Last week we explored the question of how many people are necessary to avoid tyranny. Madison was answering the concern that a small group of people could be persuaded to pursue self-interest rather than that of the entire nation. And worse, that a small group of people could be tempted to become tyrannical, to believe that the population exists for their own good rather than the representatives existing for the good of their constituents. Madison argues that the larger House of Representatives possesses a sufficient number of people to make it difficult for it to be manipulated.
In Federalist 56, Madison discusses how much knowledge is needed by these same representatives. It is critical, of course, that the representatives “ought to be acquainted with the interests and circumstances of his constituents.” [1] But given the limits on the scope of the federal government imposed by the constitution, it is not necessary for a representative to have intimate knowledge of everything. Primarily they would need to be familiar with “commerce, taxation, and the militia.” Those are the limited purviews of the congress.
Madison acknowledges that commerce is the most complex of these subjects and that a few representatives with knowledge would be sufficient to inform the larger body. Taxation, as we have discussed previously, was generally thought of as tariffs on external trade rather than taxes on the production of citizens. Given the limited scope of the new federal government, tariffs should be able to produce sufficient revenue.
For what limited taxes might be proposed within any individual state, the breakdown of even the largest states into “ten or twelve districts” would result in enough granular knowledge for the legislators involved in those matters. The state laws on such matters would generally be a guide for federal legislators. You will note that this has been reversed in its entirety with regard to taxes today. Most states now charge a percentage of what a citizen pays in federal taxes.
While the federal government will likely rely on the state’s processes for taxation it will “apply with greater force to the case of the militia.” The federal management of troops therefore is designed to follow the state regulations on their militias. As the states and their populations mature, so will the representatives that they send to the new federal government.
The next charge against the new House of Representatives is addressed by Madison in Federalist 57. There is concern that the members of the house will wind up being chosen from a group of citizens with the “least sympathy with the mass of the people” and worse that they might seek the “sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.” Imagine that, thinking that the members of the house might enrich themselves to the detriment of the common man. Madison believes that, of all the objections to the constitution, this is “perhaps the most extraordinary.”
We need to remember that the very idea of an elective form of republicanism was a novel concept. It had never been attempted to this point, and the critics objecting to the people’s house as having the potential to be abused by the representatives therein is not an idle concern. Up until this point, the masses had always been ruled by government, and the concept that people should rule government is completely new and untested.
Madison has already said, on several occasions, that the short term in the House will effectively reduce the possibility of corruption. These representatives will not be chosen by the nobility, as in most of the world, but rather from “the great body of the people of the United States.” There is specifically no requirement of wealth, birth, religious faith, or civil profession for these representatives. There is no nobility that limits participation. Anyone who represents a group of people would be at least likely to form “a temporary affection” to the people who they represent.
If none of the noble reasons for a representative to support their constituents existed, there would still be the fact that this is a “government subversive of the authority of the people.” And that, even if a representative has only their self interest in mind, the frequency of elections will reinforce that point to potential representatives. Besides, they can make no law that “will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends” so they would be predisposed to do the right thing. Here again, the fact that congress exempts themselves from certain laws is a gross change from the original intent of the Constitution. It is possible of course, that these limitations will not provide safety from the “caprice and wickedness of man” but they are all that a prudent government can provide.
This remains the best that man can devise. Ultimately it is up to us to ask, as Madison does in closing to those that suspect this form of a house will result in tyranny, it cannot be true “that a diffusive mode of choosing representatives of the people tends to elevate traitors and to undermine the public liberty.”
Indeed
To read all of John Parillo’s work on the Federalist Papers, check here.
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- All quotes are from https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-51-60#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493432 ↑