Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/130

 122 § 652. The suggestion is often made, that a numerous representation is necessary to obtain the confidence of the people. This is not generally true. Public confidence will be easily gained by a good administration; and it will be secured by no other. The remark, made upon another occasion by a great man, is correct in regard to representatives—non numerantur, ponderantur. Delaware has just as much confidence in her representation of twenty-one, as New-York has in hers of sixty-five; and Massachusetts has in hers of more than three hundred.

§ 653. Nothing can be more unfair and impolitic, than to substitute for argument an indiscriminate and unbounded jealousy, with which all reasoning must be vain. The sincere friends of liberty, who give themselves up to the extravagancies of this passion, inflict the most serious injury upon their own cause. As there is a degree of depravity in mankind, which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust; so there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. A republican government presupposes, and requires the existence of these qualities in a higher degree, than any other form; and wholly to destroy our reliance on them is to sap all the foundation, on which our liberties must rest.

§ 654. The next objection was, that the house of representatives would be too small to possess a due knowledge of the interests of their constituents. It was said, that the great extent of the United States, the