This Branch Of Congress, Which, As I Shall
Presently Endeavor To Show, Is By Far The More Influential Of The
Two, Is Not In Any Way Elected By The People.
"The Senate of the
United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State,
CHOSEN BY THE LEGISLATURE THEREOF, for six years, and each senator
shall have one voice." The Senate sent to Congress is therefore
elected by the State legislatures.
Each State legislature has two
Houses and the Senators sent from that State to Congress are either
chosen by vote of the two Houses voting together - which is, I
believe, the mode adopted in most States, or are voted for in the
two Houses separately - in which cases, when different candidates
have been nominated, the two Houses confer by committees and settle
the matter between them. The conservative purpose of the
Constitution is here sufficiently evident. The intention has been
to take the election of the Senators away from the people, and to
confide it to that body in each State which may be regarded as
containing its best trusted citizens. It removes the Senators far
away from the democratic element, and renders them liable to the
necessity of no popular canvass. Nor am I aware that the
Constitution has failed in keeping the ground which it intended to
hold in this matter. On some points its selected rocks and chosen
standing ground have slipped from beneath its feet, owing to the
weakness of words in defining and making solid the intended
prohibitions against democracy. The wording of the Constitution has
been regarded by the people as sacred; but the people has considered
itself justified in opposing the spirit as long as it revered the
letter of the Constitution. And this was natural. For the letter
of the Constitution can be read by all men; but its spirit can be
understood comparatively but by few. As regards the election of the
Senators, I believe that it has been fairly made by the legislatures
of the different States. I have not heard it alleged that members
of the State legislatures have been frequently constrained by the
outside popular voice to send this or that man as Senator to
Washington. It was clearly not the intention of those who wrote the
Constitution that they should be so constrained. But the Senators
themselves in Washington have submitted to restraint. On subjects
in which the people are directly interested, they submit to
instructions from the legislatures which have sent them as to the
side on which they shall vote, and justify themselves in voting
against their convictions by the fact that they have received such
instructions. Such a practice, even with the members of a House
which has been directly returned by popular election, is, I think,
false to the intention of the system. It has clearly been intended
that confidence should be put in the chosen candidate for the term
of his duty, and that the electors are to be bound in the expression
of their opinion by his sagacity and patriotism for that term.
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