FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution, Federalist #57

Madison takes on the issue of what kind of men will be elected to the House and how the people can affect that.

² 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.

³ Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary.

⁴ [While] the objection itself is leveled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.

⁵ 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 [while] they continue to hold their public trust.

⁶ The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government.

⁷ The means relied on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various.

⁸ The most effectual one is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.

⁹ 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?

¹⁰ 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?

¹² 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.

¹⁴ They are to be the same who exercise the right in every state of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the state.

¹⁶ Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country.

¹⁷ 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.

¹⁸ 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.

¹⁹ 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.

²⁰ 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.

²¹ 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.

²² 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.

²³ But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.

²⁴ In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to his constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature.

²⁵ 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.

²⁶ 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.

²⁷ All these securities, however, would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections.

²⁸ 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.

²⁹ 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.

³⁰ 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.

³¹ This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together.

³² 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.

³³ 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.

³⁴ 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.

³⁵ Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents.

³⁶ 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.

³⁷ It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man.

³⁸ But are they not all that government will admit and that human prudence can devise?

³⁹ Are they not the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness of the people?

⁴⁰ Are they not the identical means on which every state government in the Union relies for the attainment of these important ends?

⁴¹ What then are we to understand by the objection which this paper has combated?

⁴² 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?

⁴³ 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.

⁴⁴ We have seen how far such a supposition would err as to the two first points.

⁴⁶ 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, [while] in the individual states, the election of a representative is left to about as many hundreds.

⁴⁷ Will it be pretended that this difference is sufficient to justify an attachment to the state governments and an abhorrence to the federal government?

⁴⁸ If this be the point on which the objection turns, it deserves to be examined.

⁵⁰ 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.

⁵¹ 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.

⁵³ 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?

⁵⁵ 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 30,000 inhabitants.

⁵⁶ 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 600 pounds sterling per year, nor of a city or borough unless he possess a like estate of half that annual value.

⁵⁷ 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 20 pounds sterling according to the present rate of money.

⁵⁸ 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.

⁶¹ 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.

⁶² Those of Massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose and those of New York still more so.

⁶³ 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 65 representatives only.

⁶⁴ 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.

⁶⁵ If the same electors at the same time are capable of choosing four or five representatives, they cannot be incapable of choosing one.

⁶⁷ 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.

⁶⁸ The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty and sixty thousand souls.

⁶⁹ It will therefore form nearly two districts for the choice of federal representatives.

⁷⁰ It forms, however, but one county in which every elector votes for each of its representatives in the state legislature.

⁷¹ And what may appear to be still more directly to our purpose, the whole city actually elects a single member for the Executive Council.

⁷³ Are not these facts the most satisfactory proofs of the fallacy which has been employed against the branch of the federal government under consideration?

⁷⁴ 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?

⁷⁵ But there are cases of a stronger complexion than any which I have yet quoted.

⁷⁶ One branch of the legislature of Connecticut is so constituted that each member of it is elected by the whole state.

⁷⁷ So is the governor of that state, of Massachusetts, and of this state, and the president of New Hampshire.

⁷⁸ 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.

The topic of the essay is oligarchy – a ruling class – and whether the rules set up constraining the House of Representatives will tend toward its accession to power. Nonsense, says Madison, it is a “most extraordinary” objection (2), although the bulk of the essay appears to indicate that in his mind it is actually anything but. This is as it should be, for if the Framers learned anything from their Thucydides, it was that democracies tended toward both despotism and oligarchy. The Athenian forum that rang with Pericles’ oration muttered when he was succeeded by the Thirty, and groaned when at last that government fell under the iron yoke of Rome. Madison knows this perfectly well.

“Keeping them virtuous” is dry humor – one of the signal characteristics of virtue is that its practitioners do not need to be forced to its practice. But here is the central contradiction of class in government: to populate government with a group whose empowered members stand out from their contemporaries in any sense is to create a separate class, with the inevitable qualities of self-selection and self-interest. Representative governments, therefore, tend by their very nature toward oligarchy. What measures to take, then, to ensure that this new class does not fall into insularity and permanence through the power it is given?

⁸ The most effectual one is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.

Hence the two-year term for the House. There is more, naturally: their electors, for one (13), who will be the citizens they will be tempted to rule. There is, as well, the fact that they may be drawn from that body of citizens with no qualification such as wealth, birth, or religion (17), although in practice the sheer expense of running for office forced a trend toward collective efforts in terms of party and individual efforts in the form of commitment of personal wealth to the campaign. The upshot was not to be quite as egalitarian as Madison hoped.

What other controls, then? One is an innate quality evidenced by their selection by the voters in the first place (19); another is a genuine affection for their constituents (20). Thirdly, there is an appeal to pride and vanity (24). But most of all, it is the prospect of standing for re-election before their constituents that will serve to act as a corrective.

²⁷ These securities, however, would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections…

Alas for Madison’s earnest naivete, the House was to do precisely that in a systematic pattern of self-exemption that would continue for over two centuries. In 1988 the issue was finally broken by public scandal, and in 1995 it was partially addressed by the Congressional Accountability Act, which applied a dozen specific laws to Congress from which it had exempted itself, out of a body of law spanning 200 years. Unsurprisingly, its critics deemed it inadequate.

Madison’s hope that this will not be the case rests on the hopeful ground that the people would not stand for it.

Despite the brave words, this is a very shaky case indeed, as the next two centuries would prove. In fact, Congress would practice it, and the people would stand for it. But in the final count there is no escaping the necessity of trust, both in virtue and in self-interest.

³⁶ 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…

³⁷ It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man.

³⁸ But are they not all that government will admit and that human prudence can devise?

This is a frank admission by the principle Framer of the Constitution that in the end, government is a trust, and that little within its structure can guard against the corruption of men determined to betray that trust. What is possible has been codified: frequent review in the form of election, at which point the people themselves become responsible. It is, says Madison, one of the foundational principles of representative government, and those who deny that responsibility deny the ability of the people to govern themselves (42).

Finally, there is the evidence of contemporary practice that should lead Madison’s reader to conclude that bodies constituted similarly to the proposed House have managed themselves without becoming the feared oligarchy. He cites Great Britain (55-58), New Hampshire (61), Massachusetts and New York (62), and Pennsylvania (66) to the effect that small bodies of men elected by limited bodies of citizens do not, in fact, constitute a ruling class (76).

It is a hopeful case overall, moderated by time through the influence of incumbency, contrary to Madison’s hope at 8 for a limited term of appointments. It is in the limited turnover that incumbency brings that a temporary population of the House may become a permanent one, in time an oligarchy. Madison was, however, correct in his ground premise that the corrective would lie in the hands of the people.

At 24 through 26, Madison addresses the issue of congressmen who “go native”, i.e., who forget that their purpose is to serve their constituents, not themselves. He sees that frequent elections will solve the problem rather than term limits, which had been discussed and rejected at the Convention. Yet the problem remains. How can it be solved?

Our Framers were not Utopians. They were practical men experienced in self government. Madison described the strengths and reasons for a House as well as possible corruptions.

He asked, “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?”

So yes, all men and governments can be corrupted. The House is no more nor less corrupted by its structure than any state legislative body.

So yes, all men and governments can be corrupted. The House is no more nor less corrupted by its structure than any state legislative body.

That may well be true but the fact is that if we the people exercised a little more supervision of our employees in government there would be FAR less corruption!

Perhaps we are beginning to see that with the advent of the Tea Party movement. I certainly hope that to be the case!

Yes, our system requires a virtuous and engaged citizenry.

A legislative chamber representing the people was an absolute necessity. There was no way the larger states would ratify equal representation with the small ones as was done under the hapless Articles of Confederation. The Convention almost fell apart until The Great Compromise was struck between large and small states.

The importance of Federalist 57 is it was written in response to Brutus 4 which appeared a couple of months earlier.

Of possible reasons to oppose the Constitution, how could anyone, on quiet reflection, find a House of Representatives so objectionable? The House mirrored state assemblies in purpose and was little different in numbers of constituents per representatives from state senators. Due largely to difficulties of travel, terms were for two years rather than the preferred one. How could Brutus claim that the reps could not represent their constituents when the qualifications of the electors were identical to those of state assemblies? Finally, Brutus states that representatives of the people were an absolute necessity, then makes unsubstantiated claims that the people cannot be represented at all. Huh?

No, the purpose of Yates/Brutus was obvious, to throw sand in the gears of Constitutional ratification by opposing each and every clause, no matter how logical or necessary to correct the impotent Articles of Confederation. I suspect he lost the confidence of many readers with his wild-eyed accusations. Of reasons to question the Constitution, the existence and composition of the House was not one of them. Brutus was opposed to the House of Representatives because it represented a “Great Compromise” between small and large states which held the Constitutional Convention together at an early date and allowed the delegates to continue their deliberations.

http://www.constitution.org/afp/brutus04.htm

...if we the people exercised a little more supervision of our employees in government there would be FAR less corruption!

In the years before the Civil War, it was common practice for people to carry around pocket Constitutions when going to a political speech or meeting with a congressman. These pocket Constitutions were bound in red or blue, but not white, because most Americans worked with their hands, and they would sully a white cover.

When hearing a congressman make a promise in a speech or when discussing an issue with a congressman, people would take out their pocket Constitutions, thumb through them and dispute whether the congressman was honoring the Constitution or not.

The publication and bearing of pocket Constitutions, and their open use at political gatherings, might be a worthy project for the Tea Parties.

A BTT for the evening crowd.

Free Pocket Constitution. Cato no longer gives them away but Heritage does.

The issue of Congress being subject to the laws it passes isn't going away. The original justification was that it was feared that the Executive would use them as a pretext for arrest or intimidation of sitting Congressmen, which is why Article I, Section 6 was included. That this is a flimsy pretext for Congress to grandly exempt itself from all of the laws it passes is achingly obvious, and yet it has taken a very long time to address it, largely because the only people capable of addressing it are in Congress. And, of course, the citizens, who, at least at the moment, appear to have lost patience with a royal Presidency and an aristocratic Legislative.

This Tuesday night I went to see Glenn Beck give a speech in Colorado Springs. There were all sorts of people promoting classes on the constitution in our schools.

I stopped at one table and asked a few questions about our Constitution; not one of the staffers knew the answers.

For years I have been handing out pocket constitutions and parchment declarations of independence. I suspect one percent of the people read them.

This has got to change.

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