Antifederalist No. 56 

WILL THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES BE GENUINELY REPRESENTATIVE?  
(PART 2) 



     . . . . Why in England have the revolutions always ended in 
stipulations in favor of general liberty, equal laws, and the 
common rights of the people, and in most other countries in favor 
only of a few influential men?  The reasons, in my mind, are 
obvious.  In England the people have been substantially 
represented in many respects; in the other countries it has not 
been so. Perhaps a small degree of attention to a few simple 
facts will illustrate this.  In England, from the oppressions of 
the Norman Kings to the revolution in 1688, during which period 
of two or three hundred years, the English liberties were 
ascertained and established, the aristocratic part of that nation 
was substantially represented by a very large number of nobles, 
possessing similar interests and feelings with those they 
represented.  The body of the people, about four or five 
millions, then mostly a frugal landed people, were represented by 
about five hundred representatives, taken not from the order of 
men which formed the aristocracy, but from the body of the 
people, and possessed of the same interests and feelings.  De 
Lolme, speaking of the British representation, expressly founds 
all his reasons on this union; this similitude of interests, 
feelings, views and circumstances. He observes the English have 
preserved their liberties, because they and their leaders or 
representatives have been strictly united in interests, and in 
contending for general liberty. Here we see a genuine balance 
founded in the actual state of things.  The whole community, 
probably, not more than two-fifths more numerous than we now are, 
were represented by seven or eight hundred men; the barons 
stipulated with the common people, and the king with the whole.  
Had the legal distinction between lords and commons been broken 
down, and the people of that island been called upon to elect 
forty-five senators, and one hundred and twenty representatives, 
about the proportion we propose to establish, their whole 
legislature evidently would have been of the natural aristocracy, 
and the body of the people would not have had scarcely a single 
sincere advocate.  Their interests would have been neglected, 
general and equal liberty forgot, and the balance lost.  Contests 
and conciliations, as in most other countries, would have been 
merely among the few, and as it might have been necessary to 
serve their purposes, the people at large would have been 
flattered or threatened, and probably not a single stipulation 
made in their favor.  In Rome the people were miserable, though 
they bad three orders, the consuls, senators, and tribunes, and 
approved the laws, and all for want of a genuine representation.  
The people were too numerous to assemble, and do any thing 
properly themselves.  The voice of a few, the dupes of artifice, 
was called the voice of the people.  It is difficult for the 
people to defend themselves against the arts and intrigues of the 
great, but by selecting a suitable number of men fixed to their 
interests to represent them, and to oppose ministers and 
senators. . . . [Much] depends on the number of the men selected, 
and the manner of doing it.  To be convinced of this, we need 
only attend to the reason of the case, the conduct of the British 
commons, and of the Roman tribunes. Equal liberty prevails in 
England, because there was a representation of the people, in 
fact and reality, to establish it.  Equal liberty never prevailed 
in Rome because there was but the shadow of a representation.  
There were consuls in Rome annually elected to execute the laws; 
several hundred senators represented the great families; the body 
of the people annually chose tribunes from among themselves to 
defend them and to secure their rights; I think the number of 
tribunes annually chosen never exceeded ten.  This 
representation, perhaps, was not proportionally so numerous as 
the representation proposed in the new plan; but the difference 
will not appear to be so great, when it shall be recollected, 
that these tribunes were chosen annually, that the great 
patrician families were not admitted to these offices of 
tribunes, and that the people of Italy who elected the tribunes 
were a long while, if not always, a small people compared with 
the people of the United States. What was the consequence of this 
trifling representation?  The people of Rome always elected for 
their tribunes men conspicuous for their riches, military 
commands, professional popularity, etc., great commoners, between 
whom and the noble families there was only the shadowy difference 
of legal distinction.  Among all the tribunes the people chose 
for several centuries, they had scarcely five real friends to 
their interests. These tribunes lived, felt and saw, not like the 
people, but like the great patrician families, like senators and 
great officers of state, to get into which it was evident by 
their conduct, was their sole object.  These tribunes often 
talked about the rights and prerogatives of the people, and that 
was all; for they never even attempted to establish equal 
liberty.  So far from establishing the rights of the people, they 
suffered the senate, to the exclusion of the people, to engross 
the powers of taxation; those excellent and almost only real 
weapons of defense even the people of England possess.  The 
tribunes obtained that the people should be eligible to some of 
the great offices of state, and marry, if they pleased, into the 
noble families; these were advantages in their nature, confined 
to a few elevated commoners, and of trifling importance to the 
people at large. Nearly the same observations may be made as to 
the ephori of Sparta. 
     We may amuse ourselves with names; but the fact is, men will 
be governed by the motives and temptations that surround their 
situation.  Political evils to be guarded against are in the 
human character, and not in the name of patrician or plebeian.  
Had the people of Italy, in the early period of the republic, 
selected yearly or biennially, four or five hundred of their best 
informed men, emphatically from among themselves, these 
representatives would have formed an honest respectable assembly, 
capable of combining in them the views and exertions of the 
people and their respectability would have procured them honest 
and able leaders, and we should have seen equal liberty 
established. True liberty stands in need of a fostering band,- 
from the days of Adam she has found but one temple to dwell in 
securely.  She has laid the foundation of one, perhaps her last 
in America; whether this is to be completed and have duration, is 
yet a question.  Equal liberty never yet found many advocates 
among the great.  It is a disagreeable truth that power perverts 
men's views in a greater degree than public employments inform 
their understandings.  They become hardened in certain maxims, 
and more lost to fellow feelings.  Men may always be too cautious 
to commit alarming and glaring iniquities; but they, as well as 
systems, are liable to be corrupted by slow degrees. Junius well 
observes, we are not only to guard against what men will do, but 
even against what they may do.  Men in high public offices are in 
stations where they gradually lose sight of the people, and do 
not often think of attending to them, except when necessary to 
answer private purposes. 
     The body of the people must have this true representative 
security placed some where in the nation.  And in the United 
States, or in any extended empire, I am fully persuaded [it] can 
be placed no where, but in the forms of a federal republic, where 
we can divide and place it in several state or district 
legislatures, giving the people in these the means of opposing 
heavy internal taxes and oppressive measures in the proper 
stages.  A great empire contains the amities and animosities of a 
world within itself.  We are not like the people of England, one 
people compactly settled on a small island, with a great city 
filled with frugal merchants, serving as a common centre of 
liberty and union.  We are dispersed, and it is impracticable for 
any but the few to assemble in one place.  The few must be 
watched, checked, and often resisted. Tyranny has ever shown a 
predilection to be in close amity with them, or the one man.  
Drive it from kings and it flies to senators, to decemviri, to 
dictators, to tribunes, to popular leaders, to military chiefs, 
etc. 
      De Lolme well observes, that in societies, laws which were 
to be equal to all are soon warped to the private interests of 
the administrators, and made to defend the usurpations of a few.  
The English, who had tasted the sweets of equal laws, were aware 
of this, and though they restored their king, they carefully 
delegated to parliament the advocates of freedom. 
     I have often lately heard it observed that it will do very 
well for a people to make a constitution and ordain that at 
stated periods they will choose, in a certain manner, a first 
magistrate, a given number of senators and representatives, and 
let them have all power to do as they please. This doctrine, 
however it may do for a small republic-as Connecticut, for 
instance, where the people may choose so many senators and 
representatives to assemble in the legislature, [representing] in 
an eminent degree, the interests, the views, feelings, and 
genuine sentiments of the people themselves - can never be 
admitted in an extensive country.  And when this power is lodged 
in the hands of a few, not to limit the few is but one step short 
of giving absolute power to one man.  In a numerous 
representation the abuse of power is a common injury, and has no 
temptation; among the few, the abuse of power may often operate 
to the private emolument of those who abuse it. 
         THE FEDERAL FARMER