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FEDERALIST No. 61

The Same Subject Continued
(Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of
 Members)
From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, February 26, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:
THE more candid opposers of the provision respecting elections,
 contained in the plan of the convention, when pressed in argument,
 will sometimes concede the propriety of that provision; with this
 qualification, however, that it ought to have been accompanied with
 a declaration, that all elections should be had in the counties
 where the electors resided. This, say they, was a necessary
 precaution against an abuse of the power. A declaration of this
 nature would certainly have been harmless; so far as it would have
 had the effect of quieting apprehensions, it might not have been
 undesirable. But it would, in fact, have afforded little or no
 additional security against the danger apprehended; and the want of
 it will never be considered, by an impartial and judicious examiner,
 as a serious, still less as an insuperable, objection to the plan.
 The different views taken of the subject in the two preceding
 papers must be sufficient to satisfy all dispassionate and
 discerning men, that if the public liberty should ever be the victim
 of the ambition of the national rulers, the power under examination,
 at least, will be guiltless of the sacrifice.
If those who are inclined to consult their jealousy only, would
 exercise it in a careful inspection of the several State
 constitutions, they would find little less room for disquietude and
 alarm, from the latitude which most of them allow in respect to
 elections, than from the latitude which is proposed to be allowed to
 the national government in the same respect. A review of their
 situation, in this particular, would tend greatly to remove any ill
 impressions which may remain in regard to this matter. But as that
 view would lead into long and tedious details, I shall content
 myself with the single example of the State in which I write. The
 constitution of New York makes no other provision for LOCALITY of
 elections, than that the members of the Assembly shall be elected in
 the COUNTIES; those of the Senate, in the great districts into
 which the State is or may be divided: these at present are four in
 number, and comprehend each from two to six counties. It may
 readily be perceived that it would not be more difficult to the
 legislature of New York to defeat the suffrages of the citizens of
 New York, by confining elections to particular places, than for the
 legislature of the United States to defeat the suffrages of the
 citizens of the Union, by the like expedient. Suppose, for
 instance, the city of Albany was to be appointed the sole place of
 election for the county and district of which it is a part, would
 not the inhabitants of that city speedily become the only electors
 of the members both of the Senate and Assembly for that county and
 district? Can we imagine that the electors who reside in the remote
 subdivisions of the counties of Albany, Saratoga, Cambridge, etc.,
 or in any part of the county of Montgomery, would take the trouble
 to come to the city of Albany, to give their votes for members of
 the Assembly or Senate, sooner than they would repair to the city of
 New York, to participate in the choice of the members of the federal
 House of Representatives? The alarming indifference discoverable in
 the exercise of so invaluable a privilege under the existing laws,
 which afford every facility to it, furnishes a ready answer to this
 question. And, abstracted from any experience on the subject, we
 can be at no loss to determine, that when the place of election is
 at an INCONVENIENT DISTANCE from the elector, the effect upon his
 conduct will be the same whether that distance be twenty miles or
 twenty thousand miles. Hence it must appear, that objections to the
 particular modification of the federal power of regulating elections
 will, in substance, apply with equal force to the modification of
 the like power in the constitution of this State; and for this
 reason it will be impossible to acquit the one, and to condemn the
 other. A similar comparison would lead to the same conclusion in
 respect to the constitutions of most of the other States.
If it should be said that defects in the State constitutions
 furnish no apology for those which are to be found in the plan
 proposed, I answer, that as the former have never been thought
 chargeable with inattention to the security of liberty, where the
 imputations thrown on the latter can be shown to be applicable to
 them also, the presumption is that they are rather the cavilling
 refinements of a predetermined opposition, than the well-founded
 inferences of a candid research after truth. To those who are
 disposed to consider, as innocent omissions in the State
 constitutions, what they regard as unpardonable blemishes in the
 plan of the convention, nothing can be said; or at most, they can
 only be asked to assign some substantial reason why the
 representatives of the people in a single State should be more
 impregnable to the lust of power, or other sinister motives, than
 the representatives of the people of the United States? If they
 cannot do this, they ought at least to prove to us that it is easier
 to subvert the liberties of three millions of people, with the
 advantage of local governments to head their opposition, than of two
 hundred thousand people who are destitute of that advantage. And in
 relation to the point immediately under consideration, they ought to
 convince us that it is less probable that a predominant faction in a
 single State should, in order to maintain its superiority, incline
 to a preference of a particular class of electors, than that a
 similar spirit should take possession of the representatives of
 thirteen States, spread over a vast region, and in several respects
 distinguishable from each other by a diversity of local
 circumstances, prejudices, and interests.
Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the
 provision in question, on the ground of theoretic propriety, on that
 of the danger of placing the power elsewhere, and on that of the
 safety of placing it in the manner proposed. But there remains to
 be mentioned a positive advantage which will result from this
 disposition, and which could not as well have been obtained from any
 other: I allude to the circumstance of uniformity in the time of
 elections for the federal House of Representatives. It is more than
 possible that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of
 great importance to the public welfare, both as a security against
 the perpetuation of the same spirit in the body, and as a cure for
 the diseases of faction. If each State may choose its own time of
 election, it is possible there may be at least as many different
 periods as there are months in the year. The times of election in
 the several States, as they are now established for local purposes,
 vary between extremes as wide as March and November. The
 consequence of this diversity would be that there could never happen
 a total dissolution or renovation of the body at one time. If an
 improper spirit of any kind should happen to prevail in it, that
 spirit would be apt to infuse itself into the new members, as they
 come forward in succession. The mass would be likely to remain
 nearly the same, assimilating constantly to itself its gradual
 accretions. There is a contagion in example which few men have
 sufficient force of mind to resist. I am inclined to think that
 treble the duration in office, with the condition of a total
 dissolution of the body at the same time, might be less formidable
 to liberty than one third of that duration subject to gradual and
 successive alterations.
Uniformity in the time of elections seems not less requisite for
 executing the idea of a regular rotation in the Senate, and for
 conveniently assembling the legislature at a stated period in each
 year.
It may be asked, Why, then, could not a time have been fixed in
 the Constitution? As the most zealous adversaries of the plan of
 the convention in this State are, in general, not less zealous
 admirers of the constitution of the State, the question may be
 retorted, and it may be asked, Why was not a time for the like
 purpose fixed in the constitution of this State? No better answer
 can be given than that it was a matter which might safely be
 entrusted to legislative discretion; and that if a time had been
 appointed, it might, upon experiment, have been found less
 convenient than some other time. The same answer may be given to
 the question put on the other side. And it may be added that the
 supposed danger of a gradual change being merely speculative, it
 would have been hardly advisable upon that speculation to establish,
 as a fundamental point, what would deprive several States of the
 convenience of having the elections for their own governments and
 for the national government at the same epochs.
PUBLIUS.