The Federalist Papers
ought to be possessed by the members from each of the States. How
can foreign trade be properly regulated by uniform laws, without
some acquaintance with the commerce, the ports, the usages, and the
regulations of the different States? How can the trade between the
different States be duly regulated, without some knowledge of their
relative situations in these and other respects? How can taxes
be judiciously imposed and effectually collected, if they be not
accommodated to the different laws and local circumstances relating to
these objects in the different States? How can uniform regulations
for the militia be duly provided, without a similar knowledge of many
internal circumstances by which the States are distinguished from each
other? These are the principal objects of federal legislation,
and suggest most forcibly the extensive information which the
representatives ought to acquire. The other interior objects will
require a proportional degree of information with regard to them.
It is true that all these difficulties will, by degrees, be very much
diminished. The most laborious task will be the proper inauguration
of the government and the primeval formation of a federal code.
Improvements on the first draughts will every year become both easier
and fewer. Past transactions of the government will be a ready and
accurate source of information to new members. The affairs of the Union
will become more and more objects of curiosity and conversation among
the citizens at large. And the increased intercourse among those of
different States will contribute not a little to diffuse a mutual
knowledge of their affairs, as this again will contribute to a general
assimilation of their manners and laws. But with all these abatements,
the business of federal legislation must continue so far to exceed, both
in novelty and difficulty, the legislative business of a single State,
as to justify the longer period of service assigned to those who are to
transact it.
A branch of knowledge which belongs to the acquirements of a federal
representative, and which has not been mentioned is that of foreign
affairs. In regulating our own commerce he ought to be not only
acquainted with the treaties between the United States and other
nations, but also with the commercial policy and laws of other nations.
He ought not to be altogether ignorant of the law of nations; for that,
as far as it is a proper object of municipal legislation, is submitted
to the federal government. And although the House of Representatives is
not immediately to participate in foreign negotiations and arrangements,
yet from the necessary connection between the several branches of public
affairs, those particular branches will frequently deserve attention in
the ordinary course of legislation, and will sometimes demand particular
legislative sanction and co-operation. Some portion of this knowledge
may, no doubt, be acquired in a man's closet; but some of it also can
only be derived from the public sources of information; and all of it
will be acquired to best effect by a practical attention to the subject
during the period of actual service in the legislature.
There are other considerations, of less importance, perhaps, but
which are not unworthy of notice. The distance which many of the
representatives will be obliged to travel, and the arrangements rendered
necessary by that circumstance, might be much more serious objections
with fit men to this service, if limited to a single year, than if
extended to two years. No argument can be drawn on this subject, from
the case of the delegates to the existing Congress. They are elected
annually, it is true; but their re-election is considered by the
legislative assemblies almost as a matter of course. The election of
the representatives by the people would not be governed by the same
principle.
A few of the members, as happens in all such assemblies, will possess
superior talents; will, by frequent reelections, become members of long
standing; will be thoroughly masters of the public business, and perhaps
not unwilling to avail themselves of those advantages. The greater the
proportion of new members, and the less the information of the bulk of
the members the more apt will they be to fall into the snares that may
be laid for them. This remark is no less applicable to the relation
which will subsist between the House of Representatives and the Senate.
It is an inconvenience mingled with the advantages of our frequent
elections even in single States, where they are large, and hold but
one legislative session in a year, that spurious elections cannot be
investigated and annulled in time for the decision to have its due
effect. If a return can be obtained, no matter by what unlawful means,
the irregular member, who takes his seat of course, is sure of holding
it a sufficient time to answer his purposes. Hence, a very pernicious
encouragement is given to the use of unlawful means, for obtaining
irregular returns. Were elections for the federal legislature to be
annual, this practice might become a very serious abuse, particularly in
the more distant States. Each house is, as it necessarily must be, the
judge of the elections, qualifications, and returns of its members; and
whatever improvements may be suggested by experience, for simplifying
and accelerating the process in disputed cases, so great a portion of
a year would unavoidably elapse, before an illegitimate member could be
dispossessed of his seat, that the prospect of such an event would be
little check to unfair and illicit means of obtaining a seat.
All these considerations taken together warrant us in affirming, that
biennial elections will be as useful to the affairs of the public as we
have seen that they will be safe to the liberty of the people.
PUBLIUS
FEDERALIST No. 54
The Apportionment of Members Among the States
From the New York Packet. Tuesday, February 12, 1788.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
THE next view which I shall take of the House of Representatives relates
to the appointment of its members to the several States which is to be
determined by the same rule with that of direct taxes.
It is not contended that the number of people in each State ought not
to be the standard for regulating the proportion of those who are to
represent the people of each State. The establishment of the same rule
for the appointment of taxes, will probably be as little contested;
though the rule itself in this case, is by no means founded on the same
principle. In the former case, the rule is understood to refer to the
personal rights of the people, with which it has a natural and universal
connection. In the latter, it has reference to the proportion of wealth,
of which it is in no case a precise measure, and in ordinary cases a
very unfit one. But notwithstanding the imperfection of the rule as
applied to the relative wealth and contributions of the States, it is
evidently the least objectionable among the practicable rules, and had
too recently obtained the general sanction of America, not to have found
a ready preference with the convention.
All this is admitted, it will perhaps be said; but does it follow, from
an admission of numbers for the measure of representation, or of slaves
combined with free citizens as a ratio of taxation, that slaves ought
to be included in the numerical rule of representation? Slaves are
considered as property, not as persons. They ought therefore to be
comprehended in estimates of taxation which are founded on property,
and to be excluded from representation which is regulated by a census of
persons. This is the objection, as I understand it, stated in its full
force. I shall be equally candid in stating the reasoning which may be
offered on the opposite side.
"We subscribe to the doctrine," might one of our Southern brethren
observe, "that representation relates more immediately to persons, and
taxation more immediately to property, and we join in the application of
this distinction to the case of our slaves. But we must deny the
fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect
whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of
both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as
persons, and in other respects as property. In being compelled to labor,
not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to
another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained
in his liberty and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of
another--the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank,
and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal
denomination of property. In being protected, on the other hand, in
his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the
master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable himself for
all violence committed against others--the slave is no less evidently
regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of
the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article
of property. The federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great
propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed
character of persons and of property. This is in fact their true
character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under
which they live; and it will not be denied, that these are the proper
criterion; because it is only under the pretext that the laws have
transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is
disputed them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted, that
if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the
negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with
the other inhabitants.
"This question may be placed in another light. It is agreed on all
sides, that numbers are the best scale of wealth and taxation, as they
are the only proper scale of representation. Would the convention have
been impartial or consistent, if they had rejected the slaves from
the list of inhabitants, when the shares of representation were to
be calculated, and inserted them on the lists when the tariff of
contributions was to be adjusted? Could it be reasonably expected, that
the Southern States would concur in a system, which considered their
slaves in some degree as men, when burdens were to be imposed, but
refused to consider them in the same light, when advantages were to be
conferred? Might not some surprise also be expressed, that those who
reproach the Southern States with the barbarous policy of considering as
property a part of their human brethren, should themselves contend,
that the government to which all the States are to be parties, ought to
consider this unfortunate race more completely in the unnatural light of
property, than the very laws of which they complain?
"It may be replied, perhaps, that slaves are not included in the
estimate of representatives in any of the States possessing them. They
neither vote themselves nor increase the votes of their masters. Upon
what principle, then, ought they to be taken into the federal estimate
of representation? In rejecting them altogether, the Constitution would,
in this respect, have followed the very laws which have been appealed to
as the proper guide.
"This objection is repelled by a single observation. It is a fundamental
principle of the proposed Constitution, that as the aggregate number of
representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined by
a federal rule, founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants, so the
right of choosing this allotted number in each State is to be exercised