Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/135

notoriously elected by other interests.^[1] Taking the population of the whole kingdom the other half will not average more than one representative for about twenty-nine thousand of the inhabitants.^[2] It may be added, that nothing is more common, than to select men for representatives of large and populous cities and districts, who do not reside therein; and cannot be presumed to be intimately acquainted with their local interests and feelings. The choice, however, is made from high motives, a regard to talents, public services, and political sagacity. And whatever may be the defects of the representative system of Great Britain, very few of the defects of its legislation have been imputed to the ignorance of the house of commons of the true interests or circumstances of the people.^[3]

§ 660. In the history of the constitution it is a curious fact, that with some statesmen, possessing high political distinction, it was made a fundamental objection against the establishment of any national legislature, that if it

were composed of so numerous a body of men, as to represent the interests of all the inhabitants of the United States in the usual and true ideas of representation, the expense of supporting it would be intolerably burthensome; and that if a few only were vested with a power of legislation, the interests of a great majority of the inhabitants of the United States must be necessarily unknown; or, if known, even in the first stages of the operations of the new government, unattended to.^[4]

In their view a free government seems to

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1. The Federalist, No. 56; Paley's Moral Philosophy, B. 6, ch. 7.
2. The Federalist, No. 56, 57.
3. The Federalist, No. 56. See also Dr. Franklin's Remarks, 2 Pitkin's Hist. 242; 1 Wilson's Law Lect. 431, 432; Paley's Moral Philosophy, B. 6, ch. 7; 1 Kent's Comm. 219.
4. Letter of Messrs. Yates and Lansing to Gov. Clinton, 1788, (3 Amer. Museum, 156, 158.)