The Election of United States Senators
239
has two sovereigns — the United States
the government in the legislative au
and the individual state of which he is a member.
thority.
After an experience of nearly a cen
The more we encroach upon state sovereignty, the more the trend toward
tury and a quarter, we find that the
nationalism becomes visible, to the con
tendency of the federal Government is to usurp more power, either through
sequent destruction of our theory of a federation of states, and the advantages
the courts or national legislature by
of that form of government are gradually
an unjustifiably broad construction of existing provisions of the Constitution. sively On theresist otherfederal hand, encroachment the states aggres~ and
lost sight of. The states bear the same relation to the central government that a domestic family bears to a municipality.
seek to uphold the integrity of state
The family looks after its own particular foyer in its own way—- it eats, drinks,
sovereignty in its historical and political conception, and to maintain a true federation by yielding to the central
lives according to its own conceptions of health and propriety, without inter ference by the municipality. The latter
government only power enough to enable it to support itself well and vigorously within the four corners of the compact of association — the Con stitution. This tendency on the part of the federal Government to draw to
supervises the public concerns, the highways, the streets, the schools; it
itself
more
centralization
power directly
and
the
leads
obvious
to
eflect
of selecting Senators by the people is a blow at State sovereignty, for when the Senate is elected by the people, it eo instanti becomes a popular body and it does not
intrudes not into the domestic affairs of its citizens. The same relation should exist in practice as it does in theory between each individual state
and the central government. In the performance of its state duties, it has no superior; its citizens understand its wants;
they are alive to its interests
or misinformed, is proportionately en
and their state pride makes them am bitious to see their state thrive and advance. But in proportion to the weakening of state sovereignty the interests of its citizens wane, and soon state independence and individuality disappear, all power becomes vested in a central government, the domestic interest of the citizen in his state eventually dies, and the people are governed by a national head. The identity, equality and individu ality of the states is peculiarly preserved in the Senate because each state has two Senators. In most Senates or select
hanced.
adequately secure the rights and safety of the states, nor is it a citadel in which
property holders and minority interests can seek refuge from the storms of
unfounded popular attacks.
As Wil
loughby substantially puts it, the in
dependence of the Senator is lessened, the temptation to subordinate the general to local interests is increased, and the pressure brought to bear to give
immediate and complete expression to a popular will, that may be ignorant And De Tocqueville observes
councils of ancient governments, the
that the existence of democracies is threatened by two dangers, viz: The complete subjection of the legislative body to the caprices of the electoral body, and
Senators enjoyed a life tenure and while this was discussed and advocated in the
the concentration of all the powers of
to have the Senate refreshed and re
formation of our Constitution, a very
wise and happy medium was adopted
