FEDERALIST No. 57



The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the

Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, February 19, 1788. 



MADISON



To the People of the State of New York:



THE THIRD charge against the House of Representatives is, that it will

be taken from that class of citizens which will have least sympathy with

the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim at an ambitious

sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.



Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal

Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the

objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the

principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.



The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to

obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most

virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place,

to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst

they continue to hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining

rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government. The means

relied on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are

numerous and various. The most effectual one, is such a limitation of

the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the

people.



Let me now ask what circumstance there is in the constitution of the

House of Representatives that violates the principles of republican

government, or favors the elevation of the few on the ruins of the many?

Let me ask whether every circumstance is not, on the contrary, strictly

conformable to these principles, and scrupulously impartial to the

rights and pretensions of every class and description of citizens?



Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich,

more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the

haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of

obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great

body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who

exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch

of the legislature of the State.



Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit

may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. No

qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil

profession is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the

inclination of the people.



If we consider the situation of the men on whom the free suffrages of

their fellow-citizens may confer the representative trust, we shall find

it involving every security which can be devised or desired for their

fidelity to their constituents.



In the first place, as they will have been distinguished by the

preference of their fellow-citizens, we are to presume that in general

they will be somewhat distinguished also by those qualities which

entitle them to it, and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to

the nature of their engagements.



In the second place, they will enter into the public service under

circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at

least to their constituents. There is in every breast a sensibility to

marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart

from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and

benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against

human nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too

frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But the

universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of

the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.



In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to his

constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature. His

pride and vanity attach him to a form of government which favors his

pretensions and gives him a share in its honors and distinctions.

Whatever hopes or projects might be entertained by a few aspiring

characters, it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men

deriving their advancement from their influence with the people, would

have more to hope from a preservation of the favor, than from

innovations in the government subversive of the authority of the people.



All these securities, however, would be found very insufficient without

the restraint of frequent elections. Hence, in the fourth place, the

House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members

an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the

sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can

be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to

anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise

of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from

which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful

discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal

of it.



I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of

Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they

can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and

their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has

always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can

connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that

communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few

governments have furnished examples; but without which every government

degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House

of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of

themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius

of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and

above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of

America -- a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished

by it.



If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not

obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will

be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.



Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their

constituents. Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the chords

by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass

of the people. It is possible that these may all be insufficient to

control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that

government will admit, and that human prudence can devise? Are they not

the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government

provides for the liberty and happiness of the people? Are they not the

identical means on which every State government in the Union relies for

the attainment of these important ends? What then are we to understand

by the objection which this paper has combated? What are we to say to

the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government, yet

boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it; who pretend to be

champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose their

own rulers, yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will

immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them?



Were the objection to be read by one who had not seen the mode

prescribed by the Constitution for the choice of representatives, he

could suppose nothing less than that some unreasonable qualification of

property was annexed to the right of suffrage; or that the right of

eligibility was limited to persons of particular families or fortunes;

or at least that the mode prescribed by the State constitutions was in

some respect or other, very grossly departed from. We have seen how far

such a supposition would err, as to the two first points. Nor would it,

in fact, be less erroneous as to the last. The only difference

discoverable between the two cases is, that each representative of the

United States will be elected by five or six thousand citizens; whilst

in the individual States, the election of a representative is left to

about as many hundreds. Will it be pretended that this difference is

sufficient to justify an attachment to the State governments, and an

abhorrence to the federal government? If this be the point on which the

objection turns, it deserves to be examined.



Is it supported by REASON? This cannot be said, without maintaining that

five or six thousand citizens are less capable of choosing a fit

representative, or more liable to be corrupted by an unfit one, than

five or six hundred. Reason, on the contrary, assures us, that as in so

great a number a fit representative would be most likely to be found, so

the choice would be less likely to be diverted from him by the intrigues

of the ambitious or the ambitious or the bribes of the rich.



Is the CONSEQUENCE from this doctrine admissible? If we say that five or

six hundred citizens are as many as can jointly exercise their right of

suffrage, must we not deprive the people of the immediate choice of

their public servants, in every instance where the administration of the

government does not require as many of them as will amount to one for

that number of citizens?



Is the doctrine warranted by FACTS? It was shown in the last paper, that

the real representation in the British House of Commons very little

exceeds the proportion of one for every thirty thousand inhabitants.

Besides a variety of powerful causes not existing here, and which favor

in that country the pretensions of rank and wealth, no person is

eligible as a representative of a county, unless he possess real estate

of the clear value of six hundred pounds sterling per year; nor of a

city or borough, unless he possess a like estate of half that annual

value. To this qualification on the part of the county representatives

is added another on the part of the county electors, which restrains the

right of suffrage to persons having a freehold estate of the annual

value of more than twenty pounds sterling, according to the present rate

of money. Notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances, and

notwithstanding some very unequal laws in the British code, it cannot be

said that the representatives of the nation have elevated the few on the

ruins of the many.



But we need not resort to foreign experience on this subject. Our own is

explicit and decisive. The districts in New Hampshire in which the

senators are chosen immediately by the people, are nearly as large as

will be necessary for her representatives in the Congress. Those of

Massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose; and

those of New York still more so. In the last State the members of

Assembly for the cities and counties of New York and Albany are elected

by very nearly as many voters as will be entitled to a representative in

the Congress, calculating on the number of sixty-five representatives

only. It makes no difference that in these senatorial districts and

counties a number of representatives are voted for by each elector at

the same time. If the same electors at the same time are capable of

choosing four or five representatives, they cannot be incapable of

choosing one. Pennsylvania is an additional example. Some of her

counties, which elect her State representatives, are almost as large as

her districts will be by which her federal representatives will be

elected. The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty

and sixty thousand souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts

for the choice of federal representatives. It forms, however, but one

county, in which every elector votes for each of its representatives in

the State legislature. And what may appear to be still more directly to

our purpose, the whole city actually elects a SINGLE MEMBER for the

executive council. This is the case in all the other counties of the

State.



Are not these facts the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy which

has been employed against the branch of the federal government under

consideration? Has it appeared on trial that the senators of New

Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, or the executive council of

Pennsylvania, or the members of the Assembly in the two last States,

have betrayed any peculiar disposition to sacrifice the many to the few,

or are in any respect less worthy of their places than the

representatives and magistrates appointed in other States by very small

divisions of the people?



But there are cases of a stronger complexion than any which I have yet

quoted. One branch of the legislature of Connecticut is so constituted

that each member of it is elected by the whole State. So is the governor

of that State, of Massachusetts, and of this State, and the president of

New Hampshire. I leave every man to decide whether the result of any one

of these experiments can be said to countenance a suspicion, that a

diffusive mode of choosing representatives of the people tends to

elevate traitors and to undermine the public liberty.



PUBLIUS