Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/668

 the operations of the Government, and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minority. This consideration seems sufficient to determine our opinion, that the Convention have gone as far in the endeavor to secure the advantage of numbers in the formation of treaties, as could have been reconciled either with the activity of the public councils or with a reasonable regard to the major sense of the community. If two thirds of the whole number of members had been required, it would, in many cases, from the non-attendance of a part, amount in practice to a necessity of unanimity. And the history of every political establishment in which this principle has prevailed, is a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder. Proofs of this position might be adduced from the examples of the Roman Tribuneship, the Polish Diet, and the States General of the Netherlands; did not an example at home render foreign precedents unnecessary.

To require a fixed proportion of the whole body, would not, in all probability, contribute to the advantages of a numerous agency, better then merely to require a proportion of the attending members. The former, by making a determinate number at all times requisite to a resolution, diminishes the motives to punctual attendance. The latter, by making the capacity of the body to depend on a proportion which may be varied by the absence or presence of a single member, has the contrary effect. And as, by promoting punctuality, it tends to keep the body complete, there is great likelihood that its resolutions would generally be dictated by as great a number in this case, as in the other; while there would be much fewer occasions of delay. It ought not to be forgotten that under the existing Confederation, two members may, and usually do represent a State; whence it happens that Congress, who now are solely invested with all the powers of the Union,