituents.
Elections in Ireland, till of late, were regulated entirely by the
discretion of the crown, and were seldom repeated, except on the
accession of a new prince, or some other contingent event. The