Antifederalist No. 58 

WILL THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES BE GENUINELY REPRESENTATIVE? 
(PART 4) 



     It is said that our people have a high sense of freedom, 
possess power, property, and the strong arm; meaning, I presume, 
that the body of the people can take care of themselves, and awe 
their rulers; and, therefore, particular provision in the 
constitution for their security may not be essential.  When I 
come to examine these observations, they appear to me too 
trifling and loose to deserve a serious answer. 
     To palliate for the smallness of the representation, it is 
observed, that the state governments in which the people are 
fully represented, necessarily form a part of the system.  This 
idea ought to be fully examined.  We ought to inquire if the 
convention have made the proper use of these essential parts.  
The state governments then, we are told, will stand between the 
arbitrary exercise of power and the people.  True they may, but 
armless and helpless, perhaps, with the privilege of making a 
noise when hurt.  This is no more than individuals may do. Does 
the constitution provide a single check for a single measure by 
which the state governments can constitutionally and regularly 
check the arbitrary measures of congress?  Congress may raise 
immediately fifty thousand men and twenty millions of dollars in 
taxes, build a navy, model the militia, etc., and all this 
constitutionally.  Congress may arm on every point, and the state 
governments can do no more than an individual, by petition to 
congress, suggest their measures are alarming and not right. 
     I conceive the position to be undeniable, that the federal 
government will be principally in the hands of the natural 
aristocracy, and the state governments principally in the hands 
of the democracy, the representatives of the body of the people.  
These representatives in Great Britain hold the purse, and have a 
negative upon all laws.  We must yield to circumstances and 
depart something from this plan, and strike out a new medium so 
as to give efficacy to the whole system, supply the wants of the 
union, and leave the several states, or the people assembled in 
the state legislatures, the means of defense. 
     It has been often mentioned that the objects of congress 
will be few and national, and require a small representation; 
that the objects of each state will be many and local, and 
require a numerous representation.  This circumstance has not the 
weight of a feather in my mind.  It is certainly inadvisable to 
lodge in 65 representatives, and 26 senators, unlimited power to 
establish systems of taxation, armies, navies, model the militia, 
and to do every thing that may essentially tend soon to change, 
totally, the affairs of the community; and to assemble 1500 state 
representatives, and 160 senators, to make fence laws and laws to 
regulate the descent and conveyance of property, the 
administration of justice between man and man, to appoint militia 
officers, etc. 
     It is not merely the quantity of information I contend for.  
Two taxing powers may be inconvenient; but the point is, 
congress, like the senate of Rome, will have taxing powers, and 
the people no check. When the power is abused, the people may 
complain and grow angry, so may the state governments; they may 
remonstrate and counteract, by passing laws to prohibit the 
collection of congressional taxes. But these will be acts of the 
people, acts of sovereign power, the dernier resort unknown to 
the constitution; acts operating in terrorum, acts of resistance, 
and not the exercise of any constitutional power to stop or check 
a measure before matured.  A check properly is the stopping, by 
one branch in the same legislature, a measure proposed by the 
other in it.  In fact the constitution provides for the states no 
check, properly speaking, upon the measures of congress.  
Congress can immediately enlist soldiers, and apply to the 
pockets of the people. 
     These few considerations bring us to the very strong 
distinction between the plan that operates on federal principles, 
and the plan that operates on consolidated principles.  A plan 
may be federal or not as to its organization each state may 
retain its vote or not; the sovereignty of the state may be 
represented, or the people of it.  A plan may be federal or not 
as to its operation-federal when it requires men and monies of 
the states, and the states as such make the laws for raising the 
men and monies; not federal when it leaves the states' 
governments out of the question, and operates immediately upon 
the persons and property of the citizens.  The first is the case 
with the confederation; the second with the new plan.  In the 
first the state governments may be [a] check; in the last none at 
all. . . . 
     It is also said that the constitution gives no more power to 
congress than the confederation, respecting money and military 
matters; that congress under the confederation, may require men 
and monies to any amount, and the states are bound to comply.  
This is generally true; but, I think . . . that the states have 
well founded checks for securing their liberties. I admit the 
force of the observation that all the federal powers, by the 
confederation, are lodged in a single assembly.  However, I think 
much more may be said in defense of the leading principles of the 
confederation.  I do not object to the qualifications of the 
electors of representatives, and I fully agree that the people 
ought to elect one branch. 
     Further, it may be observed, that the present congress is 
principally an executive body, which ought not to be numerous; 
that the house of representatives will be a mere legislative 
branch, and being the democratic on ought to be numerous.  It is 
one of the greatest advantages of a government of different 
branches, that each branch may be conveniently made conformable 
to the nature of the business assigned it, and all be made 
conformable to the condition of the several orders of the people. 
After all the possible checks and limitations we can devise, the 
powers of the union must be very extensive; the sovereignty of 
the nation cannot produce the object in view, the defense and 
tranquility of the whole, without such powers, executive and 
judicial.  I dislike the present congress-a single assembly-
because it is impossible to fit it to receive those powers.  The 
executive and judicial powers, in the nature of things, ought to 
be lodged in a few hands; the legislature in many hands. 
Therefore, want of safety and unavoidable hasty measures out of 
the question, they never can all be lodged in one assembly 
properly-it, in its very formation, must imply a contradiction. 
     In objection to increasing the representation, it has also 
been observed that it is difficult to assemble a hundred men or 
more without making the tumultuous and a mere mob.  Reason and 
experience do not support this observation.  The most respectable 
assemblies we have any knowledge of and the wisest, have been 
those, each of which consisted of several hundred members - as 
the senate of Rome, of Carthage, of Venice, the British 
Parliament, etc.  I think I may, without hazarding much, affirm 
that our more numerous state assemblies and conventions have 
universally discovered more wisdom, and as much order, as the 
less numerous ones.  There must be also a very great difference 
between the characters of two or three hundred men assembled from 
a single state, and the characters of that number or half the 
number assembled from all the united states. 
     It is added, that on the proposed plan the house of 
representatives in fifty or a hundred years will consist of 
several hundred members.  The plan will begin with sixty-five, 
and we have no certainty that the number ever will increase, for 
this plain reason-that all that combination of interests and 
influence which has produced this plan, and supported [it] so 
far, will constantly oppose the increase of the representation, 
knowing that thereby the government will become more free and 
democratic.  But admitting, after a few years, there will be a 
member for each 30,000 inhabitants, the observation is trifling; 
the government is in a considerable measure to take its tone from 
its early movements, and by means of a small representation it 
may in half of 50 or 100 years, get moved from its basis, or at 
least so far as to be incapable of ever being recovered.  We 
ought, therefore, . . . now to fix the government on proper 
principles, and fit to our present condition.  When the 
representation shall become too numerous, alter it.  Or we may 
now make provision, that when the representation shall be 
increased to a given number, that then there shall be one for 
each given number of inhabitants, etc. 
     Another observation is, that congress will have no 
temptations to do wrong.  The men that make it must be very 
uninformed, or suppose they are talking to children.  In the 
first place, the members will be governed by all those motives 
which govern the conduct of men, and have before them all the 
allurements of offices and temptations to establish unequal 
burdens, before described. In the second place, they and their 
friends, probably, will find it for their interests to keep up 
large armies, navies, salaries, etc., and in laying adequate 
taxes.  In the third place, we have no good grounds to presume, 
from reason or experience, that it will be agreeable to their 
characters or views, that the body of the people should continue 
to have power effectually to interfere in the affairs of 
government.  But it is confidently added, that congress will not 
have it in their power to oppress or enslave the people; that the 
people will not bear it.  It is not supposed that congress will 
act the tyrant immediately, and in the face of daylight.  It is 
not supposed congress will adopt important measures without 
plausible pretenses, especially those which may tend to alarm or 
produce opposition.  We are to consider the natural progress of 
things-that men unfriendly to republican equality will go 
systematically to work, gradually to exclude the body of the 
people from any share in the government, first of the substance, 
and then of the forms.  The men who will have these views will 
not be without their agents and supporters. When we reflect, that 
a few years ago we established democratic republics, and fixed 
the state governments as the barriers between congress and the 
pickets of the people, what great progress has been made in less 
than seven years to break down those barriers, and essentially to 
change the principles of our governments, even by the armless 
few-is it chimerical to suppose that in fifteen or twenty years 
to come, that much more can be performed, especially after the 
adoption of the constitution, when the few will be so much better 
armed with power and influence, to continue the struggle?  
Probably they will be wise enough never to alarm, but gradually 
prepare the minds of the people for one specious change after 
another, till the final object shall be obtained.  Say the 
advocates, these are only possibilities.  They are probabilities 
a wise people ought to guard against; and the address made use of 
to keep the evils out of sight, and the means to prevent them, 
confirm my opinion. 
     But to obviate all objections to the proposed plan in the 
last resort, it is said our people will be free, so long as they 
possess the habits of freemen, and when they lose them, they must 
receive some other forms of government.  To this I shall only 
observe, that this is very humiliating language, and can, I 
trust, never suit a manly people who have contended nobly for 
liberty, and declared to the world they will be free. 
                        THE FEDERAL FARMER