FEDERALIST No. 63



The Senate Continued

For the Independent Journal.

Saturday, March 1, 1788



MADISON



To the People of the State of New York:



A FIFTH desideratum, illustrating the utility of a senate, is the want

of a due sense of national character. Without a select and stable member

of the government, the esteem of foreign powers will not only be

forfeited by an unenlightened and variable policy, proceeding from the

causes already mentioned, but the national councils will not possess

that sensibility to the opinion of the world, which is perhaps not less

necessary in order to merit, than it is to obtain, its respect and

confidence.



An attention to the judgment of other nations is important to every

government for two reasons: the one is, that, independently of the

merits of any particular plan or measure, it is desirable, on various

accounts, that it should appear to other nations as the offspring of a

wise and honorable policy; the second is, that in doubtful cases,

particularly where the national councils may be warped by some strong

passion or momentary interest, the presumed or known opinion of the

impartial world may be the best guide that can be followed. What has not

America lost by her want of character with foreign nations; and how many

errors and follies would she not have avoided, if the justice and

propriety of her measures had, in every instance, been previously tried

by the light in which they would probably appear to the unbiased part of

mankind?



Yet however requisite a sense of national character may be, it is

evident that it can never be sufficiently possessed by a numerous and

changeable body. It can only be found in a number so small that a

sensible degree of the praise and blame of public measures may be the

portion of each individual; or in an assembly so durably invested with

public trust, that the pride and consequence of its members may be

sensibly incorporated with the reputation and prosperity of the

community. The half-yearly representatives of Rhode Island would

probably have been little affected in their deliberations on the

iniquitous measures of that State, by arguments drawn from the light in

which such measures would be viewed by foreign nations, or even by the

sister States; whilst it can scarcely be doubted that if the concurrence

of a select and stable body had been necessary, a regard to national

character alone would have prevented the calamities under which that

misguided people is now laboring.



I add, as a SIXTH defect the want, in some important cases, of a due

responsibility in the government to the people, arising from that

frequency of elections which in other cases produces this

responsibility. This remark will, perhaps, appear not only new, but

paradoxical. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, when explained, to be

as undeniable as it is important.



Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects

within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual,

must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper

judgment can be formed by the constituents. The objects of government

may be divided into two general classes: the one depending on measures

which have singly an immediate and sensible operation; the other

depending on a succession of well-chosen and well-connected measures,

which have a gradual and perhaps unobserved operation. The importance of

the latter description to the collective and permanent welfare of every

country, needs no explanation. And yet it is evident that an assembly

elected for so short a term as to be unable to provide more than one or

two links in a chain of measures, on which the general welfare may

essentially depend, ought not to be answerable for the final result, any

more than a steward or tenant, engaged for one year, could be justly

made to answer for places or improvements which could not be

accomplished in less than half a dozen years. Nor is it possible for the

people to estimate the SHARE of influence which their annual assemblies

may respectively have on events resulting from the mixed transactions of

several years. It is sufficiently difficult to preserve a personal

responsibility in the members of a NUMEROUS body, for such acts of the

body as have an immediate, detached, and palpable operation on its

constituents.



The proper remedy for this defect must be an additional body in the

legislative department, which, having sufficient permanency to provide

for such objects as require a continued attention, and a train of

measures, may be justly and effectually answerable for the attainment of

those objects.



Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out the

necessity of a well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the

representatives of the people. To a people as little blinded by

prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those whom I address, I shall not

scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a

defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions.

As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all

governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately

prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in

public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or

some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of

interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will

afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical

moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and

respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career,

and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves,

until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the

public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have

often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard

against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then

have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens

the hemlock on one day and statues on the next.



It may be suggested, that a people spread over an extensive region

cannot, like the crowded inhabitants of a small district, be subject to

the infection of violent passions, or to the danger of combining in

pursuit of unjust measures. I am far from denying that this is a

distinction of peculiar importance. I have, on the contrary, endeavored

in a former paper to show, that it is one of the principal

recommendations of a confederated republic. At the same time, this

advantage ought not to be considered as superseding the use of auxiliary

precautions. It may even be remarked, that the same extended situation,

which will exempt the people of America from some of the dangers

incident to lesser republics, will expose them to the inconveniency of

remaining for a longer time under the influence of those

misrepresentations which the combined industry of interested men may

succeed in distributing among them.



It adds no small weight to all these considerations, to recollect that

history informs us of no long-lived republic which had not a senate.

Sparta, Rome, and Carthage are, in fact, the only states to whom that

character can be applied. In each of the two first there was a senate

for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less known.

Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in

this particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it had

some quality or other which rendered it an anchor against popular

fluctuations; and that a smaller council, drawn out of the senate, was

appointed not only for life, but filled up vacancies itself. These

examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to

the genius, of America, are, notwithstanding, when compared with the

fugitive and turbulent existence of other ancient republics, very

instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend

stability with liberty. I am not unaware of the circumstances which

distinguish the American from other popular governments, as well ancient

as modern; and which render extreme circumspection necessary, in

reasoning from the one case to the other. But after allowing due weight

to this consideration, it may still be maintained, that there are many

points of similitude which render these examples not unworthy of our

attention. Many of the defects, as we have seen, which can only be

supplied by a senatorial institution, are common to a numerous assembly

frequently elected by the people, and to the people themselves. There

are others peculiar to the former, which require the control of such an

institution. The people can never wilfully betray their own interests;

but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people;

and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative

trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the

concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every

public act.



The difference most relied on, between the American and other republics,

consists in the principle of representation; which is the pivot on which

the former move, and which is supposed to have been unknown to the

latter, or at least to the ancient part of them. The use which has been

made of this difference, in reasonings contained in former papers, will

have shown that I am disposed neither to deny its existence nor to

undervalue its importance. I feel the less restraint, therefore, in

observing, that the position concerning the ignorance of the ancient

governments on the subject of representation, is by no means precisely

true in the latitude commonly given to it. Without entering into a

disquisition which here would be misplaced, I will refer to a few known

facts, in support of what I advance.



In the most pure democracies of Greece, many of the executive functions

were performed, not by the people themselves, but by officers elected by

the people, and REPRESENTING the people in their EXECUTIVE capacity.



Prior to the reform of Solon, Athens was governed by nine Archons,

annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE AT LARGE. The degree of power delegated

to them seems to be left in great obscurity. Subsequent to that period,

we find an assembly, first of four, and afterwards of six hundred

members, annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; and PARTIALLY representing them

in their LEGISLATIVE capacity, since they were not only associated with

the people in the function of making laws, but had the exclusive right

of originating legislative propositions to the people. The senate of

Carthage, also, whatever might be its power, or the duration of its

appointment, appears to have been ELECTIVE by the suffrages of the

people. Similar instances might be traced in most, if not all the

popular governments of antiquity.



Lastly, in Sparta we meet with the Ephori, and in Rome with the

Tribunes; two bodies, small indeed in numbers, but annually ELECTED BY

THE WHOLE BODY OF THE PEOPLE, and considered as the REPRESENTATIVES of

the people, almost in their PLENIPOTENTIARY capacity. The Cosmi of Crete

were also annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE, and have been considered by

some authors as an institution analogous to those of Sparta and Rome,

with this difference only, that in the election of that representative

body the right of suffrage was communicated to a part only of the

people.



From these facts, to which many others might be added, it is clear that

the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor

wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true distinction

between these and the American governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION

OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the

LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE

PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER. The distinction, however,

thus qualified, must be admitted to leave a most advantageous

superiority in favor of the United States. But to insure to this

advantage its full effect, we must be careful not to separate it from

the other advantage, of an extensive territory. For it cannot be

believed, that any form of representative government could have

succeeded within the narrow limits occupied by the democracies of

Greece.



In answer to all these arguments, suggested by reason, illustrated by

examples, and enforced by our own experience, the jealous adversary of

the Constitution will probably content himself with repeating, that a

senate appointed not immediately by the people, and for the term of six

years, must gradually acquire a dangerous pre-eminence in the

government, and finally transform it into a tyrannical aristocracy.



To this general answer, the general reply ought to be sufficient, that

liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the

abuses of power; that there are numerous instances of the former as well

as of the latter; and that the former, rather than the latter, are

apparently most to be apprehended by the United States. But a more

particular reply may be given.



Before such a revolution can be effected, the Senate, it is to be

observed, must in the first place corrupt itself; must next corrupt the

State legislatures; must then corrupt the House of Representatives; and

must finally corrupt the people at large. It is evident that the Senate

must be first corrupted before it can attempt an establishment of

tyranny. Without corrupting the State legislatures, it cannot prosecute

the attempt, because the periodical change of members would otherwise

regenerate the whole body. Without exerting the means of corruption with

equal success on the House of Representatives, the opposition of that

coequal branch of the government would inevitably defeat the attempt;

and without corrupting the people themselves, a succession of new

representatives would speedily restore all things to their pristine

order. Is there any man who can seriously persuade himself that the

proposed Senate can, by any possible means within the compass of human

address, arrive at the object of a lawless ambition, through all these

obstructions?



If reason condemns the suspicion, the same sentence is pronounced by

experience. The constitution of Maryland furnishes the most apposite

example. The Senate of that State is elected, as the federal Senate will

be, indirectly by the people, and for a term less by one year only than

the federal Senate. It is distinguished, also, by the remarkable

prerogative of filling up its own vacancies within the term of its

appointment, and, at the same time, is not under the control of any such

rotation as is provided for the federal Senate. There are some other

lesser distinctions, which would expose the former to colorable

objections, that do not lie against the latter. If the federal Senate,

therefore, really contained the danger which has been so loudly

proclaimed, some symptoms at least of a like danger ought by this time

to have been betrayed by the Senate of Maryland, but no such symptoms

have appeared. On the contrary, the jealousies at first entertained by

men of the same description with those who view with terror the

correspondent part of the federal Constitution, have been gradually

extinguished by the progress of the experiment; and the Maryland

constitution is daily deriving, from the salutary operation of this part

of it, a reputation in which it will probably not be rivalled by that of

any State in the Union.



But if anything could silence the jealousies on this subject, it ought

to be the British example. The Senate there instead of being elected for

a term of six years, and of being unconfined to particular families or

fortunes, is an hereditary assembly of opulent nobles. The House of

Representatives, instead of being elected for two years, and by the

whole body of the people, is elected for seven years, and, in very great

proportion, by a very small proportion of the people. Here,

unquestionably, ought to be seen in full display the aristocratic

usurpations and tyranny which are at some future period to be

exemplified in the United States. Unfortunately, however, for the

anti-federal argument, the British history informs us that this

hereditary assembly has not been able to defend itself against the

continual encroachments of the House of Representatives; and that it no

sooner lost the support of the monarch, than it was actually crushed by

the weight of the popular branch.



As far as antiquity can instruct us on this subject, its examples

support the reasoning which we have employed. In Sparta, the Ephori, the

annual representatives of the people, were found an overmatch for the

senate for life, continually gained on its authority and finally drew

all power into their own hands. The Tribunes of Rome, who were the

representatives of the people, prevailed, it is well known, in almost

every contest with the senate for life, and in the end gained the most

complete triumph over it. The fact is the more remarkable, as unanimity

was required in every act of the Tribunes, even after their number was

augmented to ten. It proves the irresistible force possessed by that

branch of a free government, which has the people on its side. To these

examples might be added that of Carthage, whose senate, according to the

testimony of Polybius, instead of drawing all power into its vortex,

had, at the commencement of the second Punic War, lost almost the whole

of its original portion.



Besides the conclusive evidence resulting from this assemblage of facts,

that the federal Senate will never be able to transform itself, by

gradual usurpations, into an independent and aristocratic body, we are

warranted in believing, that if such a revolution should ever happen

from causes which the foresight of man cannot guard against, the House

of Representatives, with the people on their side, will at all times be

able to bring back the Constitution to its primitive form and

principles. Against the force of the immediate representatives of the

people, nothing will be able to maintain even the constitutional

authority of the Senate, but such a display of enlightened policy, and

attachment to the public good, as will divide with that branch of the

legislature the affections and support of the entire body of the people

themselves.



PUBLIUS