Publick opinion is felt even by despotism. The best eulogy of printing, is its facility for applying it. Election by
districts is selected by our policy as the cleanest channel for
conveying it. If party gazettes were more chaste vehicles
of publick opinion, why were they not entrusted with the
selection of legislative agents? If they are less so, why is
election to be stript of the appurtenant right of instruction,
except to contaminate and discredit publick opinion, and to
convert representation into a despot? The best channel for
electing publick opinion, must also be the best for instructing publick opinion. And if popular sovereignty is even limited to that definition, the best mode of destroying it, would
be to destroy, one after the other, the best channels by which
it can be conveyed.
If state legislatures are to be considered as holding each a dividend of an aggregate state sovereignty, their right to instruct their senators in Congress, would be equal to the right of a district to instruct its representative. But if each state constitutes a distinct sovereignty, its right of instruction is equal to that of an entire society. It being admitted, as its form demonstrates, that this senate was created for the purpose of preserving state sovereignty. Oaths of agents are prescribed to enforce, not to destroy the duties of agency. If a popular sovereignty, and its appurtenance, instruction, exists in our policy; and if no such sovereignty can be found in it, except in the district form, the fidelity required by oaths must be due to that form of sovereignty, and not to one which only exists in the imagination of the swearer. Because, if the swearer could fashion the oath to his own conscience or judgement, under the pretext of its binding him to pursue the publick good, as indicated by these guides, instead of conforming his conscience and judgement to the established policy, the oath would not perfect, but dissolve the obligations of agency, and leave him at liberty, if he supposes it will benefit the nation, either to disregard instructions, or to legislate for the introduction of monarchy. If the oath is only a pledge of
