Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/163

 CH. IX.] amended. Seeing the difficulties, which belong to the whole subject, they are fully convinced, that the bill has been framed and passed in the other house, with the sincerest desire to overcome those difficulties, and to enact a law, which should do as much justice as possible to all the states. But the committee are constrained to say, that this object appears to them not to have been obtained. The unequal operation of the bill on some of the states, should it become a law, seems to the committee most manifest; and they cannot but express a doubt, whether its actual apportionment of the representative power among the several states can be considered, as conformable to the spirit of the constitution. The bill provides, that, from and after the third of March, 1833, the house of representatives shall be composed of members, elected agreeably to a ratio of one representative for every forty-seven thousand and seven hundred persons in each state, computed according to the rule prescribed by the constitution. The addition of the seven hundred to the forty-seven thousand, in the composition of this ratio, produces no effect whatever in regard to the constitution of the house. It neither adds to, nor takes from, the number of members assigned to any state. Its only effect is, a reduction of the apparent amount of the fractions, as they are usually called, or residuary numbers, after the application of the ratio. For all other purposes, the result is precisely the same, as if the ratio had been 47,000.

"As it seems generally admitted, that inequalities do exist in this bill, and that injurious consequences will arise from its operation, which it would be desirable to avert, if any proper means of averting them, without producing others equally injurious, could be found, the committee do not think it necessary to go into a full and particular statement of these consequences. They will content themselves with presenting a few examples only of these results, and such as they find it most difficult to reconcile with justice, and the spirit of the constitution.

"In exhibiting these examples, the committee must necessarily speak of particular states; but it is hardly necessary to say, that they speak of them as examples only, and with the most perfect respect, not only for the states themselves, but for all those, who represent them here.

"Although the bill does not commence by fixing the whole number of the proposed house of representatives, yet the process adopted by it brings out the number of two hundred and forty members. Of these two hundred and forty members, forty are assigned to the state of New-York, that is to say, precisely one sixth part of the whole. This assignment would seem to require, that New-York should contain one sixth part of the whole population of the United States; and would be bound a more independent and unlimited choice on the part of the house, according to the merits of the individual, and their own sense of duty. It avoids those