Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/164

 156 to pay one sixth part of all her direct taxes. Yet neither of these is the case. The whole representative population of the United States is 11,929,005; that of New-York is 1,918,623, which is less than one sixth of 'the whole, by nearly 70,000. Of a direct tax of two hundred and forty thousand dollars. New-York would pay only $38.59. But if, instead of comparing the numbers assigned to New-York with the whole numbers of the house, we compare her with other states, the inequality is still more evident and striking.

"To the state of Vermont, the bill assigns five members. It gives, therefore, eight times as many representatives to New-York, as to Vermont; but the population of New-York is not equal to eight times the population of Vermont, by more than three hundred thousand. Vermont has five members only for 280,657 persons. If the same proportion were to be applied to New-York, it would reduce the number of her members from forty to thirty-four—making a difference more than equal to the whole representation of Vermont, and more than sufficient to overcome her whole power in the house of representatives.

"A disproportion, almost equally striking, is manifested, if we compare New-York with Alabama. The population of Alabama is 262,208; for this, she is allowed five members. The rule of proportion, which gives to her but five members for her number, would give to New-York but thirty-six for her number. Yet New-York receives forty. As compared with Alabama, then. New-York has an excess of representation equal to four fifths of the whole representation of Alabama; and this excess itself will give her, of course, as much weight in the house, as the whole delegation of Alabama, within a single vote. Can it be said, then, that representatives are apportioned to these states according to their respective numbers?

"The ratio assumed by the bill, it will be perceived, leaves large fractions, so called, or residuary numbers, in several of the small states, to the manifest loss of a part of their just proportion of representative power. Such is the operation of the ratio, in this respect, that New-York, with a population less than that of New-England by thirty or thirty-five thousand, has yet two more members, than all the New-England states; and there are seven states in the Union, whose members amount to the number of 123, being a clear majority of the whole house, whose aggregate fractions altogether amount only to fifty-three thousand; while Vermont and New-Jersey, having together but eleven members, have a joint fraction of seventy-five thousand.

"Pennsylvania by the bill will have, as it happens, just as many members as Vermont, New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New-Jersey; and collisions, which might arise from the interposition of a negative in times of high party excitement. It extinguishes a constant source of jealousy