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FEDERALIST No. 59

Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of
Members
From the New York Packet. Friday, February 22, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:
THE natural order of the subject leads us to consider, in this
place, that provision of the Constitution which authorizes the
national legislature to regulate, in the last resort, the
election of its own members. It is in these words: ``The TIMES,
PLACES, and MANNER of holding elections for senators and
representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the
legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law,
make or alter SUCH REGULATIONS, except as to the PLACES of
choosing senators. ''1 This provision has not only been declaimed
against by those who condemn the Constitution in the gross, but
it has been censured by those who have objected with less
latitude and greater moderation; and, in one instance it has been
thought exceptionable by a gentleman who has declared himself the
advocate of every other part of the system. I am greatly
mistaken, notwithstanding, if there be any article in the whole
plan more completely defensible than this. Its propriety rests
upon the evidence of this plain proposition, that EVERY
GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN IN ITSELF THE MEANS OF ITS OWN
PRESERVATION. Every just reasoner will, at first sight, approve
an adherence to this rule, in the work of the convention; and
will disapprove every deviation from it which may not appear to
have been dictated by the necessity of incorporating into the
work some particular ingredient, with which a rigid conformity to
the rule was incompatible. Even in this case, though he may
acquiesce in the necessity, yet he will not cease to regard and
to regret a departure from so fundamental a principle, as a
portion of imperfection in the system which may prove the seed of
future weakness, and perhaps anarchy. It will not be alleged,
that an election law could have been framed and inserted in the
Constitution, which would have been always applicable to every
probable change in the situation of the country; and it will
therefore not be denied, that a discretionary power over
elections ought to exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as
readily conceded, that there were only three ways in which this
power could have been reasonably modified and disposed: that it
must either have been lodged wholly in the national legislature,
or wholly in the State legislatures, or primarily in the latter
and ultimately in the former. The last mode has, with reason,
been preferred by the convention. They have submitted the
regulation of elections for the federal government, in the first
instance, to the local administrations; which, in ordinary
cases, and when no improper views prevail, may be both more
convenient and more satisfactory; but they have reserved to the
national authority a right to interpose, whenever extraordinary
circumstances might render that interposition necessary to its
safety. Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive
power of regulating elections for the national government, in the
hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the
Union entirely at their mercy. They could at any moment
annihilate it, by neglecting to provide for the choice of persons
to administer its affairs. It is to little purpose to say, that
a neglect or omission of this kind would not be likely to take
place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an
equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection. Nor has
any satisfactory reason been yet assigned for incurring that
risk. The extravagant surmises of a distempered jealousy can
never be dignified with that character. If we are in a humor to
presume abuses of power, it is as fair to presume them on the
part of the State governments as on the part of the general
government. And as it is more consonant to the rules of a just
theory, to trust the Union with the care of its own existence,
than to transfer that care to any other hands, if abuses of power
are to be hazarded on the one side or on the other, it is more
rational to hazard them where the power would naturally be
placed, than where it would unnaturally be placed. Suppose an
article had been introduced into the Constitution, empowering the
United States to regulate the elections for the particular
States, would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an
unwarrantable transposition of power, and as a premeditated
engine for the destruction of the State governments? The
violation of principle, in this case, would have required no
comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will not be less
apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the
national government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of the
State governments. An impartial view of the matter cannot fail
to result in a conviction, that each, as far as possible, ought
to depend on itself for its own preservation. As an objection to
this position, it may be remarked that the constitution of the
national Senate would involve, in its full extent, the danger
which it is suggested might flow from an exclusive power in the
State legislatures to regulate the federal elections. It may be
alleged, that by declining the appointment of Senators, they
might at any time give a fatal blow to the Union; and from this
it may be inferred, that as its existence would be thus rendered
dependent upon them in so essential a point, there can be no
objection to intrusting them with it in the particular case under
consideration. The interest of each State, it may be added, to
maintain its representation in the national councils, would be a
complete security against an abuse of the trust. This argument,
though specious, will not, upon examination, be found solid. It
is certainly true that the State legislatures, by forbearing the
appointment of senators, may destroy the national government. But
it will not follow that, because they have a power to do this in
one instance, they ought to have it in every other. There are
cases in which the pernicious tendency of such a power may be far
more decisive, without any motive equally cogent with that which
must have regulated the conduct of the convention in respect to
the formation of the Senate, to recommend their admission into
the system. So far as that construction may expose the Union to
the possibility of injury from the State legislatures, it is an
evil; but it is an evil which could not have been avoided without
excluding the States, in their political capacities, wholly from
a place in the organization of the national government. If this
had been done, it would doubtless have been interpreted into an
entire dereliction of the federal principle; and would certainly
have deprived the State governments of that absolute safeguard
which they will enjoy under this provision. But however wise it
may have been to have submitted in this instance to an
inconvenience, for the attainment of a necessary advantage or a
greater good, no inference can be drawn from thence to favor an
accumulation of the evil, where no necessity urges, nor any
greater good invites. It may be easily discerned also that the
national government would run a much greater risk from a power in
the State legislatures over the elections of its House of
Representatives, than from their power of appointing the members
of its Senate. The senators are to be chosen for the period of
six years; there is to be a rotation, by which the seats of a
third part of them are to be vacated and replenished every two
years; and no State is to be entitled to more than two senators;
a quorum of the body is to consist of sixteen members. The joint
result of these circumstances would be, that a temporary
combination of a few States to intermit the appointment of
senators, could neither annul the existence nor impair the
activity of the body; and it is not from a general and permanent
combination of the States that we can have any thing to fear. The
first might proceed from sinister designs in the leading members
of a few of the State legislatures; the last would suppose a
fixed and rooted disaffection in the great body of the people,
which will either never exist at all, or will, in all
probability, proceed from an experience of the inaptitude of the
general government to the advancement of their happinessτin which
event no good citizen could desire its continuance. But with
regard to the federal House of Representatives, there is intended
to be a general election of members once in two years. If the
State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive power of
regulating these elections, every period of making them would be
a delicate crisis in the national situation, which might issue in
a dissolution of the Union, if the leaders of a few of the most
important States should have entered into a previous conspiracy
to prevent an election. I shall not deny, that there is a degree
of weight in the observation, that the interests of each State,
to be represented in the federal councils, will be a security
against the abuse of a power over its elections in the hands of
the State legislatures. But the security will not be considered
as complete, by those who attend to the force of an obvious
distinction between the interest of the people in the public
felicity, and the interest of their local rulers in the power and
consequence of their offices. The people of America may be
warmly attached to the government of the Union, at times when the
particular rulers of particular States, stimulated by the natural
rivalship of power, and by the hopes of personal aggrandizement,
and supported by a strong faction in each of those States, may be
in a very opposite temper. This diversity of sentiment between a
majority of the people, and the individuals who have the
greatest credit in their councils, is exemplified in some of the
States at the present moment, on the present question. The
scheme of separate confederacies, which will always nultiply the
chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such
influential characters in the State administrations as are
capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the
public weal. With so effectual a weapon in their hands as the
exclusive power of regulating elections for the national
government, a combination of a few such men, in a few of the most
considerable States, where the temptation will always be the
strongest, might accomplish the destruction of the Union, by
seizing the opportunity of some casual dissatisfaction among the
people (and which perhaps they may themselves have excited), to
discontinue the choice of members for the federal House of
Representatives. It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm
union of this country, under an efficient government, will
probably be an increasing object of jealousy to more than one
nation of Europe; and that enterprises to subvert it will
sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign powers, and will
seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them. Its
preservation, therefore ought in no case that can be avoided, to
be committed to the guardianship of any but those whose situation
will uniformly beget an immediate interest in the faithful and
vigilant performance of the trust. PUBLIUS. Ist clause, 4th
section, of the Ist article.