The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of

Members)

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, February 26, 1788.

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.