Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/541

, are numerous and various. The most effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments, as will maintain a proper responsibility to the People.

Let me now ask, what circumstance there is in the Constitution of the House of Representatives, that violates the principles of republican Government, or favors the elevation of the few, on the ruins of the many? Let me ask, whether every circumstance is not, on the contrary, strictly conformable to these principles; and scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every class and description of citizens?

Who are to be the electors of the Fœderal Representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the People of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the correspondent branch of the Legislature of the State.

Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil profession, is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination of the People.

If we consider the situation of the men on whom the free suffrages of their fellow-citizens may confer the representative trust, we shall find it involving every security which can be devised or desired for their fidelity to their constituents.

In the first place, as they will have been distinguished by the preference of their fellow-citizens, we are to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished, also, by those qualities which entitle them to