Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/145

 CH. IX.] been, chosen exclusively from any high, or privileged class of society. At this moment, and at all previous times, the house has been composed of men from almost every rank and class of society; planters, farmers, manufacturers, mechanics, lawyers, physicians, and divines; the rich, and the poor; the educated, and the uneducated men of genius; the young, and the old; the eloquent, and the taciturn; the statesman of a half century, and the aspirant, just released from his academical studies. Merit of every sort has thus been able to assert its claims, and occasionally to obtain its just rewards. And if any complaint could justly be made, it would be, that the choice had sometimes been directed by a spirit of intolerance, that forgot every thing but its own creed; or by a spirit of party, that remembered every thing but its own duty. Such infirmities, however, are inseparable from the condition of human nature; and their occurrence proves nothing more, than that the moral, like the physical world is occasionally visited by a whirlwind, or deluged by a storm.

§ 671. It remains only to take notice of two qualifications of the general principle of representation, which are engrafted on the clause. One is, that each state shall have at least one representative; the other is that already quoted, that the number of representatives shall not exceed one for every 30.000. The former was indispensable in order to secure to each state a just representation in each branch of the legislature; which, as the powers of each branch were not exactly co-extensive, and especially, as the power of originating taxation was exclusively vested in the house of representatives, was indispensable to preserve the equality of the small states, and to reconcile them to a surrender of their sovereignty. This proviso was 18