Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/136

 128 have been incompatible with a great extent of territory, or population. What, then, would become of Great Britain, or of France, under the present constitution of their legislative departments?

§ 661. The next objection was, that the representatives would be chosen from that class of citizens, which would have the least sympathy with the mass of the people; and would be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few. It was said, that the author of nature had bestowed on some men greater capacities, than on others. Birth, education, talents, and wealth, created distinctions among men, as visible, and of as much influence, as stars, garters, and ribbons. In every society men of this class will command a superior degree of respect; and if the government is so constituted, as to admit but few to exercise its powers, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands. Men in the middling class, who are qualified as representatives, will not be so anxious to be chosen, as those of the first; and if they are, they will not have the means of so much influence.

§ 662. It was answered, that the objection itself is of a very extraordinary character; for while it is leveled against a pretended oligarchy, in principle it strikes at the very root of a republican government; for it supposes the people to be incapable of making a proper choice of representatives, or indifferent to it, or utterly corrupt in the exercise of the right of suffrage. It would not be contended, that the first class of society, the men of talents, experience, and wealth, ought to be