Jan. 30, 2015

PJ-96

CHAPTER 7

 

REC #1    HATONN

 

WED., MAY 25, 1994      1:31 P.M.     YEAR 7, DAY 282

 

WED., MAY 25, 1994

 

CONSTITUTION-FEDERALIST PAPERS

(Chapter 4)

 

CONSTITUTION: ARTICLE 1,

SECTION 2, PARAGRAPH 4

 

When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the Executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

 

CONSTITUTION: ARTICLE 1

SECTION 2, PARAGRAPH 5

 

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of im­peachment.

 

Federalist Papers, Excerpts:

 

No. 79, Par. 4, Alexander Hamilton:

 

The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They are liable to be im­peached for malconduct by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate; and, if convicted, may be dismissed from office and disqualified for holding any other. This is the only provision on the point which is consistent with the necessary in­dependence of the judicial character, and is the only one which we find in our own Constitution in respect to our own judges.

 

The want of a provision for removing the judges on account of inability has been a subject of complaint. But all considerate men will be sensible that such a provision would either not be practiced upon or would he more liable to abuse than calculated to answer any good purpose. The mensuration of the faculties of the mind has, I believe, no place in the catalogue of known arts. An attempt to fix the boundary between the regions of ability and inability would much oftener give scope to personal and party attachments and enmities than advance the interests of justice or the public good. The result, except in the case of in­sanity, must for the most part be arbitrary; and insanity, without any formal or express provision, may be safely pronounced to be a virtual disqualification.

 

[H: I can't see where this has anything to do with anything other than that there is an expectation that you will always have honorable judges within the judicial system and honor­able men in public office. It would seem that ALL of that assumption has most certainly gone by the wayside. You now live in a nation wherein the JUDGES protect and har­bor the criminals and investigate "themselves". Perhaps it is not so much the lack of intent in the beginning as the deteri­oration of the judicial system as a whole in all facets of that system AND the governing bodies politic. Not particularly applicable in point to the Constitution is the next paragraph in the Federalist Papers wherein Hamilton makes reference to New York and term limitation for judges and it is inter­esting enough to present it here.]

 

The constitution of New York, to avoid investigations that must forever be vague and dangerous, has taken a particular age as the criterion of inability. No man can be a judge beyond sixty. I believe there are few at present who do not disapprove of this provision. There is no station in relation to which it is less proper than to that of a judge. The deliberating and com­paring faculties generally preserve their strength much beyond that period in men who survive it; and when, in addition to this circumstance, we consider how few there are who outlive the season of intellectual vigor and how improbable it is that any considerable portion of the bench, whether more or less numerous, should be in such a situation at the same time, we shall be ready to conclude that limitations of this sort have little to rec­ommend them. In a republic where fortunes are not affluent and pensions not expedient, the dismission of men from stations in which they have served their country long and usefully, on which they depend for subsistence, and from which it will be too late to resort to any other occupation for a livelihood, ought to have some better apology to humanity than is to be found in the imaginary danger of a super-annuated bench. [H: Only the first paragraph above is actually applicable to the House of Representatives and to impeachment but the other refer­ences to the judicial benches (judges) is most interesting--for in this one category you have digressed into the literal trash-can, good readers.]

 

CONSTITUTION: ARTICLE 1,

SECTION 3. PARAGRAPH 1

 

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

 

Federalist Papers, Excerpts:

 

No, 39, Par. 5, James Madison:

 

....The Senate, like the present Congress and the Senate of Maryland, derives its appointment indirectly from the people. The President is indirectly derived from the choice of the peo­ple, according to the example in most of the States. Even the judges, with all other officers of the Union, will, as in the sev­eral States, be the choice, though a remote choice, of the people themselves...

 

No. 39, Par. 12, James Madison:

 

....The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress. So far the government is federal, not national. The executive power will be derived from a very compound source. The immediate....

 

No, 45, Par.9, James Madison:

 

....The Senate will be elected absolutely and exclusively by the State legislatures.... [H: Does ANYBODY see anything gone wrong here???]

 

....As to the Senate, it is impossible that any regulation of "time and manner", which is all that is proposed to be submitted to the national government in respect to that body, can affect the spirit which will direct the choice of its members. The collec­tive sense of the State legislature can never be influenced by ex­traneous circumstances of that sort; a consideration which alone ought to satisfy us that the discrimination apprehended would never be attempted. For what inducement could the Senate have to concur in a preference in which itself would not be included? Or to what purpose would it be established, in reference to one branch of the legislature, if it could not be extended to the other? The composition of the one would in this case counteract that of the other. And we can never suppose that it would em­brace the appointments to the Senate unless we can at the same time suppose the voluntary co-operation of the State legislatures. If we make the latter supposition, it then becomes immaterial where the power in question in placed--whether in their hands or in those of the Union....

 

No. 62, Par. 4, Probably done by Madison:

 

III: The equality of representation in the Senate is another point which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation every district ought to have a proportional share in the government and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an equal share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation. But it is superfluous to try, by the stan­dard of theory, a part of the Constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result, not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable." A common government, with powers equal to its objects, is called for by the voice, and still more loudly by the political situation, of America. A government founded on principles more consonant to the wishes of the larger States is not likely to be obtained from the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former lies between the proposed government and government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of pru­dence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and instead of in­dulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous con­sequences which may qualify the sacrifice.

 

In this spirit it may be remarked that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States and an instru­ment for preserving the residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States, since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.

 

Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the con­stitution of the Senate is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the States. It must be ac­knowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States would be more rational if any interests common to them and distinct from those of the other States would otherwise be ex­posed to peculiar danger. But as the larger States will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser States, and as the fa­cility and excess of lawmaking seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it is not impossible that this part of the Constitution may be more convenient in practice than it appears to many in contemplation.

 

IV. The number of senators and the duration of their ap­pointment come next to be considered. In order to form an ac­curate judgment on both these points it will be proper to inquire into the purposes which are to be answered by a Senate; and in order to ascertain these it will be necessary to review the incon­veniences which a republic must suffer from the want of such an institution.

 

First. It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their con­stituents and prove unfaithful to their important trust. In this point of view a Senate, as a second branch of the legislative as­sembly distinct from and dividing the power with a first, must be in all cases a salutary check on the government. It doubles the security to the people by requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient. This is a precaution founded on such clear principles, and now so well understood in the United States, that it would be more than superfluous to enlarge on it. I will barely remark that as the improbability of sinister combinations will be in proportion to the dissimilarity in the genius of the two bodies, it must be polite to distinguish them from each other by every circumstance which will consist with a due harmony in all proper measures, and with the genuine principles of republican government.

 

Secondly. The necessity of a Senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders, into intemperate and pernicious resolutions. Examples on this subject might be cited without number; and from proceedings within the United States, as well as from the history of other nations. But a position that will not be contradicted need not be proved. All that need be remarked is that a body which is to correct this infirmity ought itself be free from it, and consequently ought to be less numerous. It ought more­over to possess great firmness, and consequently ought to hold its authority by a tenure of considerable duration.

 

Thirdly. Another defect to be supplied by a Senate lies in a want of due acquaintance with the objects and principles of leg­islation. It is not possible that an assembly of men called for the most part from pursuits of a private nature, continued in ap­pointment for a short time, and led by no permanent motive to devote the intervals of public occupation to a study of the laws, the affairs and the comprehensive interests of their country, should, if left wholly to themselves, escape a variety of impor­tant errors in the exercise of their legislative trust. It may be af­firmed, on the best grounds, that no small share of the present embarrassments of America is to be charged on the blunders of our governments; and that these have proceeded from the heads rather than the hearts of most of the authors of them. What in­deed are all the repealing, explaining and amending laws, which fill and disgrace our voluminous codes, but so many monuments of deficient wisdom; so many impeachments exhibited by each succeeding, against each preceding session; so many admoni­tions to the people of the value of those aids which may be ex­pected from a well constituted Senate?

 

A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; sec­ondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities: Most governments are deficient in the first. I scruple not to assert that in the American governments, too little atten­tion has been paid to the last. The federal Constitution avoids this error; and what merits particular notice, it provides for the last in a mode which increases the security for the first.

 

Fourthly. The mutability in the public councils, arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be, points out in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the government. Every new election in the states, is found to change one half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions; and from a change of opinions, a change of measures. But a continual change even of good measures is inconsistent with every rule of prudence, and every prospect of success. The remark is veri­fied in private life, and becomes more just as well as more im­portant, in national transactions.

 

To trace the mischievous effects of a mutable government would fill a volume. I will hint a few only, each of which will be perceived to be a source of innumerable others.

 

In the first place it forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once by all prudent people as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly. His more friendly neighbors may pity him; but all will decline to connect their fortunes with his; and not a few will seize the opportunity of making their fortunes out of his. One nation is to another what one individual is to another, with the melancholy distinction, perhaps, that the for­mer with fewer of the benevolent emotions than the latter, are under fewer restraints also from taking undue advantage of the indiscretions of each other. Every nation consequently whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability, may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors. But the best instruction on this subject is unhappily conveyed to America by the example of her own situation. She finds that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs. [H: This should disturb you so greatly that you are compelled to read it again and again: "but the best instruction on this subject is unhappily conveyed to America by the example of her own situation. She finds that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs. Is this not SHOCKING to you to see that even as your Constitution was being written you wondrous Americans had already been stripped of honor and respect? Freedom? Dear ones--no freedom and no liberty--even then and yet you had, as a nation, an opportunity to become that which would endure through the eons of time as a beacon of truth and "how-to" and you blew it again. How long will it be until, if we get it all cleaned up and you again into freedom and sovereignty, you have allowed the rats aboard the ship? How long can you blame another for that which YOU have allowed to come to be?]

 

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is to-day can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?

 

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable ad­vantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the mon­eyed few, over the industrious and uninformed mass of the peo­ple. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by them­selves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

 

In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking; the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce, when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.

 

But the most despicable effect of all is that diminution of at­tachment and reverence, which steals into the hearts of the peo­ple, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government any more than an individual will long be respected, without being truly respectable, nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability. PUBLIUS

 

No. 63, Par. 1, James Madison:

 

(March 1, 1788)

 

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 labouring.

 

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 election, 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 and 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 at any rate 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 the 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 shew 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 those 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 willfully 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 reasoning’s 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 government on the subject of representation is by no means precisely true in the latitude commonly given to it. Without entering into a dis­quisition which 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 number, 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 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 ensure 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 preeminence 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 this latter; and that the for­mer rather than the latter is 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 operations 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 even 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, that 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. This 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. [H: Boy, you better be praying that this is so...!] 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

 

END OF CHAPTER FOUR

 

* * *

 

My recommendation to you readers is that you go right back to the beginning of this and reread it and reread it until it is locked into your brains. Had you followed and continued to follow the original plan--you would never have allowed such atrocities to have occurred within the halls of government and justice.

 

I may well concur with the patriots who have recently noted the guillotines brought forth into your nation and scattered into the various "concentration" points set forth for you-the-people--­perhaps the dirty bounders who have continued to corrupt and usurp power and honor, integrity and all the wealth of all of you, HAD BETTER GET NERVOUS ABOUT THEIR NECKS! Salu.

http://www.fourwinds10.net/journals/pdf/J096.pdf