CH. IX.]
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
145
would give, were allotted to each. The residuary members were then distributed among the slates having the highest fractions. Without professing the principle, on which this apportionment was made, the amendment of the senate merely allotted to the states respectively the number of members, which the process just mentioned would give.[1] The result was a more equitable apportionment of representatives to population, and a still more exact accordance, than was found in the original bill, with the prevailing sentiment, which, both within doors and without, seemed to require, that the popular branch of the legislature should consist of as many members, as the fundamental laws of the government would admit. If the rule of construing that instrument was correct, the amendment removed objections, which were certainly well founded, and was not easily assailable by the advocates of a numerous representative body. But the rule was novel, and overturned opinions, which had been generally assumed, and were supposed to be settled. In one branch of the legislature, it had been already rejected; and in the other, the majority in its favour was only one."[2]
1. That the constitu-
- ↑ The words of the bill were, "That from and after the the third day of March, 1793, the house of representatives shall be composed of one hundred and twenty-seven members, elected within the several states according to the following apportionment, that is to say, within the state of New-Hampshire, five, within the state of Massachusetts, sixteen," &c. &c. enumerating all the states.
- ↑ 5 Marshall's Life of Washington, ch. 5, p. 321, 322.
- ↑ 4 Jefferson's Correspondence, 466.
vol. ii.19
