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The Fœderalist.

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.

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 Fœderal 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