The Federalist Papers
the United States to regulate the elections for the particular States,
would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an unwarrantable
transposition of power, and as a premeditated engine for the destruction
of the State governments? The violation of principle, in this case,
would have required no comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will
not be less apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the
national government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of the State
governments. An impartial view of the matter cannot fail to result in a
conviction, that each, as far as possible, ought to depend on itself for
its own preservation.
As an objection to this position, it may be remarked that the
constitution of the national Senate would involve, in its full extent,
the danger which it is suggested might flow from an exclusive power
in the State legislatures to regulate the federal elections. It may be
alleged, that by declining the appointment of Senators, they might
at any time give a fatal blow to the Union; and from this it may be
inferred, that as its existence would be thus rendered dependent upon
them in so essential a point, there can be no objection to intrusting
them with it in the particular case under consideration. The interest
of each State, it may be added, to maintain its representation in the
national councils, would be a complete security against an abuse of the
trust.
This argument, though specious, will not, upon examination, be found
solid. It is certainly true that the State legislatures, by forbearing
the appointment of senators, may destroy the national government. But
it will not follow that, because they have a power to do this in one
instance, they ought to have it in every other. There are cases in
which the pernicious tendency of such a power may be far more decisive,
without any motive equally cogent with that which must have regulated
the conduct of the convention in respect to the formation of the
Senate, to recommend their admission into the system. So far as that
construction may expose the Union to the possibility of injury from the
State legislatures, it is an evil; but it is an evil which could not
have been avoided without excluding the States, in their political
capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the national
government. If this had been done, it would doubtless have been
interpreted into an entire dereliction of the federal principle; and
would certainly have deprived the State governments of that absolute
safeguard which they will enjoy under this provision. But however wise
it may have been to have submitted in this instance to an inconvenience,
for the attainment of a necessary advantage or a greater good, no
inference can be drawn from thence to favor an accumulation of the evil,
where no necessity urges, nor any greater good invites.
It may be easily discerned also that the national government would run
a much greater risk from a power in the State legislatures over the
elections of its House of Representatives, than from their power of
appointing the members of its Senate. The senators are to be chosen for
the period of six years; there is to be a rotation, by which the seats
of a third part of them are to be vacated and replenished every two
years; and no State is to be entitled to more than two senators; a
quorum of the body is to consist of sixteen members. The joint result
of these circumstances would be, that a temporary combination of a few
States to intermit the appointment of senators, could neither annul
the existence nor impair the activity of the body; and it is not from
a general and permanent combination of the States that we can have any
thing to fear. The first might proceed from sinister designs in the
leading members of a few of the State legislatures; the last would
suppose a fixed and rooted disaffection in the great body of the people,
which will either never exist at all, or will, in all probability,
proceed from an experience of the inaptitude of the general government
to the advancement of their happiness in which event no good citizen
could desire its continuance.
But with regard to the federal House of Representatives, there is
intended to be a general election of members once in two years. If
the State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive power
of regulating these elections, every period of making them would be
a delicate crisis in the national situation, which might issue in a
dissolution of the Union, if the leaders of a few of the most important
States should have entered into a previous conspiracy to prevent an
election.
I shall not deny, that there is a degree of weight in the observation,
that the interests of each State, to be represented in the federal
councils, will be a security against the abuse of a power over its
elections in the hands of the State legislatures. But the security will
not be considered as complete, by those who attend to the force of an
obvious distinction between the interest of the people in the public
felicity, and the interest of their local rulers in the power and
consequence of their offices. The people of America may be warmly
attached to the government of the Union, at times when the particular
rulers of particular States, stimulated by the natural rivalship of
power, and by the hopes of personal aggrandizement, and supported by
a strong faction in each of those States, may be in a very opposite
temper. This diversity of sentiment between a majority of the people,
and the individuals who have the greatest credit in their councils, is
exemplified in some of the States at the present moment, on the present
question. The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always
multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all
such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable
of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.
With so effectual a weapon in their hands as the exclusive power of
regulating elections for the national government, a combination of a few
such men, in a few of the most considerable States, where the temptation
will always be the strongest, might accomplish the destruction of the
Union, by seizing the opportunity of some casual dissatisfaction among
the people (and which perhaps they may themselves have excited),
to discontinue the choice of members for the federal House of
Representatives. It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm union
of this country, under an efficient government, will probably be an
increasing object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe; and
that enterprises to subvert it will sometimes originate in the intrigues
of foreign powers, and will seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by
some of them. Its preservation, therefore ought in no case that can
be avoided, to be committed to the guardianship of any but those whose
situation will uniformly beget an immediate interest in the faithful and
vigilant performance of the trust.
PUBLIUS
1. 1st clause, 4th section, of the 1st article.
FEDERALIST No. 60
The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate
the Election of Members)
From The Independent Journal. Saturday, February 23, 1788.
HAMILTON
To the People of the State of New York:
WE HAVE seen, that an uncontrollable power over the elections to the
federal government could not, without hazard, be committed to the State
legislatures. Let us now see, what would be the danger on the other
side; that is, from confiding the ultimate right of regulating its own
elections to the Union itself. It is not pretended, that this right
would ever be used for the exclusion of any State from its share in the
representation. The interest of all would, in this respect at least,
be the security of all. But it is alleged, that it might be employed in
such a manner as to promote the election of some favorite class of
men in exclusion of others, by confining the places of election to
particular districts, and rendering it impracticable to the citizens
at large to partake in the choice. Of all chimerical suppositions,
this seems to be the most chimerical. On the one hand, no rational
calculation of probabilities would lead us to imagine that the
disposition which a conduct so violent and extraordinary would imply,
could ever find its way into the national councils; and on the other,
it may be concluded with certainty, that if so improper a spirit should
ever gain admittance into them, it would display itself in a form
altogether different and far more decisive.
The improbability of the attempt may be satisfactorily inferred from
this single reflection, that it could never be made without causing an
immediate revolt of the great body of the people, headed and directed
by the State governments. It is not difficult to conceive that this
characteristic right of freedom may, in certain turbulent and factious
seasons, be violated, in respect to a particular class of citizens, by
a victorious and overbearing majority; but that so fundamental a
privilege, in a country so situated and enlightened, should be invaded
to the prejudice of the great mass of the people, by the deliberate
policy of the government, without occasioning a popular revolution, is
altogether inconceivable and incredible.
In addition to this general reflection, there are considerations of a
more precise nature, which forbid all apprehension on the subject.
The dissimilarity in the ingredients which will compose the national
government, and still more in the manner in which they will be brought
into action in its various branches, must form a powerful obstacle to a
concert of views in any partial scheme of elections. There is sufficient
diversity in the state of property, in the genius, manners, and habits
of the people of the different parts of the Union, to occasion a
material diversity of disposition in their representatives towards
the different ranks and conditions in society. And though an
intimate intercourse under the same government will promote a gradual
assimilation in some of these respects, yet there are causes, as well
physical as moral, which may, in a greater or less degree, permanently
nourish different propensities and inclinations in this respect. But the
circumstance which will be likely to have the greatest influence in
the matter, will be the dissimilar modes of constituting the several
component parts of the government. The House of Representatives being
to be elected immediately by the people, the Senate by the State
legislatures, the President by electors chosen for that purpose by the
people, there would be little probability of a common interest to cement
these different branches in a predilection for any particular class of
electors.
As to the Senate, it is impossible that any regulation of "time and
manner," which is all that is proposed to be submitted to the national
government in respect to that body, can affect the spirit which will
direct the choice of its members. The collective sense of the State
legislatures can never be influenced by extraneous circumstances of
that sort; a consideration which alone ought to satisfy us that the
discrimination apprehended would never be attempted. For what inducement
could the Senate have to concur in a preference in which itself
would not be included? Or to what purpose would it be established, in
reference to one branch of the legislature, if it could not be extended
to the other? The composition of the one would in this case counteract
that of the other. And we can never suppose that it would embrace the
appointments to the Senate, unless we can at the same time suppose the
voluntary co-operation of the State legislatures. If we make the latter