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national edifices and monuments, from their share in the public defence, and from their concurrent support of the government, it would seem unreasonable to extend the right so far as to give them, when become the majority, a power of legislation over the landed property without the consent of the proprietors. Some shield against the invasion of their rights would not be out of place in a just and provident system of government. The principle of such an arrangement has prevailed in all governments where peculiar privileges or interests, held by a part, were to be secured against violation, and in the various associations where pecuniary or other property forms the stake. In the former case, a defensive right has been allowed; and if the arrangement be wrong, it is not in the defence, but in the kind of privilege to be defended. In the latter case, the shares of suffrage allotted to individuals have been, with acknowledged justice, apportioned more or less to their respective interests in the common stock.

These reflections suggest the expediency of such a modification of government as would give security to the part of the society having most at stake, and being most exposed to danger. These modifications present themselves.

1. Confining the right of suffrage to freeholders, and to such as hold an equivalent property, convertible of course into freeholds. The objection to this regulation is obvious. It violates the vital principle of free government, that those who are to be bound by laws ought to have a voice in making them. And the violation would be more strikingly unjust as the law-makers become the minority. The regulation would be as unpropitious, also, as it would be unjust. It would engage the numerical and physical force in a constant struggle against the public authority, unless kept down by a standing army fatal to all parties.

2. Confining the right of suffrage for one branch to the holders of property, and for the other branch to those without property. This arrangement, which would give a mutual defence where there might be mutual danger of encroachment, has an aspect of equality and fairness. But it would not be in fact either equal or fair, because the rights to be defended would be unequal, being on one side those of property as well as of persons, and on the other those of persons only. The temptation, also, to encroach, though in a certain degree mutual, would be felt more strongly on one side than on the other. It would be more likely to beget an abuse of the legislative negative, in extorting concessions at the expense of property, than the reverse. The division of the state into two classes, with distinct and independent organs of power, and without any intermingled agency whatever, might lead to contests and antipathies not dissimilar to those between the patricians and plebeians at Rome.

3. Confining the right of electing one branch of the legislature to freeholders, and admitting all others to a common right with holders of property in electing the other branch. This would give a defensive power to the holders of property, and to the class also without property, when becoming a majority of electors, without depriving them in the mean time of a participation in the public councils. If the holders of property would thus have a twofold share of representation, they would have at the same time a twofold stake in it- the rights of property as well as of persons, the twofold object of political institutions. And if no exact and safe equilibrium can be introduced, it is more reasonable that a preponderating weight should be allowed to the greater interest than to the lesser. Experience alone can decide how far the practice in this case would accord with the theory. Such a distribution of the right of suffrage was tried in New York, and has been abandoned,-whether from experienced evils, or party calculations, may possibly be a question. It is still on trial in North Carolina,- with what practical indications, is not known. It is certain that the trial, to be satisfactory, ought to be continued for no inconsiderable period; until, in fact, the non-freeholders should be the majority.

4. Should experience or public opinion require an equal and universal suffrage for each branch of the government, such as prevails generally in the United States, a resource favorable to the right of the landed and other property, when its possessors become the minority, may be found in an enlargement of the election districts for one branch of the legislature, and a prolongation of its period of service. Large districts are manifestly favorable to the election of persons of general respectability, and of probable attachment to the rights of property, over competitors depending on the personal solicitation practicable on a contracted theatre. And, although an ambitious candidate, of personal distinction, might occasionally recommend himself to popular choice by espousing a popular though unjust object, it might rarely happen to many districts at the same time. The tendency of a longer period of service would be to render the body more stable in its policy, and more capable of stemming popular currents taking a wrong direction, till reason and justice could regain their ascendency.

5. Should even such a modification as the last be deemed inadmissible, and universal suffrage, and very short periods of election, within contracted spheres, be required for each branch of the government, the security for the holders of property, when the minority, can only be derived from the ordinary influence possessed by property, and

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the superior information incident to its holders; from the popular sense of justice, en lightened and enlarged by a diffusive education; and from the difficulty of combining and effectuating unjust purposes throughout an extensive country, - a difficulty essen tially distinguishing the United States, and even most of the individual states, from the small communities, where a mistaken interest, or contagious passion, could readily unite a majority of the whole, under a factious leader, in trampling on the rights of the minor party.

Under every view of the subject, it seems indispensable that the mass of citizens should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them. And if the only alternative be between an equal and universal right of suffrage for each branch of the government and a confinement of the entire right to a part of the citizens, it is better that those having the greater interest at stake-namely, that of property and persons both should be deprived of half their share in the government, than that those having the lesser in- that of personal rights only—should be deprived of the whole.

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Third Note on the same Subject, during the Virginia Convention for amending the Constitution of the State, 1829-30.

The right of suffrage being of vital importance, and approving an extension of it to housekeepers and heads of families, I will suggest a few considerations which goverr. my judgment on the subject.

Were the Constitution on hand to be adapted to the present circumstances of our country, without taking into view the changes which time is rapidly producing, an unlimited extension of the right would probably vary little the character of our public councils or measures. But, as we are to prepare a system of government for a period which it is hoped will be a long one, we must look to the prospective changes in the condition and composition of the society on which it is to act.

It is a law of nature, now well understood, that the earth, under a civilized cultivation, is capable of yielding subsistence for a large surplus of consumers beyond those having an immediate interest in the soil; a surplus which must increase with the increasing improvements in agriculture, and the labor-saving arts applied to it. And it is a lot of humanity, that of this surplus a large proportion is necessarily reduced, by a competition for employment, to wages which afford them the bare necessaries of life. The proportion being without property, or the hope of acquiring it, cannot be expected to sympathize sufficiently with its rights, to be safe depositaries of power over them.

What is to be done with this unfavored class of the community? If it be, on one hand, unsafe to admit them to a full share of political power, it must be recollected, on the other, that it cannot be expedient to rest a republican government on a portion of society having a numerical and physical force excluded from and liable to be turned against it, and which would lead to a standing military force, dangerous to all parties, and to liberty itself.

This view of the subject makes it proper to embrace, in the partnership of power, every description of citizens having a sufficient stake in the public order and the stable administration of the laws; and particularly the housekeeper and heads of families; most of whom, "having given hostages to fortune," will have given them to their country also.

This portion of the community, added to those who, although not possessed of a share of the soil, are deeply interested in other species of property, and both of them added to the territorial proprietors, who in a certain sense may be regarded as the owners of the country itself, form the safest basis of free government. To the security for such a government, afforded by these combined numbers, may be further added the political and moral influence emanating from the actual possession of authority, and a just and beneficial exercise of it.

It would be happy if a state of society could be found or framed, in which an equal voice in making the laws might be allowed to every individual bound to obey them. But this is a theory which, like most theories, confessedly requires limitations and modifications. And the only question to be decided, in this as in other cases, turns on the particular degree of departure, in practice, required by the essence and object of the theory itself.

It must not be supposed that a crowded state of population, of which we have no example, and which we know only by the image reflected from examples elsewhere, is too remote to claim attention.

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There may be a gradual decrease of the rate of increase; but it will be small as long as the agriculture shall yield its abundance. Great Britain has doubled her population in the last 50 years, notwithstanding its amount in proportion to its territory at the commencement of that period; and Ireland is a much stronger proof of the effect of an increasing product of food in multiplying the consumers.

How far this view of the subject will be affected by the republican laws of descent and distribution, in equalizing the property of the citizens, and in reducing to the minimum mutual surpluses for mutual supplies, cannot be inferred from any direct and adequate experiment. One result would seem to be a deficiency of the capital for the expensive establishments which facilitate labor and cheapen its products, on one hand, and, on the other, of the capacity to purchase the costly and ornamental articles consumed by the wealthy alone, who must cease to be idlers and become laborers; another, the increased mass of laborers added to the production of necessaries, by the withdrawal, for this object, of a part of those now employed in producing luxuries, and the addition to the laborers from the class of present consumers of luxuries. To the effect of these changes, intellectual, moral, and social, the institutions and laws of the country must be adapted, and it will require for the task all the wisdom of the wisest patriots.

Supposing the estimate of the growing population of the United States to be nearly correct, and the extent of their territory to be eight or nine hundred millions of acres, and one fourth of it to consist of inarable surface; there will, in a century or little more, be nearly as crowded a population in the United States as in Great Britain or France; and if the present constitution, [of Virginia,] with all its flaws, has lasted more than half a century, it is not an unreasonable hope that an amended one will last more than a century. If these observations be just, every mind will be able to develop and apply them.

No. 5.

Copy of a Paper communicated to James Madison by Col. Hamilton, about the close of the Convention in Philadelphia, 1787, which, he said, delineated the Constitution which he would have wished to be proposed by the Convention. He had stated the principles of it in the course of the deliberations.

NOTE.The caption, as well as the copy of the following paper, is in the hand-writing of Mr. Madison, and the whole manuscript, and the paper on which it is written, corresponds with the debates in the Convention with which it was preserved. The document was placed in Mr. Madison's hands for preservation by Col. Hamilton, who regarded it as a permanent evidence of his opinion on the subject. But as he did not expresss his intention, at the time, that the original should be kept, Mr. Madison returned it, informning him that he had retained a copy. It appears, however, from a communication of the Rev. Dr. Mason to Dr. Eustis, (see letter of Dr. Eustis to J. Madison, 28th April, 1819,) that the original remained among the papers left by Col. Hamilton.

In a letter to Mr. Pickering, dated Sept. 16, 1803, (see Pitkin's History, Vol. 2, p. 259–60) Col. Hamilton was under the erroneous impression that this paper limited the duration of the presidential term to three years. This instance of the fallibility of Col. Hamilton's memory, as well as his erroneous distribution of the numbers of the "Federalists," among the different writers for that work, it has been the lot of Mr. Madison to rectify; and it became incumbent, in the present instance, from the contents of the plan having been seen by others, (previously as well as subsequently to the publication of Col. Hamilton's letter,) that it, also, should be published.

The people of the United States of America do ordain and establish this Constitution for the government of themselves and their posterity:

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ARTICLE I.Sec. 1. The legislative power shall be vested in two distinct bodies of men, one to be called the Assembly, the other the Senate, subject to the negative hereinafter mentioned.

Sec. 2. The executive power, with the qualifications hereinafter specified, shall be vested in a President of the United States.

Sec. 3. The supreme judicial authority, except in the cases otherwise provided for inthis Constitution, shall be vested in a court, to be called the Supreme Court, to consist of not less than six nor more than twelve judges.

ART. II. Sec. 1. The Assembly shall consist of persons to be called representatives, who shall be chosen, except in the first instance, by the free male citizens and inhabitants of the several states comprehended in the Union, all of whom, of the age of twentyone years and upwards, shall be entitled to an equal vote.

Sec. 2. But the first Assembly shall be chosen in the manner prescribed in the last Article, and shall consist of one hundred members; of whom New Hampshire shall have five; Massachusetts, thirteen; Rhode Island, two; Connecticut, seven; New York, nine; New Jersey, six; Pennsylvania, twelve; Delaware, two; Maryland, eight; Virginia, sixteen; North Carolina, eight; South Carolina, eight; Georgia, four.

Sec. 3. The legislature shall provide for the future elections of representatives, apportioning them in each state, from time to time, as nearly as may be to the number of persons described in the fourth section of the seventh article, so as that the whole number of representatives shall never be less than one hundred, nor more than hundred. There shall be a census taken for this purpose within three years after the first meeting of the legislature, and within every successive period of ten years. The term for which representatives shall be elected shall be determined by the legislature, but shall not exceed three years. There shall be a general election at least once in three years, and the time of service of all the members in each assembly shall begin (except in filling vacancies) on the same day, and shall always end on the same day. Sec. 4. Forty members shall make a House sufficient to proceed to business, but their number may be increased by the legislature, yet so as never to exceed a majority of the whole number of representatives.

Sec. 5. The Assembly shall choose its president the other officers; shall judge of the qualifications and elections of its own members; punish them for improper conduct in their capacity of representatives, not extending to life or limb; and shall exclusively possess the power of impeachment, except in the case of the President of the United States; but no impeachment of a member of the Senate shall be by less than two thirds of the representatives present.

Sec. 6. Representatives may vote by proxy; but no representative present shall be proxy for more than one who is absent.*

Sec. 7. Bills for raising revenue, and bills for appropriating moneys for the support of fleets and armies, and for paying the salaries of the officers of government, shall originate in the Assembly; but may be altered and amended by the Senate.

Sec. 8. The acceptance of an office under the United States by a representative shall vacate his seat in the Assembly.

ART. III. Sec. 1. The Senate shall consist of persons to be chosen, except in the first instance, by electors elected for that purpose by the citizens and inhabitants of the several states comprehended in the Union, who shall have, in their own right, or in the right of their wives, an estate in land, for not less than life, or a term of years, whereof, at the time of giving their votes, there shall be at least fourteen years unexpired.

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Sec. 2. But the first Senate shall be chosen in the manner prescribed in the last article; and shall consist of forty members, to be called senators; of whom New Hampshire shall have -; Massachusetts, ; Rhode Island, -; Connecticut, New York, - New Jersey,; Pennsylvania, -; Delaware, land, -; Virginia,; North Carolina, South Carolina, -; Georgia, Sec. 3. The legislature shall provide for the future elections of senators, for which purpose the states, respectively, which have more than one senator, shall be divided into convenient districts, to which the senators shall be apportioned. A state having but one senator, shall be itself a district. On the death, resignation, or removal from office of a senator, his place shall be supplied by a new election in the district from which he came. Upon each election there shall be not less than six, nor more than twelve, electors chosen in a district.

Sec. 4. The number of senators shall never be less than forty, nor shall any state, if the same shall not hereafter be divided, ever have less than the number allotted to it in the second section of this article; but the legislature may increase the whole number of senators, in the same proportion to the whole number of representatives, as forty is to one hundred; and such increase beyond the present number shall be apportioned to the respective states in a ratio to the respective numbers of their representatives.

Sec. 5. If states shall be divided, or if a new arrangement of the boundaries of two or more states shall take place, the legislature shall apportion the number of senators (in elections succeeding such division or new arrangement) to which the constituent parts were entitled according to the change of situation, having regard to the number of persons described in the fourth section of the seventh article.

Sec. 6. The senators shall hold their places during good behavior, removable only by conviction, on impeachment, for some crime or misdemeanor. They shall continue to exercise their offices, when impeached, until a conviction shall take place. Sixteen senators attending in person shall be sufficient to make a House to transact business; but the legislature may increase this number, yet so as never to exceed a majority of the whole number of senators. The senators may vote by proxy, but no senator who is present shall be proxy for more than two who are absent.

Sec. 7. The Senate shall choose its president and other officers; shall judge of the qualifications and elections of its members; and shall punish them for improper conduct in their capacity of senators; but such punishment shall not extend to life or limb, nor to expulsion. In the absence of their president they may choose a temporary president. The president shall only have a casting vote when the House is equally divided.

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Sec. 8. The Senate shall exclusively possess the power of declaring war. No treaty shall be made without their advice and consent; which shall also be necessary to the appointment of all officers except such for which a different provision is made in this Constitution.

ART. IV. — Sec. 1. The President of the United States of America (except in the first instance) shall be elected in the manner following: The judges of the Supreme Court shall, within sixty days after a vacancy shall happen, cause public notice to be given, in each state, of such vacancy; appointing therein three several days for the several purposes following to wit, a day for commencing the election of electors for the purposes hereinafter specified, to be called the first electors, which day shall not be less than forty, nor more than sixty days, after the day of the publication of the notice in each state; another day for the meeting of the electors, not less [than] forty, nor more than ninety, days from the day for commencing their election; another day for the meeting of electors to be chosen by the first electors, for the purpose hereinafter specified, and to be called the second electors, which day shall be not less than forty, nor more than sixty, days after the day for the meeting of the first electors.

Sec. 2. After notice of a vacancy shall have been given, there shall be chosen in each state a number of persons, as the first electors in the preceding section mentioned, equal to the whole number of the representatives and senators of such state in the legislature of the United States; which electors shall be chosen by the citizens of such state having an estate of inheritance, or for three lives, in land, or a clear personal estate of the value of one thousand Spanish milled dollars of the present standard.

Sec. 3. These first electors shall meet, in their respective states, at the time appointed, at one place, and shall proceed to vote by ballot for a President, who shall not be one of their own number, unless the legislature upon experiment should hereafter direct otherwise. They shall cause two lists to be made of the name or names of the person or persons voted for, which they, or the major part of them, shall sign and certify. They shall then proceed each to nominate, openly, in the presence of the others, two persons as for second electors; and out of the persons who shall have the four highest numbers of nominations, they shall afterwards by ballot, by plurality of votes, choose two who shall be the second electors, to each of whom shall be delivered one of the lists before mentioned. These second electors shall not be any of the persons voted for as President. A copy of the same list, signed and certified in like manner, shall be transmitted by the first electors to the seat of the government of the United States, under a sealed cover directed to the president of the Assembly; which, after the meeting of the second electors, shall be opened for the inspection of the two Houses of the legislature.

Sec. 4. The second electors shall meet precisely on the day appointed, and not on another day, at one place. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, or, if there be no chief justice, the judge senior in office in such court, or, if there be no one judge senior in office, some other judge of that court, by the choice of the rest of the judges, or of a majority of them, shall attend at the same place, and shall preside at the meeting, but shall have no vote. Two thirds of the whole number of the electors shall constitute a sufficient meeting for the execution of their trust. At this meeting the lists delivered to the respective electors shall be produced and inspected; and if there be any person who has a majority of the whole number of votes given by the first electors, he shall be the President of the United States; but if there be no such person, the second electors so met shall proceed to vote by ballot, for one of the persons named in the lists, who shall have the three highest numbers of the votes of the first electors; and if upon the first or any succeeding ballot, on the day of their meeting, either of those persons shall have a number of votes equal to a majority of the whole number of second electors chosen, he shall be the President. But if no such choice be made on the day appointed for the meeting, either by reason of the non-attendance of the second electors, or their not agreeing, or any other matter, the person having the greatest number of votes of the first electors shall be the President.

Sec. 5. If it should happen that the chief justice or some other judge of the Supreme Court should not attend in due time, the second electors shall proceed to the execution of their trust without him.

Sec. 6. If the judges should neglect to cause the notice required by the first section of this article to be given within the time therein limited, they may nevertheless cause it to be afterwards given; but their neglect, if wilful, is hereby declared to be an offence for which they may be impeached, and, if convicted, they shall be punished as in other cases of conviction on impeachment.

Sec. 7. The legislature shall, by permanent laws, provide such further regulations as may be necessary for the more orderly election of the President, not contravening the provisions herein contained.

Sec. 8. The President, before he shall enter upon the execution of his office, shall take an oath, or affirmation, faithfully to execute the same, and to the utmost of his judgment and power to protect the rights of the people, and preserve the Constitution

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