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Federalist
No. 59
Concerning the Power of
Congress to Regulate the Election of Members - From the
New York Packet. Friday, February 22, 1788. |
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Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE natural order of the subject leads us to consider, in this
place, that provision of the Constitution which authorizes the
national legislature to regulate, in the last resort, the
election of its own members. It is in these words: ``The TIMES,
PLACES, and MANNER of holding elections for senators and
representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the
legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law,
make or alter SUCH REGULATIONS, except as to the PLACES of
choosing senators.'' This provision has not only been declaimed
against by those who condemn the Constitution in the gross, but
it has been censured by those who have objected with less
latitude and greater moderation; and, in one instance it has
been thought exceptionable by a gentleman who has declared
himself the advocate of every other part of the system. I am
greatly mistaken, notwithstanding, if there be any article in
the whole plan more completely defensible than this. Its
propriety rests upon the evidence of this plain proposition,
that EVERY GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN IN ITSELF THE MEANS OF
ITS OWN PRESERVATION. Every just reasoner will, at first sight,
approve an adherence to this rule, in the work of the
convention; and will disapprove every deviation from it which
may not appear to have been dictated by the necessity of
incorporating into the work some particular ingredient, with
which a rigid conformity to the rule was incompatible. Even in
this case, though he may acquiesce in the necessity, yet he will
not cease to regard and to regret a departure from so
fundamental a principle, as a portion of imperfection in the
system which may prove the seed of future weakness, and perhaps
anarchy. It will not be alleged, that an election law could have
been framed and inserted in the Constitution, which would have
been always applicable to every probable change in the situation
of the country; and it will therefore not be denied, that a
discretionary power over elections ought to exist somewhere. It
will, I presume, be as readily conceded, that there were only
three ways in which this power could have been reasonably
modified and disposed: that it must either have been lodged
wholly in the national legislature, or wholly in the State
legislatures, or primarily in the latter and ultimately in the
former. The last mode has, with reason, been preferred by the
convention. They have submitted the regulation of elections for
the federal government, in the first instance, to the local
administrations; which, in ordinary cases, and when no improper
views prevail, may be both more convenient and more
satisfactory; but they have reserved to the national authority a
right to interpose, whenever extraordinary circumstances might
render that interposition necessary to its safety. Nothing can
be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating
elections for the national government, in the hands of the State
legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at
their mercy. They could at any moment annihilate it, by
neglecting to provide for the choice of persons to administer
its affairs. It is to little purpose to say, that a neglect or
omission of this kind would not be likely to take place. The
constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent
for the risk, is an unanswerable objection. Nor has any
satisfactory reason been yet assigned for incurring that risk.
The extravagant surmises of a distempered jealousy can never be
dignified with that character. If we are in a humor to presume
abuses of power, it is as fair to presume them on the part of
the State governments as on the part of the general government.
And as it is more consonant to the rules of a just theory, to
trust the Union with the care of its own existence, than to
transfer that care to any other hands, if abuses of power are to
be hazarded on the one side or on the other, it is more rational
to hazard them where the power would naturally be placed, than
where it would unnaturally be placed. Suppose an article had
been introduced into the Constitution, empowering the United
States to regulate the elections for the particular States,
would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an
unwarrantable transposition of power, and as a premeditated
engine for the destruction of the State governments? The
violation of principle, in this case, would have required no
comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will not be less
apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the
national government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of
the State governments. An impartial view of the matter cannot
fail to result in a conviction, that each, as far as possible,
ought to depend on itself for its own preservation. As an
objection to this position, it may be remarked that the
constitution of the national Senate would involve, in its full
extent, the danger which it is suggested might flow from an
exclusive power in the State legislatures to regulate the
federal elections. It may be alleged, that by declining the
appointment of Senators, they might at any time give a fatal
blow to the Union; and from this it may be inferred, that as its
existence would be thus rendered dependent upon them in so
essential a point, there can be no objection to intrusting them
with it in the particular case under consideration. The interest
of each State, it may be added, to maintain its representation
in the national councils, would be a complete security against
an abuse of the trust. This argument, though specious, will not,
upon examination, be found solid. It is certainly true that the
State legislatures, by forbearing the appointment of senators,
may destroy the national government. But it will not follow
that, because they have a power to do this in one instance, they
ought to have it in every other. There are cases in which the
pernicious tendency of such a power may be far more decisive,
without any motive equally cogent with that which must have
regulated the conduct of the convention in respect to the
formation of the Senate, to recommend their admission into the
system. So far as that construction may expose the Union to the
possibility of injury from the State legislatures, it is an
evil; but it is an evil which could not have been avoided
without excluding the States, in their political capacities,
wholly from a place in the organization of the national
government. If this had been done, it would doubtless have been
interpreted into an entire dereliction of the federal principle;
and would certainly have deprived the State governments of that
absolute safeguard which they will enjoy under this provision.
But however wise it may have been to have submitted in this
instance to an inconvenience, for the attainment of a necessary
advantage or a greater good, no inference can be drawn from
thence to favor an accumulation of the evil, where no necessity
urges, nor any greater good invites. It may be easily discerned
also that the national government would run a much greater risk
from a power in the State legislatures over the elections of its
House of Representatives, than from their power of appointing
the members of its Senate. The senators are to be chosen for the
period of six years; there is to be a rotation, by which the
seats of a third part of them are to be vacated and replenished
every two years; and no State is to be entitled to more than two
senators; a quorum of the body is to consist of sixteen members.
The joint result of these circumstances would be, that a
temporary combination of a few States to intermit the
appointment of senators, could neither annul the existence nor
impair the activity of the body; and it is not from a general
and permanent combination of the States that we can have any
thing to fear. The first might proceed from sinister designs in
the leading members of a few of the State legislatures; the last
would suppose a fixed and rooted disaffection in the great body
of the people, which will either never exist at all, or will, in
all probability, proceed from an experience of the inaptitude of
the general government to the advancement of their happiness in
which event no good citizen could desire its continuance. But
with regard to the federal House of Representatives, there is
intended to be a general election of members once in two years.
If the State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive
power of regulating these elections, every period of making them
would be a delicate crisis in the national situation, which
might issue in a dissolution of the Union, if the leaders of a
few of the most important States should have entered into a
previous conspiracy to prevent an election. I shall not deny,
that there is a degree of weight in the observation, that the
interests of each State, to be represented in the federal
councils, will be a security against the abuse of a power over
its elections in the hands of the State legislatures. But the
security will not be considered as complete, by those who attend
to the force of an obvious distinction between the interest of
the people in the public felicity, and the interest of their
local rulers in the power and consequence of their offices. The
people of America may be warmly attached to the government of
the Union, at times when the particular rulers of particular
States, stimulated by the natural rivalship of power, and by the
hopes of personal aggrandizement, and supported by a strong
faction in each of those States, may be in a very opposite
temper. This diversity of sentiment between a majority of the
people, and the individuals who have the greatest credit in
their councils, is exemplified in some of the States at the
present moment, on the present question. The scheme of separate
confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of
ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential
characters in the State administrations as are capable of
preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public
weal. With so effectual a weapon in their hands as the exclusive
power of regulating elections for the national government, a
combination of a few such men, in a few of the most considerable
States, where the temptation will always be the strongest, might
accomplish the destruction of the Union, by seizing the
opportunity of some casual dissatisfaction among the people (and
which perhaps they may themselves have excited), to discontinue
the choice of members for the federal House of Representatives.
It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm union of this
country, under an efficient government, will probably be an
increasing object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe;
and that enterprises to subvert it will sometimes originate in
the intrigues of foreign powers, and will seldom fail to be
patronized and abetted by some of them. Its preservation,
therefore ought in no case that can be avoided, to be committed
to the guardianship of any but those whose situation will
uniformly beget an immediate interest in the faithful and
vigilant performance of the trust.
PUBLIUS. |
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