30,000.' True; but has it not been just said, that the one for 30,000 is prescribed only to fix the aggregate number, and that we are not to mind it when we come to apportion them among the States; that for this we must recur to the former rule, which distributes them according to the numbers in each State? Besides, does not the bill itself apportion among seven of the States by the ratio of 27,770, which is much more than one for 30,000?

Let

"Where a phrase is susceptible of two meanings, we ought certainly to adopt that which will bring upon us the fewest inconveniences. us weigh those resulting from both constructions.

"From that giving to each State a member for every 30,000 in that State, results the single inconvenience, that there may be large fractions unrepresented. But it being a mere hazard on which States this will fall, hazard will equalize it in the long run.

"From the other results exactly the same inconvenience. A thousand cases may be imagined to prove it. Take one: suppose eight of the States had 45,000 inhabitants each, and the other seven 44,999 each, that is to say, each one less than each of the others, the aggregate would be 674,993, and the number of representatives, at one for 30,000 of the aggregate, would be 22. Then, after giving one member to each State, distribute the seven residuary members among the seven highest fractions; and though the difference of population be only an unit, the representation would be the double. Here a single inhabitant the more would count as 30,000. Nor is this case imaginable only; it will resemble the real one, whenever the fractions happen to be pretty equal through the whole States. The numbers of our census happen, by accident, to give the fractions all very small or very great, so as to produce the strongest case of inequality that could possibly have occurred, and which may never occur again. The probability is, that the fractions will generally descend gradually from 39,999 to 1. The inconvenience then, of large unrepresented fractions attends both constructions; and, while the most obvious construction is liable to no other, that of the bill incurs many and grievous ones.

FRACTIONS.

"1. If you permit the large fraction in one State to choose a representative for one of the small fractions in another State, you take from the latter its election, which constitutes real representation, and substitute a virtual representation of the disfranchised fractions; and the tendency of the doctrine of virtual representation has been too well discussed and appreciated by reasoning and resistance, on a former great occasion, to need development now.

2. The bill does not say that it has given the residuary representatives to the greatest fractions; though, in fact, it has done so. It seems to have avoided establishing that into a rule, lest it might not suit on another occasion. Perhaps it may be found the next time more convenient to distribute them among the smaller States; at another time among the larger States; at other times according to any other crotchet which ingenuity may invent, and the combination of the day give strength to carry; or they may do it arbitrarily, by open bargain and cabal. In short, this construction introduces into Congress a scramble or a vendue for the surplus members. It generates waste of time, hot blood, and may at some time, when the passions are high, extend a disagreement between the two houses, to the perpetual loss of the thing, as happens now in Pennsylvania assembly; whereas the other construction reduces the apportionment always to an arithmetical operation, about which no two men can possibly differ.

3. It leaves in full force the violation of the precept which declares that representatives shall be apportioned among the States according to their numbers, that is, by some common ratio.

"Viewing this bill either as a violation of the Constitution or as giving an inconvenient exposition to its words, is it a case wherein the President ought to interpose his negative? I think it is.

"1. The non-user of his negative begins already to excite a belief that no President will ever venture to use it; and, consequently, has begotten a desire to raise up barriers in the State legislatures against Congress throwing off the control of the Constitution.

“2. It can never be used more pleasingly to the public than in the protection of the Constitution.

66

3. No invasions of the Constitution are so fundamentally danger

ous as the tricks played on their own numbers, apportionment, and other circumstances respecting themselves, and affecting their legal qualifications to legislate for the Union.

4. The majorities by which this bill has been carried (to wit, one in the Senate and two in the House of Representatives) show how divided the opinions were there.

5. The whole of both houses admit the Constitution will bear the other exposition; whereas the minorities in both deny it will bear that of the bill.

"6. The application of any one ratio is intelligible to the people, and will, therefore, be approved; whereas the complex operations of this bill will never be comprehended by them; and, though they may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand." 1

WEBSTER'S REPORT TO THE SENATE ON THE APPORTIONMENT OF 1832.

"This bill, like all laws on the same subject, must be regarded as of an interesting and delicate nature. It respects the distribution of political power among the States of the Union. It is to determine the number of voices which, for ten years to come, each State is to possess in the popular branch of the legislature. In the opinion of the committee, there can be few or no questions which it is more desirable should be settled on just, fair, and satisfactory principles than this; and, availing themselves of the benefit of the discussion which the bill has already undergone in the Senate, they have given to it a renewed and anxious consideration. The result is, that, in their opinion, the bill ought to be amended. Seeing the difficulties which belong to the whole subject, they are fully convinced that the bill has been framed and passed in the other house, with the sincerest desire to overcome those difficulties, and to enact a law which should do as much justice as possible to all the States. But the committee are constrained to say that the object appears to them not to have been attained. The unequal operation of the bill on some of the States, should it become a law, seems to the committee most manifest; and they cannot but express a doubt, whether its actual apportionment of the representative power among the several States can be considered as conformable to the spirit of the Constitution. The bill provides that, from and after the 3d of March, 1833, the House of Representatives shall be composed of members, elected agreeably to a ratio of one representative for every 1 Jefferson's Works, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 594.

forty-seven thousand and seven hundred persons in each State, computed according to the rule prescribed by the Constitution. The addition of the seven hundred to the forty-seven thousand, in the composition of this ratio, produces no effect whatever in regard to the constitution of the House. It neither adds to, nor takes from, the number of mem

bers assigned to any State. Its only effect is a reduction of the apparent amount of the fractions, as they are usually called, or residuary members, after the application of the ratio. For all other purposes, the result is precisely the same as if the ratio had been 47,000.

"As it seems generally admitted that inequalities do exist in this bill, and that injurious consequences will arise from its operation which it would be desirable to avert, if any proper means of averting them without producing others equally injurious could be found, the committee do not think it necessary to go into a full and particular statement of these consequences. They will content themselves with presenting a few examples only of these results, and such as they find it most difficult to reconcile with justice and the spirit of the Constitution.

"In exhibiting these examples, the committee must necessarily speak of particular States; but it is hardly necessary to say, that they speak of them as examples only, and with the most perfect respect, not only for the States themselves, but for all those who represent them here.

"Although the bill does not commence by fixing the whole number of the proposed House of Representatives, yet the process adopted by it brings out the number of two hundred and forty members. Of these two hundred and forty members forty are assigned to the State of New York, that is to say, precisely one-sixth of the whole. This assignment would seem to require that New York should contain one-sixth part of the whole population of the United States, and would be bound to pay one-sixth part of all her direct taxes. Yet neither of these is the case. The whole representative population of the United States is 11,929,005, that of New York is 1,918,623, which is less than one-sixth of the whole by nearly 70,000. Of a direct tax of two hundred and forty thousand dollars, New York would pay only $38,590. But if, instead of comparing the numbers assigned to New York with the whole numbers of the house, we compare her with other States, the inequality is still more evident and striking.

"To the State of Vermont the bill assigns five members. It gives, therefore, eight times as many representatives to New York as to Vermont; but the population of New York is not equal to eight times the population of Vermont by more than three hundred thousand. Vermont has five members only for 280,657 persons. If the same proportion

were to be applied to New York, it would reduce the number of her members from forty to thirty-four, making a difference more than equal to the whole representation of Vermont, and more than sufficient to overcome her whole power in the House of Representatives.

As

"A disproportion almost equally striking is manifested, if we compare New York with Alabama. The population of Alabama is 262,208; for this, she is allowed five members. The rule of proportion which gives to her but five members for her number would give to New York but thirty-six for her number. Yet New York receives forty. compared with Alabama, then, New York has an excess of representation equal to four-fifths of the whole representation of Alabama; and this excess itself will give her, of course, as much weight in the House as the whole delegation of Alabama, within a single vote. Can it be said, then, that representatives are apportioned to these States according to their respective numbers?

"The ratio assumed by the bill, it will be perceived, leaves large fractions, so called, or residuary numbers, in several of the small States, to the manifest loss of a part of their just proportion of representative power. Such is the operation of the ratio in this respect, that New York, with a population less than that of New England by thirty or thirty-five thousand, has yet two more members than all the New England States; and there are seven States in the Union whose members amount to the number of 123, being a clear majority of the whole House, whose aggregate fractions altogether amount only to fifty-three thousand; while Vermont and New Jersey, having together but eleven members, have a joint fraction of seventy-five thousand.

"Pennsylvania by the bill will have, as it happens, just as many members as Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey; but her population is not equal to theirs by a hundred and thirty thousand; and the reason of this advantage, derived to her from the provisions of the bill, is, that her fraction, or residuum, is twelve thousand only, while theirs is one hundred and forty-four.

"But the subject is capable of being presented in a more exact and mathematical form. The House is to consist of two hundred and forty members. Now, the precise proportion of power, out of the whole mass represented by the numbers two hundred and forty, which New York would be entitled to according to her population, is 38.59; that is to say, she would be entitled to thirty-eight members, and would have a residuum, or fraction; and, even if a member were given her for that fraction, she would still have but thirty-nine; but the bill gives her forty.