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The Senate Continued
To the People of the State of New York:
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 laboring.
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 elections 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 an
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 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 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 show, 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 these 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 wilfully 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 reasonings
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 governments on the subject
of representation, is by no means precisely true in the latitude
commonly given to it. Without entering into a disquisition which
here 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 numbers, 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 the 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 insure 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 pre-eminence 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 the latter; and that the
former, rather than the latter, are 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 operation 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 any thing 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 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, the 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.
The 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. 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.
Hamilton
or Madison For the Independent Journal.
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.