 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 46 by James Madison The influence of the state and federal governments compared from the New York packet. Tuesday, January 29, 1788 To the People of the State of New York Resuming the subject of the last paper, I proceed to inquire whether the federal government or the state governments will have the advantage with regard to the predilection and support of the people. Notwithstanding the different modes in which they are appointed, we must consider both of them as substantially dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States. I assume this position here as it respects the first, reserving the proofs for another place. The federal and state governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people constituted with different powers and designed for different purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject, and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either or which of them will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other. Truth, no less than decency, requires that the event in every case should be supposed to depend on the sentiments and sanction of their common constituents. Many considerations, besides those suggested on a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective states, into the administration of these a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. From the gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow. By the superintending care of these, all the more domestic and personal interests of the people will be regulated and provided for. With the affairs of these, the people will be more familiarly and minutely conversant, and with the members of these will a greater proportion of the people have the ties of personal acquaintance and friendship, and of family and party attachments. On the side of these, therefore, the popular bias may well be expected most strongly to incline. Experience speaks the same language in this case. The federal administration, though hitherto very defective in comparison with what may be hoped under a better system, had, during the war, and particularly whilst the independent fund of paper emissions was in credit, an activity and importance as great as it can well have in any future circumstances whatsoever. It was engaged, too, in a course of measures which had for their object the protection of everything that was dear, and the acquisition of everything that could be desirable to the people at large. It was, nevertheless, invariably found, after the transient enthusiasm for the early congresses was over, that the attention and attachment of the people were turned anew to their own particular governments, that the federal council was at no time the idol of popular favor, and that opposition to proposed enlargements of its powers and importance was the side usually taken by the men who wished to build their political consequence on the prepossessions of their fellow citizens. If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the state governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that case the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due, but even in that case the state governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered. The remaining points on which I propose to compare the federal and state governments are the disposition and the faculty they may respectively possess to resist and frustrate the measures of each other. It has been already proved that the members of the federal will be more dependent on the members of the state governments than the latter will be on the former. It has appeared also that the prepossessions of the people on whom both will depend will be more on the side of the state governments than of the federal government. So far as the disposition of each toward the other may be influenced by these causes, the state governments must clearly have the advantage. But in a distinct and very important point of view the advantage will lie on the same side. The prepossessions which the members themselves will carry into the federal government will generally be favorable to the states, whilst it will rarely happen that the members of the state governments will carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the general government. A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular states. Everyone knows that a great proportion of the errors committed by the state legislatures proceeds from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of the state to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular state, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the union and the dignity and respectability of its government the objects of their affections and consultations? For the same reason that the members of the state legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The states will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual states. What is the spirit that has in general characterized the proceedings of Congress? A perusal of their journals, as well as the candid acknowledgments of such as have had a seat in that assembly, will inform us that the members have but too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans of their respective states, than of impartial guardians of a common interest, that where on one occasion improper sacrifices have been made of local considerations to the aggrandizement of the federal government, the great interests of the nation have suffered on a hundred from an undue attention to the local prejudices, interests, and views of the particular states. I mean not by these reflections to insinuate that the new federal government will not embrace a more enlarged plan of policy than the existing government may have pursued, much less that its views will be as confined as those of the state legislatures, but only that it will partake sufficiently of the spirit of both to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual states or the prerogatives of their governments. The motives on the part of the state governments to augment their prerogatives by defaultations from the federal government will be overruled by no reciprocal predispositions in the members. Were it admitted, however, that the federal government may feel an equal disposition with the state government to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. An act of a particular state, though unfriendly to the national government, be generally popular in that state and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the state officers, it is executed immediately, and of course by means on the spot and depending on the state alone. The opposition of the federal government or the interposition of federal officers would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the state, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty. On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular states, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people, their repugnance and perhaps refusal to cooperate with the officers of the union, the frowns of the executive majesty of the state, the embarrassments created by legislative devices which would often be added on such occasions would oppose, in any state, difficulties not to be despised, would form in a large state very serious impediments, and where the sentiments of several adjoining states happened to be in unison would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. But ambiguous encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the state governments, would not excite the opposition of a single state, or of a few states only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause, a correspondence would be opened, plans of resistance would be concerted, one spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign yoke, and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made, in the one case, as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity? In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other. The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. The attempt was unjust and unwise, but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves, or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter. The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the state governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger, that the people and the states should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both, that the traders should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment, that the governments and the people of the states should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to everyone more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant, as the supposition is, let it however be made, let a regular army fully equal to the resources of the country be formed, and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government, still it would not be going too far to say that the state governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia, thus circumstanced, could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of, notwithstanding the military establishments and the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear. The governments are afraid to trust the people with arms, and it is not certain that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes, but were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed, with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it. The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form which appears altogether conclusive. Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. On the first supposition it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. On the other supposition it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the state governments, who will be supported by the people. On summing up the considerations stated in this and the last paper, they seem to amount to the most convincing evidence that the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual states as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union, and that all those alarms which have been sounded of a meditated and consequential annihilation of the state governments must, on the most favorable interpretation, be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the authors of them. Publius. End of Federalist No. 46. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Zachary Brewster Geiss, Greenbelt, Maryland, April 2007. The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 47 by James Madison. Federalist No. 47, the particular structure of the new government, and the distribution of power among its different parts. For The Independent Journal, Wednesday, January 30th, 1788. To the people of the state of New York. Having reviewed the general form of the proposed government, and the general mass of power allotted to it, I proceed to examine the particular structure of this government and the distribution of this mass of power among its constituent parts. One of the principal objections inculated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution is its supposed violation of the political maxim that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts. No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution therefore really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to everyone that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maximum on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct. The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu. If he be not the author of this invaluable precept in the science of politics, he has the merit at least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the attention of mankind. Let us endeavor in the first place to ascertain his meaning on this point. The British Constitution was to Montesquieu what Homer has been to the didactic writers on epic poetry. As the latter have considered the work of the immortal bard as the perfect model from which the principles and rules of the epic art were to be drawn, and by which all similar works were to be judged, so this great political critic appears to have viewed the Constitution of England as the standard, or to use his own expression, as the mirror of political liberty, and to have delivered in the form of elementary truths the several characteristic principles of that particular system. That we may be sure then not to mistake his meaning in this case, let us recur to the source from which the maxim was drawn. On the slightest view of the British Constitution we must perceive that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are by no means totally separate and distinct from each other. The executive magistrate forms an integral part of the legislative authority. He alone has the prerogative of making treaties with foreign sovereigns which, when made, have under certain limitations the force of legislative acts. All the members of the judiciary department are appointed by him, can be removed by him on the address of the two houses of parliament, and form, when he pleases to consult them, one of his constitutional councils. One branch of the legislative department forms also a great constitutional council to the executive chief, as on another hand it is the sole depository of judicial power in cases of impeachment, and is invested with the supreme appellate jurisdiction in all other cases. The judges, again, are so far connected with the legislative department as often to attend and participate in its deliberations, though not admitted to a legislative vote. From these facts by which Montesquieu was guided, it may clearly be inferred that in saying, there can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates, or if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers, he did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other. His meaning, as his own words import, and still more conclusively, as illustrated by the example in his eye, can amount to know more than this, that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted. This would have been the case in the constitution examined by him if the king, who is the sole executive magistrate, had possessed also the complete legislative power, or the supreme administration of justice, or if the entire legislative body had possessed the supreme judiciary, or the supreme executive authority. This, however, is not among the vices of that constitution, the magistrate in whom the whole executive power resides cannot of himself make a law, though he can put a negative on every law, nor administer justice in person, though he has the appointment of those who do administer it. The judges can exercise no executive prerogative, though they are shoots from the executive stock, nor any legislative function, though they may be advised with by the legislative councils. The entire legislature can perform no judiciary act, though by the joint act of two of its branches the judges may be removed from their offices, and though one of its branches is possessed of the judicial power in the last resort. The entire legislature, again, can exercise no executive prerogative, though one of its branches constitutes the supreme executive magistracy, and another, on the impeachment of a third, can try and condemn all the subordinate officers in the executive department. The reasons on which Montesquieu grounds his maxim are a further demonstration of his meaning. When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, says he, there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner. Again, were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor. Some of these reasons are more fully explained in other passages, but briefly stated as they are here they sufficiently established the meaning which we have put on this celebrated maxim of this celebrated author. If we look into the constitutions of the several states, we find that notwithstanding the emphatical and in some instances the unqualified terms in which this axiom has been laid down, there is not a single instance in which the several departments of power have been kept absolutely separate and distinct. New Hampshire, whose constitution was last formed, seems to have been fully aware of the impossibility and inexpediency of avoiding any mixture whatever of these departments, and has qualified the doctrine by declaring that the legislative, executive and judiciary powers ought to be kept as separate from and independent of each other as the nature of a free government will admit, or as is consistent with that chain of connection that binds the whole fabric of the constitution in one indissoluble bond of unity and amity. Her constitution accordingly mixes these departments in several respects. The Senate, which is a branch of the legislative department, is also a judicial tribunal for the trial of impeachments. The president, who is the head of the executive department, is the presiding member also of the Senate, and, besides an equal vote in all cases, has a casting vote in case of a tie. The executive head is himself eventually elective every year by the legislative department, and his counsel is every year chosen by and from the members of the same department. Several of the officers of state are also appointed by the legislature, and the members of the judiciary department are appointed by the executive department. The Constitution of Massachusetts has observed a sufficient, though less pointed, caution in expressing this fundamental article of liberty. It declares that the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them. The executives shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them. The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them. This declaration corresponds precisely with the doctrine of Montesquieu, as it has been explained, and is not in a single point violated by the plan of the Convention. It goes no farther than to prohibit any one of the entire departments from exercising the powers of another department. In the very Constitution to which it is prefixed, a partial mixture of powers has been admitted. The Executive Magistrate has a qualified negative on the legislative body, and the Senate, which is a part of the legislature, is a court of impeachment for members both of the Executive and Judiciary departments. The members of the Judiciary department, again, are appointable by the Executive Department, and removable by the same authority on the address of the two legislative branches. Lastly, a number of the officers of government are annually appointed by the Legislative Department, as the appointment to officers, particularly Executive officers, is in its nature an executive function the compilers of the Constitution have, in this last point at least, violated the rule established by themselves. I pass over the constitutions of Rhode Island and Connecticut because they were formed prior to the Revolution, and even before the principle under examination had become an object of political attention. The Constitution of New York contains no declaration on this subject, but appears very clearly to have framed with an eye to the danger of improperly blending the different departments. It gives, nevertheless, to the Executive Magistrate a partial control over the legislative department, and what is more, gives a light control to the Judiciary department, and even blends the Executive and Judiciary departments in the exercise of this control. In its Council of Appointment, members of the Legislative are associated with the Executive Authority in the appointment of officers both Executive and Judiciary, and its Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors is to consist of one branch of the Legislature and the principal members of the Judiciary department. The Constitution of New Jersey has blended the different powers of government more than any of the proceeding. The Governor, who is the Executive Magistrate, is appointed by the Legislature, is Chancellor and Ordinary or Surrogate of the State, is a member of the Supreme Court of Appeals and President with a casting vote of one of the Legislative branches. The same Legislative branch acts again as Executive Council of the Governor and with him constitutes the Court of Appeals. The members of the Judiciary department are appointed by the Legislative department and removable by one branch of it on the impeachment of the other. According to the Constitution of Pennsylvania, the President, who is the head of the Executive department, is annually elected by a vote in which the Legislative department predominates. In conjunction with an Executive Council, he appoints the members of the Judiciary department and forms a Court of Impeachment for Trial of All Officers, Judiciary as well as Executive. The judges of the Supreme Court and Justices of the Peace seem also to be removable by the Legislature and the Executive power of pardoning in certain cases to be referred to the same department. The members of the Executive Council are made ex-officio Justices of Peace throughout the State. In Delaware, the Chief Executive Magistrate is annually elected by the Legislative department. The speakers of the two Legislative branches are Vice Presidents in the Executive department. The Executive Chief, with six others appointed, three by each of the Legislative branches, constitutes the Supreme Court of Appeals. He is joined with the Legislative department in the appointment of the other judges. Throughout the States, it appears that the members of the Legislature may at the same time be Justices of the Peace. In this State, the members of one branch of it are ex-officio Justices of the Peace, as are also the members of the Executive Council. The principal officers of the Executive department are appointed by the Legislative, and one branch of the latter forms a court of impeachments. All officers may be removed on address of the Legislature. Maryland has adopted the maxim in the most unqualified terms, declaring that the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial powers of government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other. Her constitution, notwithstanding, makes the Executive Magistrate appointable by the Legislative department and the members of the Judiciary by the Executive department. The language of Virginia is still more pointed on this subject. Her constitution declares that the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary departments shall be separate and distinct, so that neither ex-ercise the powers properly belonging to the other, nor shall any person ex-ercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time, except that the Justices of county courts shall be eligible to either House of Assembly. Yet we find not only this express exception with respect to the members of the inferior courts, but that the Chief Magistrate with his Executive Council are appointable by the Legislature, that two members of the latter are triennially displaced at the pleasure of the Legislature, and that all the principal offices, both Executive and Judiciary, are filled by the same department. The Executive prerogative of pardon also is in one case vested in the Legislative department. The Constitution of North Carolina, which declares that the Legislative, Executive, and Supreme Judicial powers of government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other, refers at the same time to the Legislative department, the appointment not only of the Executive Chief, but all the principal officers within both that and the Judiciary department. In South Carolina, the Constitution makes the Executive Magistracy eligible by the Legislative department. It gives to the latter also the appointment of the members of the Judiciary department, including even Justices of the Peace and Sheriffs, and the appointment of officers in the Executive department down to Captains in the Army and Navy of the State. In the Constitution of Georgia, where it is declared that the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary departments shall be separate and distinct so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other, we find that the Executive department is to be filled by appointments of the Legislature and the Executive prerogative of pardon to be finally exercised by the same authority. Even Justices of the Peace are to be appointed by the Legislature. Insighting these cases, in which the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary departments have not been kept totally separate and distinct, I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several State governments. I am fully aware that among the many excellent principles which they exemplify, they carry strong marks of the haste and still stronger of the inexperience under which they were framed. It is but too obvious that in some instances the fundamental principle under consideration has been violated by too great a mixture and even an actual consolidation of the different powers, and that in no instance has a component provision been made for maintaining in practice the separation delineated on paper. What I have wished to envince is that the charge brought against the proposed Constitution of violating the sacred maxim of free government is warranted neither by the real meaning annexed to that maxim by its author nor by the sense in which it has hitherto been understood in America. This interesting subject will be resumed in the ensuing paper. Publis. End of Federalist Number 47. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Supported by Zachary Brewster Geis, Greenbelt, Maryland, April 2007. The Federalist Papers. Federalist Number 48 by James Madison. Federalist Number 48. These departments should not be so far separated as to have no constitutional control over each other. From the New York packet, Friday, February 1, 1788. To the people of the state of New York. It was shown in the last paper that the political apathem there examined does not require that the legislative, executive and judiciary departments should be wholly unconnected with each other. I shall undertake in the next place to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires as essential to a free government can never in practice be duly maintained. It is agreed on all sides that the powers properly belonging to one of the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered by either of the other departments. It is equally evident that none of them ought to possess directly or indirectly an overruling influence over the others in the administration of their respective powers. It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each against the invasion of the others. What this security ought to be is the great problem to be solved. Will it be sufficient to mark with precision the boundaries of these departments in the constitution of the government and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power? This is the security which appears to have been principally relied on by the compilers of most of the American constitutions, but experience assures us that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly overrated and that some more adequate defense is indispensable necessary for the more feeble against the more powerful members of the government. The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. The founders of our republics have so much merit for the wisdom which they have displayed that no task can be less pleasing than that of pointing out the errors into which they have fallen. A respect for truth, however, obliges us to remark that they seem never for a moment to have turned their eyes from the danger to liberty from the overgrown and all-grasping prerogative of an hereditary magistrate supported and fortified by an hereditary branch of the legislative authority. They seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations. In a government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of an hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the source of danger and watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire. In a democracy where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions and are continually exposed by their incapacity for a regular deliberation and concerted measures to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended on some favorable emergency to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic where the executive magistracy is carefully limited, both in the extent and the duration of its power, and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly which is inspired by a supposed influence over the people with an intrepid confidence in its own strength, which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions by means which reason prescribes. It is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions. The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive and less susceptible of precise limits, it can, with the greater facility, mask under complicated and indirect measures the encroachments which it makes on the coordinate departments. It is not unfrequently a question of real nicety in the legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure will or will not extend beyond the legislative sphere. On the other side, the executive power being restrained within a narrower compass and being more simple in its nature, and the judiciary being described by landmarks still less uncertain, projects of usurpation by either of these departments would immediately betray and defeat themselves. Nor is this all, as the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people and has in some constitutions full discretion, and in all a prevailing influence over the pecuniary wars of those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former. I have appealed to our own experience for the truth of what I advance on this subject. Were it necessary to verify this experience by particular proofs, they might be multiplied without end. I might find a witness in every citizen who has shared in, or being attentive to, the course of public administrations. I might collect vouchers in abundance from the records and archives of every state in the union, but as a more concise and at the same time equally satisfactory evidence, I will refer to the example of two states attested by two unexceptionable authorities. The first example is that of Virginia, a state which, as we have seen, has expressly declared in its constitution that the three great departments ought not to be intermixed. The authority in support of it is Mr. Jefferson, who, besides his other advantages for remarking the operation of the government, was himself the chief magistrate of it. In order to convey fully the ideas with which his experience had impressed him on this subject, it will be necessary to quote a passage of some length from his very interesting notes on the state of Virginia, page 195, quote, all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes on the Republic of Venice, as little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason, that convention which passed the ordinance of government laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. But no barrier was provided between these several powers. The judiciary and the executive members were left dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If therefore the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made, nor if made can be effectual, because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of acts of assembly which will render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to judiciary controversy and the direction of the executive during the whole time of their session is becoming habitual and familiar. The other state which I shall take for an example is Pennsylvania, and the other authority, the Council of Sensors, which assembled in the years 1783 and 1784. A part of the duty of this body, as marked out by the constitution, was, quote, to inquire whether the constitution had been preserved in violet in every part, and whether the legislative and executive branches of government had performed their duty as guardians of the people, or assumed to themselves, or exercised, other or greater powers than they are entitled to by the constitution, unquote. In the execution of this trust the council were necessarily led to a comparison of both the legislative and executive proceedings with the constitutional powers of these departments, and from the facts enumerated and to the truth of most of which both sides in the council subscribed, it appears that the constitution had been flagrantly violated by the legislature in a variety of important instances. A great number of laws had been passed violating without any apparent necessity, the rule requiring that all bills of a public nature shall be previously printed for the consideration of the people, although this is one of the precautions chiefly relied on by the constitution against improper acts of legislature. The constitutional trial by jury had been violated and powers assumed which had not been delegated by the constitution. Executive powers had been usurped. The salaries of the judges, which the constitution expressly requires to be fixed, had been occasionally varied, and cases belonging to the judiciary department frequently drawn within legislative cognizance and determination. Those who wish to see the several particulars falling under each of these heads may consult the journals of the council which are in print. Some of them, it will be found, may be imputable to peculiar circumstances connected with the war, but the greater part of them may be considered as the spontaneous chutes of an ill-constituted government. It appears also that the executive department had not been innocent of frequent breaches of the constitution. There are three observations, however, which ought to be made on this head. First, a great proportion of the instances were either immediately produced by the necessities of the war or recommended by Congress or the commander-in-chief. Second, in most of the other instances, they conformed either to the declared or the known sentiments of the legislative department. Third, the executive department of Pennsylvania is distinguished from that of the other states by the number of members composing it. In this respect it has as much affinity to a legislative assembly as to an executive council, and being at once exempt from the restraint of an individual responsibility for the acts of the body, and deriving confidence from mutual example and joint influence, unauthorized measures would, of course, be more freely hazardous than where the executive department is administered by a single hand or by a few hands. The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands. Publius. End of Federalist Number 48. February 2, 1788. To the people of the state of New York. The author of the notes on the state of Virginia, quoted in the last paper, has subjoined to that valuable work the draft of a constitution which had been prepared in order to be laid before a convention expected to be called in 1783 by the legislature for the establishment of a constitution for that commonwealth. The plan, like everything from the same pen, marks a turn of thinking original, comprehensive and accurate, and is the more worthy of attention as it equally displays a fervent attachment to republican government and an enlightened view of the dangerous propensities against which it ought to be guarded, one of the precautions which he proposes and on which he appears ultimately to rely as a palladium to the weaker departments of power against the invasions of the stronger is perhaps altogether his own, and as it immediately relates to the subject of our present inquiry ought not to be overlooked. His proposition is that whenever any two of the three branches of government shall concur an opinion, each by the voices of two-thirds of their whole number, that a convention is necessary for altering the constitution or correcting breaches of it, a convention shall be called for the purpose. As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter under which the several branches of government hold their power is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new model the powers of government, but also whenever any one of the departments may commit encroachments on the chartered authority of the others. The several departments being perfectly coordinate by the terms of their common commission, neither of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers. And how are the encroachments of the stronger to be prevented, or the wrongs of the weaker to be redressed, without an appeal to the people themselves? Who, as the grantors of the commission, can alone declare its true meaning and enforce its observance? There is certainly great force in this reasoning, and it must be allowed to prove that a constitutional road to the decision of the people ought to be marked out and kept open for certain great and extraordinary occasions. But there appear to be insuperable objections against the proposed recurrence to the people, as a provision in all cases for keeping the several departments of power within their constitutional limits. In the first place, the provision does not reach the case of a combination of two of the departments against the third. If the legislative authority, which possesses so many means of operating on the motives of the other departments, should be able to gain to its interest either of the others, or even one third of its members, the remaining department could derive no advantage from this remedial provision. I do not dwell, however, on this objection, because it may be thought to lie rather against the modification of the principle than against the principle itself. In the next place, it may be considered as an objection inherent in the principle, that as every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would, in great measure, deprive the government of that veneration, which time bestows on everything, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability. If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual and in its practical influence on its conduct depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples which fortify opinion are ancient as well as numerous, they are known to have double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently incalculated to the voice of an enlightened reason, but a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquility by interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish nature to be unnecessarily multiplied. We are to recollect that all the existing constitutions were formed in the midst of a danger which repressed to the passions most unfriendly to order and concord of an enthusiastic confidence of the people and their patriotic leaders, which stifled the ordinary diversity of opinions on great national questions of a universal order for new and opposite forms produced by a universal resentment and indignation against the ancient government. And whilst no spirit of party connected with the changes to be made or the abuses to be reformed could mingle its leaven in the operation. The future situations in which we must expect to be usually placed do not present any equivalent security against the danger which is apprehended. But the greatest objection of all is that the decisions which would probably result from such appeals would not answer the purpose of maintaining the constitutional equilibrium of the government. We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals of the people therefore would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments. But whether made by one side or the other would each side enjoy equal advantage on the trial? Let us view their different situations. The members of the executive and judiciary departments are few in number and can be personally known to a small part only of the people. The latter by the mode of their appointment as well be by their nature and permanency of it are far to removed from the people to share much in their prepossessions. The former are generally the objects of jealousy and their administration is always liable to be discolored and rendered unpopular. The members of the legislative department on the other hand are numerous. They are distributed and well among the people at large. Their connections of blood of friendship and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. The nature of their public trust implies a personal influence among the people and that they are more immediately the confidential guardians of the rights and liberties of the people. With these advantages it can hardly be supposed that the adverse party would have an equal chance for a favorable issue. But the legislative party would not only be able to plead their case most successfully with the people they would probably be constituted themselves the judges. The same influence which had gained them an election into the legislature would gain them a seat in the convention. If this should not be the case with all it would probably be the case with many and pretty certainly with those leading characters on whom everything depends in such bodies. The convention in short would be composed chiefly of men who had been who actually were or who expected to be members of the department whose conduct was arraigned. They would consequently be parties to the very question to be decided by them. It would however sometimes happen that appeals would be made under circumstances less adverse to the executive and judiciary departments. The usurpations of the legislative might be so flagrant and so sudden as to admit of no specious coloring. A strong party among themselves might take side with the other branches. The executive power might be in the hands of a peculiar favorite of the people. In such a posture of things the public decision might be less swayed by prepossessions in favor of the legislative party. But still it could never be expected to turn on the true merits of the question. It would inevitably be connected with the spirit of pre-existing parties or of parties springing out of the question itself. It would be connected with persons of distinguished character and extensive influence in the community. It would be pronounced by the very men who had been agents in it or opponents of the measures to which the decision would relate. The passions therefore not the reason of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason of the public alone that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government. We found in the last paper that mere declarations in the written constitution are not sufficient to restrain the several departments with in their legal limits. It appears in this that occasional appeals to the people would be neither a proper nor an effectual provision for that purpose. How far the provisions of a different nature contained in the plan above quoted might be adequate I do not examine. Some of them are unquestionably founded on sound political principles and all of them are framed with singular ingenuity and precision. Publius. End of Federalist Number 49. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison. Federalist Number 50 by James Madison. Periodical appeals to the people considered from the New York packet Tuesday, February 5th, 1788. To the people of the state of New York. It may be contended perhaps that instead of occasional appeals to the people which are liable to the objections urged against them. Periodical appeals are the proper and adequate means of preventing and correcting infractions of the Constitution. It will be attended to that in the examination of these expedients I can find myself to their aptitude for enforcing the Constitution by keeping the several departments of power within their due bounds without particularly considering them as provisions for altering the Constitution itself. In the first view appeals to the people at fixed periods appear to be nearly as ineligible as appeals on particular occasions as they emerge. If the periods be separated by short intervals the measures to be reviewed and rectified will have been of recent date and will be connected with all the circumstances which tend to vitiate and pervert the result of occasional revisions. If the periods be distant from each other the same remark will be applicable to all recent measures and in proportion as the remoteness of others may favor a dispassionate review of them this advantage is inseparable from inconveniences which seem to counterbalance it. In the first place a distant prospect of public censure would be a very feeble restraint on power from those excesses to which it might be urged by the force of present motives. Is it to be imagined that a legislative assembly consisting of a hundred or two hundred members eagerly bent on some favorable object and breaking through the restraints of the constitution in pursuit of it would be arrested in their career by considerations drawn from a sensorial revision of their conduct at the future distance of 10, 15 or 20 years? In the next place the abuses would often have completed their mischievous effects before the remedial provision would be applied. And in the last place where this might not be the case they would be of longstanding they would have taken deep root and would not easily be extirpated. The scheme of revising the constitution in order to correct recent breaches of it as well as for other purposes has been actually tried in one of the states. One of the objects of the Council of Sensors which met in Pennsylvania in 1783 and 1784 was as we have seen to inquire whether the constitution had been violated and whether the legislative and executive departments had encroached upon one another. This important and novel experiment in politics merits in several points of view very particular attention. In some of them it may perhaps as a single experiment made under circumstances somewhat peculiar be thought to be not absolutely conclusive. But as applied to the case under consideration it involves some facts which I venture to remark as a complete and satisfactory illustration of the reasoning which I have employed. First, it appears from the names of the gentlemen who composed the Council that some at least of its most active members had also been active in leading characters in the parties which pre-existed in the state. Second, it appears that the same active and leading members of the Council had been active and influential members of the legislative and executive branches within the period to be reviewed and even patrons or opponents of the very measures to be thus brought to the test of the Constitution. Two of the members had been Vice Presidents of the state and several other members of the Executive Council within the seven preceding years. One of them had been speaker and a number of others distinguished members of the Legislative Assembly within the same period. Third, every page of their proceedings witnesses the effect of all these circumstances on the temper of their deliberations. Throughout the continuance of the Council it was split into two fixed and violent parties. The fact is acknowledged and lamented by themselves. Had this not been the case, the face of their proceedings exhibits a proof equally satisfactory. In all questions, however unimportant in themselves are unconnected with each other, the same names stand invariably contrasted on the opposite columns. Every unbiased observer may infer without danger of mistake and at the same time without meaning to reflect on either party or any individuals of either party that unfortunately, passion, not reason, must have presided over their decisions. When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions, if they are to be so called, will be the same. Fourth, it is at least problematical whether the decisions of this body do not in several instances misconstrue the limits prescribed for the legislative and executive departments instead of reducing and limiting them within their constitutional places. Fifth, I have never understood that the decisions of the council on constitutional questions, whether rightly or erroneously formed, have had any effect in varying the practice founded on legislative constructions. It even appears, if I mistake not, that in one instance the contemporary legislature denied the constructions of the council and actually prevailed in the contest. This sensorial body, therefore, proves at the same time, by its researches, the existence of the disease and by its example, the inefficacy of the remedy. This conclusion cannot be invalidated by alleging that the state in which the experiment was made was at that crisis and had been, for a long time before, violently heated and distracted by the rage of party. Is it to be presumed that at any future septennial epoch the same state will be free from parties? Is it to be presumed that any other state at the same time or at any other given period will be exempt from them? Such an event ought to be neither presumed nor desired, because an extinction of parties necessarily implies either a universal alarm for the public safety or an absolute extinction of liberty. Were the precaution taken of excluding from the assemblies elected by the people to revise the preceding administration of the government, all persons who should have been concerned with the government within that given period, the difficulties would not be obviated. The important task would probably devolve on men who, with inferior capacities, would in other respects be little better qualified. Although they might not have been personally concerned in the administration and therefore not immediately agents in the measures to be examined, they would probably have been involved in the parties connected with these measures and have been elected under their auspices? Signed Publius. End of Federalist Paper Number 51. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Federalist Number 51 by James Madison. The structure of the government must furnish the proper checks and balances between the different departments for the Independent Journal, Wednesday, February 6, 1788. To the people of the state of New York. To what expedient then shall we finally resort for maintaining and practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without presuming to undertake a full development of this important idea, I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place it in a clearer light and enable us to form a more correct judgment of the principles and structure of the government planned by the Convention. In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own, and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the Supreme Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the Constitution of the Judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle. First, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications. Secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them. It is equally evident that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate or the judges not independent of the legislator in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal. But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for the defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interests of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this. You must first enable the government to control the governed and then the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government. But experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests the defect of better motives might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other, that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the state. But it is not possible to give each department an equal power of self-defense. In Republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconvenience is to divide the legislature into different branches and to render them by different modes of election and different principles of action as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependencies on the society will admit. It may be even necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. An absolute negative on the legislator appears at first view to be the natural defense with which the executive magistrate should be armed. But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe nor alone sufficient. On ordinary occasions, it might not be exerted with the requisite firmness. And on extraordinary occasions, it might be profiteously abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied by some qualified connection between this weaker department and the weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be led to support the constitutional rights of the former without being too much detached from the rights of its own department. If the principles on which these observations are found to be just as I persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion to the several state constitutions and to the federal constitution, it will be found that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them, the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test. There are, moreover, two considerations, particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view. First, in a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government, and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into 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 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 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 sex. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests in sex, 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 might 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 sex 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 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 practical sphere may be carried to a very great extent by a judicious modification and mixture of the federal principle signed Publius and a federalist paper number 51. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton John Jay and James Madison Federalist number 52 by James Madison The House of Representatives from the New York packet Friday February 8th 1788 to the people of the state of New York from the more general inquiries pursued in the lower 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 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 25 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 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 and terrier to the date of Magna Carta 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 the 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 at 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 secrecy of elections which has been deemed necessary in that kingdom for binding the representatives to their constituents does not exceed to try and overturn 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 parliament which commenced with George the Second was continued throughout his whole reign a period of about thirty-five years. The only dependence of the representatives on the people consisted in the right of the latter to supply occasional vacancies by the election of new members and in the chance of some event which might produce a new general election. The ability also of the Irish Parliament to maintain the rights of their constituents so far as that disposition might exist was extremely shackled by the control of the Crown over the subjects of their deliberation. Of late these shackles if I mistake not have been broken and octaneo parliaments have besides been established. What effect may be produced by this partial reform must be left to further experience? The example of Ireland from this view of it can throw but little light on the subject. As far as we can draw any conclusion from it it must be that if the people of that country have been able under all these disadvantages to retain any liberty whatever the advantage of biennial elections would secure to them every degree of liberty which might depend on a due connection between their representatives and themselves. Let us bring our inquiries nearer home. The example of these states when British colonies claims particular attention at the same time that it is so well known as to require little to be said on it. The principle of representation in one branch of the legislature at least was established in all of them but the periods of elections were different. They varied from one to seven years. Have we any reason to infer from the spirit and conduct of the representatives of the people prior to the revolution that biennial elections would have been dangerous to the public liberties? The spirit which everywhere displayed itself at the commencement of the struggle and which vanquished the obstacles to independence is the best of proofs that a sufficient portion of liberty had been everywhere enjoyed to inspire both a sense of its worth and a zeal for its proper enlargement. This remark holds good as well as with frequent regard to the then colonies whose elections were least frequent as to those who elections were most frequent. Virginia was the colony which stood first in resisting the parliamentary usurpations of Great Britain. It was also first in espousing by public act the resolution of independence. In Virginia nevertheless if I have not been misinformed elections under the former government were septennial. This particular example is brought into view not as a proof of any particular merit for the priority in those instances was probably accidental and still less of any advantage in septennial elections for when compared with a greater frequency they are inadmissible but merely as a proof and I conceive it to be a very substantial proof that the liberties of the people can be in no danger from biennial elections. The conclusion resulting from these examples will not be a little strengthened by recollecting three circumstances. The first is that the federal legislature will possess a part only of that supreme legislative authority which is vested completely in the British parliament and which with few examples was exercised by the colonial assemblies in the Irish legislature. It is a received and well founded maximum that where no other circumstances affect the case the greater the power is the shorter ought to be its duration and conversely the smaller the power the more safely may its duration be protracted. In the second place it has on another occasion been shown that the federal legislature will not only be restrained by its dependence on the people as other legislative bodies are but that it will be more over watched and controlled by the several collateral legislatures which other legislative bodies are not. And in the third place no comparison can be made between the means that will be possessed by the more permanent branches of the federal government for seducing if they should be disposed seduce the house of representatives from their duty to the people and the means of influence over the popular branch possessed by the other branches of the government above cited with less power therefore to abuse the federal representatives can be less tempted on one side and will be doubly watched on the other. Signed Publius End of Federalist Paper Number 52 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton John Jay and James Madison Federalist Number 53 by James Madison The same subject continued The House of Representatives for the Independent Journal Saturday, February 9th 1788 to the people of the state of New York I shall here perhaps be reminded of a current observation that where annual elections end tyranny begins if it be true as has often been remarked that sayings which become proverbial are generally founded in reason it is not less true that when once established they are often applied to cases to which the reason of them does not extend I need not look for a proof beyond the case before us what is the reason on which this proverbial observation is founded no man will subject himself to the ridicule of pretending that any natural connections subsists between the sun or the seasons and the period within which human virtue can bear the temptations of power Happily for mankind liberty is not in this respect confined to any single point of time but lies within extremes which affords sufficient latitude for all the variations which may be required by the various situations and circumstances of civil society the election of magistrates might be if it were found expedient as in some instances it actually has been daily, weekly or monthly as well as annual and if circumstances may require a deviation from the rule on one side why not also on the other side turning our attention to the periods established among ourselves for the election of the most numerous branches of the state legislatures we find them by no means coinciding any more in this instance than in the elections of other civil magistrates in Connecticut and Rhode Island the periods are half yearly in the other states South Carolina accepted they are annual in South Carolina they are biennial as is proposed in the federal government here is a difference as four to one between the longest and shortest periods and yet it would not be easy to show that Connecticut or Rhode Island is better governed or enjoys a greater share of rational liberty than South Carolina or that either the one or the other of these states is distinguished in these respects and by these causes from the states whose elections are different from both in searching for the grounds of this doctrine I can discover but one and that is wholly inapplicable to our case the important distinction so well understood in America between a constitution established by the people and unalterable by the government and a law established by the government and alterable by the government seems to have been little understood and less observed in any other country wherever the supreme power of legislation has resided has been supposed to reside also a full power to change the form of government even in Great Britain where the principles of political and civil liberty have been the most discussed and where we hear most of the rights of the constitution it is maintained that the authority of the parliament is transcendent and uncontrollable as well with regard to the constitution as the ordinary object of legislative provision they have accordingly in several instances actually changed by legislative acts some of the most fundamental articles of the government they have in particular on several occasions changed the period of election and on the last occasion not only introduced septennial in place of triennial elections but by the same act continued themselves in place four years beyond the term for which they were elected by the people and attention to these dangerous practices has produced a very natural alarm in the votaries of free government of which frequency of elections is the cornerstone and has led them to seek for some security to liberty against the danger to which it is exposed where no constitution paramount to the government either existed or could be obtained no constitutional security similar to that established in the united states was to be attempted some other security therefore was to be sought for and what better security would the case admit than that of selecting and appealing to some simple and familiar portion of time as a standard for measuring the danger of innovations for fixing the national sentiment and for uniting the patriotic exertions the most simple and familiar portion of time applicable to the subject was that of a year and hence the doctrine has been inculcated by a laudable zeal to erect some barrier against the gradual innovations of an unlimited government that the advance towards tyranny was to be calculated by the distance of departure from the fixed point of annual elections but what necessity can there be of applying this expedient to a government limited as the federal government will be by the authority of a paramount constitution or who will pretend that the liberties of the people of America will not be more secure under biennial elections unalterably fixed by such a constitution than those of any other nation would be where elections were annual or even more frequent but subject to alterations by the ordinary power of the government the second question stated is whether biennial elections be necessary or useful the propriety of answering this question in the affirmative will appear from several very obvious considerations no man could be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subjects on which he is to legislate a part of this knowledge may be acquired by means of information which lie within the compass of men in private as well as public stations another part can only be attained or at least thoroughly attained by actual experience in the station which requires the use of it the period of service ought therefore in all such cases to bear some proportion to the extent of practical knowledge requisite to the due performance of the service the period of legislative service established in most of the states for the more numerous branch is as we have seen one year the question then may be put into this simple form does the period of two years bear no greater proportion to the knowledge requisite for federal legislation than one year does to the knowledge requisite for state legislation the very statement of the question in this form suggests the answer that ought to be given to it in a single state the requisite knowledge relates to the existing laws which are uniform throughout the state and with which all the citizens are more or less conversant and to the general affairs of the state which lie within a small compass are not very diversified and occupy much of the attention and conversation of every class of people the great theater of the united states presents a very different scene the laws are so far from being uniform that they vary in every state whilst the public affairs of the union are spread throughout a very extensive region and are extremely diversified by the local affairs connected with them and can with difficulty be correctly learned in any other place than in the central councils to which a knowledge of them will be brought by the representative of every part of the empire yet some knowledge of the affairs and even of the laws of all the states 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 principle 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 drops 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 requirements 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 trees 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 laws 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 cooperation some portion of this knowledge may no doubt be acquired in a man's closet but some of it can also only be derived from the public sources of information and all of it will be acquired to best effect by 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 the 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 that their reelection 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 by frequent reelections become members of longstanding 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 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 state 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 checked 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 signed Publius and a federalist paper number fifty three this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the federalist papers by alexander hamilton john jay and james madison federalist number fifty four by james madison the apportionment of members among the states from the new york packet Tuesday february twelfth seventeen eighty eight to the people of the state of new york the next few 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 referenced to the proportion of wealth of which it is in no case a precise measure and in ordinary cases a very unfit one but not withstanding the imperfection of the rule as applied to the relative wealth and contributions of the states it is evidently the least objectionable among the practical rules and had to 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 truth state of the case is that they partake of both these qualities being considered by our laws in some respects as persons and another 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 the 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 list 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 representation 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 all together 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 by such part of the inhabitants as the state itself may designate the qualifications on which the right of suffrage depend are not perhaps the same in any two states in some of the states the differences very material in every state a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the constitution of the state who will be included in the census by which the federal constitution apportions the representatives in this point of view the southern states might retort the complaint by insisting that the principle laid down by the convention required that no regard should be had to the policy of particular states toward their own inhabitants and consequently that the slaves as inhabitants should have been admitted into the census according to their full number in like manner with other inhabitants who by the policy of other states are not admitted to all the rights of citizens a rigorous adherence however to this principle is waived by those who would be gainers by it all that they ask is that equal moderation be shown on the other side let the case of the slaves be considered as it is in truth a peculiar one let the compromising expedient of the constitution be mutually adopted which regards them as inhabitants but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants which regards the slave as divested a two-fifths of the man after all may not another ground be taken on which this article of the constitution will admit of a still more ready defense we have hitherto proceeded on the idea that representation related to persons only and not at all the property but is it a just idea government is instituted no less for protection of the property than of the persons of individuals the one as well as the other therefore may be considered as represented by those who are charged with the government upon this principle it is that in several of the states and particularly in the state of new york one branch of the government is intended more especially to be the guardian of property and is accordingly elected by that part of society which is most interested in this object of government in the federal constitution this policy does not prevail the rights of property are committed into the same hands with the personal rights some attention ought therefore to be paid to property in the choice of those hands for another reason the votes allowed in the federal legislature to the people of each state ought to bear some proportion to the comparative wealth of the states states have not like individuals and influence over each other arising from superior advantages of fortune if the law allows an opulent citizen but a single vote in the choice of his representative the respect and consequence which he derives from his fortunate situation very frequently guide the votes of others to the objects of his choice and through this imperceptible channel the rights of property are conveyed into the public representation a state possesses no such influence over other states it is not probable that the richest state in the confederacy will ever influence the choice of a single representative in another state nor will the representatives of the larger and richer states possess any other advantage in the federal legislature over the representatives of other states than what may result from their superior number alone as far therefore as their superior wealth and weight may justly entitle them to any advantage it ought to be secured to them by a superior share of representation the new constitution is in this respect materially different from the existing confederation as well as from that of the united netherlands and other similar confederacies in each of the latter the efficacy of the federal resolutions depend on the subsequent and voluntary resolutions of the states composing the union hence the states though possessing an equal vote in the public councils have an unequal influence corresponding with the unequal importance of these subsequent and voluntary resolutions under the proposed constitution the federal acts will take effect without the necessary intervention of the individual states they will depend merely on the majority of votes in the federal legislature and consequently each vote whether proceeding from a larger or smaller state or a state more or less wealthy or powerful will have an equal weight in efficacy in the same manner as the votes individually given in a state legislature by the representatives of unequal counties or other districts have each a precise equality of value and effect or if there be any difference in the case it proceeds from the difference in the personal character of the individual representative rather than from any regard to the extent of the district from which he comes such as the reasoning which an advocate for the southern interest might employ on this subject and although it may appear to be a little strained in some points yet on the whole i must confess that it fully reconciles me to the scale of representation which the convention have established in one respect the establishment of a common measure for representation and taxation will have a very salutary effect as the accuracy of the census to be obtained by the congress will necessarily depend in a considerable degree on the disposition if not in the cooperation of the states it is of great importance that the state should feel as little biased as possible to swell or reduce the amount of their numbers where their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants where the rule to decide their share of taxation alone a contrary temptation would prevail by extending the rule to both objects the states will have opposite interests which will control and balance each other and produce the requisite impartiality signed and a federalist paper