Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/285

178?] Basis of representation. 253 that a single great State, contributing much, should have more votes than a small one contributing little, than that a single rich man should have more votes than a poor man had. " If the rateable property of A was to that of B as forty to one, ought A, for that reason, to have forty times as many votes as B ? " If A had more to be protected, he ought to contribute more. Give to the large States influence in proportion to their importance, and their ambition would be increased accordingly, and the small States would have everything to fear. New Jersey would never confederate on the plan before the Convention. Wilson contended that, as all authority was derived from the people, equal numbers ought to have an equal number of representatives, and different numbers should have different numbers of representatives. That principle, under pressure, had been violated in the Confederation. As to the A and B argument, he said that in districts as large as the States, the number of people was the best measure of their wealth ; hence whether wealth or numbers formed the ratio, it would be the same. Persons, not property, had been admitted to be the measure of suffrage ; were not the citizens of Pennsylvania equal to those of New Jersey? Did it require one hundred and fifty of the former to balance fifty of the latter? They had been told that each State being sovereign, all were equal. So each man was " naturally w a sovereign over himself, and all men therefore were "naturally" equal; but the individual could not retain this "natural" equality when he became a member of civil government ; nor could a sovereign State when it became a member of a federal government. On the following day a change took place, which narrowed the question before the committee. Sherman made a suggestion that repre- sentation be put upon a different footing in the two branches of the legislature ; proportional representation to be the rule in the first branch, equality in the second. And now King and Wilson brought the question to a point, by a motion that the right of suffrage in the first branch should not be According to the Confederation, but according to some equitable ratio; thus eliminating the second branch, for the present, from consideration. The debate proceeded accordingly, though more or less upon the broader ground of the original resolution. Franklin said that he had at first thought that the members of the national legislature should consider themselves representatives of the whole country rather than of their particular States ; in which case the proportion of members from each State would be of small importance. But as that idea had not been accepted, he thought that the number of representatives should bear some proportion to the number to be repre- sented. He did not believe that the greater States would swallow the smaller ; they would have nothing to gain by it. A like fear had been expressed when the union of England and Scotland was under con- sideration. Scotland would be ruined unless she had an equal number of representatives in Parliament with England ; but the fear had proved CH. VIII.