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<h1 class="entry-title"><a rel="bookmark" href="61">Federalist № 61</a></h1>
<h2 class="entry-summary">The Same Subject Continued</h2>
<h3 class="entry-summary">
Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of
Members
</h3>
<div class="entry-content">
<p id="salutation">To the People of the State of New York:</p>
<p id="p1"><span>The</span> more candid opposers of <a
href="constitution#a1s4">the provision respecting elections</a>,
contained in the plan of the convention, when pressed in argument,
will sometimes concede the propriety of that provision; with this
qualification, however, that it ought to have been accompanied
with a declaration, that all elections should be had in the
counties where the electors resided. This, say they, was a
necessary precaution against an abuse of the power. A declaration
of this nature would certainly have been harmless; so far as it
would have had the effect of quieting apprehensions, it might not
have been undesirable. But it would, in fact, have afforded little
or no additional security against the danger apprehended; and the
want of it will never be considered, by an impartial and judicious
examiner, as a serious, still less as an insuperable, objection to
the plan. The different views taken of the subject in the two
preceding papers must be sufficient to satisfy all dispassionate
and discerning men, that if the public liberty should ever be the
victim of the ambition of the national rulers, the power under
examination, at least, will be guiltless of the sacrifice. <a
class="permalink" href="#p1">¶</a></p>
<p id="p2">If those who are inclined to consult their jealousy
only, would exercise it in a careful inspection of the several
State constitutions, they would find little less room for
disquietude and alarm, from the latitude which most of them allow
in respect to elections, than from the latitude which is proposed
to be allowed to the national government in the same respect. A
review of their situation, in this particular, would tend greatly
to remove any ill impressions which may remain in regard to this
matter. But as that view would lead into long and tedious details,
I shall content myself with the single example of the State in
which I write. The constitution of New York makes no other
provision for <em>locality</em> of elections, than that the
members of the Assembly shall be elected in the <em>counties</em>;
those of the Senate, in the great districts into which the State
is or may be divided: these at present are four in number, and
comprehend each from two to six counties. It may readily be
perceived that it would not be more difficult to the legislature
of New York to defeat the suffrages of the citizens of New York,
by confining elections to particular places, than for the
legislature of the United States to defeat the suffrages of the
citizens of the Union, by the like expedient. Suppose, for
instance, the city of Albany was to be appointed the sole place of
election for the county and district of which it is a part, would
not the inhabitants of that city speedily become the only electors
of the members both of the Senate and Assembly for that county and
district? Can we imagine that the electors who reside in the
remote subdivisions of the counties of Albany, Saratoga,
Cambridge, etc., or in any part of the county of Montgomery, would
take the trouble to come to the city of Albany, to give their
votes for members of the Assembly or Senate, sooner than they
would repair to the city of New York, to participate in the choice
of the members of the federal House of Representatives? The
alarming indifference discoverable in the exercise of so
invaluable a privilege under the existing laws, which afford every
facility to it, furnishes a ready answer to this question. And,
abstracted from any experience on the subject, we can be at no
loss to determine, that when the place of election is at an
<em>inconvenient distance</em> from the elector, the effect upon
his conduct will be the same whether that distance be twenty miles
or twenty thousand miles. Hence it must appear, that objections to
the particular modification of the federal power of regulating
elections will, in substance, apply with equal force to the
modification of the like power in the constitution of this State;
and for this reason it will be impossible to acquit the one, and
to condemn the other. A similar comparison would lead to the same
conclusion in respect to the constitutions of most of the other
States. <a class="permalink" href="#p2">¶</a></p>
<p id="p3">If it should be said that defects in the State
constitutions furnish no apology for those which are to be found
in the plan proposed, I answer, that as the former have never been
thought chargeable with inattention to the security of liberty,
where the imputations thrown on the latter can be shown to be
applicable to them also, the presumption is that they are rather
the cavilling refinements of a predetermined opposition, than the
well-founded inferences of a candid research after truth. To those
who are disposed to consider, as innocent omissions in the State
constitutions, what they regard as unpardonable blemishes in the
plan of the convention, nothing can be said; or at most, they can
only be asked to assign some substantial reason why the
representatives of the people in a single State should be more
impregnable to the lust of power, or other sinister motives, than
the representatives of the people of the United States? If they
cannot do this, they ought at least to prove to us that it is
easier to subvert the liberties of three millions of people, with
the advantage of local governments to head their opposition, than
of two hundred thousand people who are destitute of that
advantage. And in relation to the point immediately under
consideration, they ought to convince us that it is less probable
that a predominant faction in a single State should, in order to
maintain its superiority, incline to a preference of a particular
class of electors, than that a similar spirit should take
possession of the representatives of thirteen States, spread over
a vast region, and in several respects distinguishable from each
other by a diversity of local circumstances, prejudices, and
interests. <a class="permalink" href="#p3">¶</a></p>
<p id="p4">Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a
vindication of the provision in question, on the ground of
theoretic propriety, on that of the danger of placing the power
elsewhere, and on that of the safety of placing it in the manner
proposed. But there remains to be mentioned a positive advantage
which will result from this disposition, and which could not as
well have been obtained from any other: I allude to the
circumstance of uniformity in the time of elections for the
federal House of Representatives. It is more than possible that
this uniformity may be found by experience to be of great
importance to the public welfare, both as a security against the
perpetuation of the same spirit in the body, and as a cure for the
diseases of faction. If each State may choose its own time of
election, it is possible there may be at least as many different
periods as there are months in the year. The times of election in
the several States, as they are now established for local
purposes, vary between extremes as wide as March and November. The
consequence of this diversity would be that there could never
happen a total dissolution or renovation of the body at one time.
If an improper spirit of any kind should happen to prevail in it,
that spirit would be apt to infuse itself into the new members, as
they come forward in succession. The mass would be likely to
remain nearly the same, assimilating constantly to itself its
gradual accretions. There is a contagion in example which few men
have sufficient force of mind to resist. I am inclined to think
that treble the duration in office, with the condition of a total
dissolution of the body at the same time, might be less formidable
to liberty than one third of that duration subject to gradual and
successive alterations. <a class="permalink" href="#p4">¶</a></p>
<p id="p5">Uniformity in the time of elections seems not less
requisite for executing the idea of a regular rotation in the
Senate, and for conveniently assembling the legislature at a
stated period in each year. <a class="permalink"
href="#p5">¶</a></p>
<p id="p6">It may be asked, Why, then, could not a time have been
fixed in the Constitution? As the most zealous adversaries of the
plan of the convention in this State are, in general, not less
zealous admirers of the constitution of the State, the question
may be retorted, and it may be asked, Why was not a time for the
like purpose fixed in the constitution of this State? No better
answer can be given than that it was a matter which might safely
be entrusted to legislative discretion; and that if a time had
been appointed, it might, upon experiment, have been found less
convenient than some other time. The same answer may be given to
the question put on the other side. And it may be added that the
supposed danger of a gradual change being merely speculative, it
would have been hardly advisable upon that speculation to
establish, as a fundamental point, what would deprive several
States of the convenience of having the elections for their own
governments and for the national government at the same epochs. <a
class="permalink" href="#p6">¶</a></p>
<address class="vcard author">
<span class="nickname">Publius</span>.
[<span class="fn">Alexander Hamilton</span>]
</address>
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<div class="meta">
<p>
First published in the <abbr class="published updated"
title="1788-02-26">Tuesday, February 26, 1788</abbr> issue of the
<span class="publication">New York Packet</span>.
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