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. A
member of a representative House so chosen, who votes at the bidding
of his constituency in opposition to his convictions, is manifestly
false to his charge, and may be presumed to be thus false in
deference to his own personal interests, and with a view to his own
future standing with his constituents.
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