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 The Election of United States Senators

239

has two sovereigns — the United States

the government in the legislative au

and the individual state of which he is a member.

thority.

After an experience of nearly a cen

The more we encroach upon state sovereignty, the more the trend toward

tury and a quarter, we ﬁnd that the

nationalism becomes visible, to the con

tendency of the federal Government is to usurp more power, either through

sequent destruction of our theory of a federation of states, and the advantages

the courts or national legislature by

of that form of government are gradually

an unjustiﬁably broad construction of existing provisions of the Constitution. sively On theresist otherfederal hand, encroachment the states aggres~ and

lost sight of. The states bear the same relation to the central government that a domestic family bears to a municipality.

seek to uphold the integrity of state

The family looks after its own particular foyer in its own way—- it eats, drinks,

sovereignty in its historical and political conception, and to maintain a true federation by yielding to the central

lives according to its own conceptions of health and propriety, without inter ference by the municipality. The latter

government only power enough to enable it to support itself well and vigorously within the four corners of the compact of association — the Con stitution. This tendency on the part of the federal Government to draw to

supervises the public concerns, the highways, the streets, the schools; it

itself

more

centralization

power directly

and

the

leads

obvious

to

eﬂect

of selecting Senators by the people is a blow at State sovereignty, for when the Senate is elected by the people, it eo instanti becomes a popular body and it does not

intrudes not into the domestic affairs of its citizens. The same relation should exist in practice as it does in theory between each individual state

and the central government. In the performance of its state duties, it has no superior; its citizens understand its wants;

they are alive to its interests

or misinformed, is proportionately en

and their state pride makes them am bitious to see their state thrive and advance. But in proportion to the weakening of state sovereignty the interests of its citizens wane, and soon state independence and individuality disappear, all power becomes vested in a central government, the domestic interest of the citizen in his state eventually dies, and the people are governed by a national head. The identity, equality and individu ality of the states is peculiarly preserved in the Senate because each state has two Senators. In most Senates or select

hanced.

adequately secure the rights and safety of the states, nor is it a citadel in which

property holders and minority interests can seek refuge from the storms of

unfounded popular attacks.

As Wil

loughby substantially puts it, the in

dependence of the Senator is lessened, the temptation to subordinate the general to local interests is increased, and the pressure brought to bear to give

immediate and complete expression to a popular will, that may be ignorant And De Tocqueville observes

councils of ancient governments, the

that the existence of democracies is threatened by two dangers, viz: The complete subjection of the legislative body to the caprices of the electoral body, and

Senators enjoyed a life tenure and while this was discussed and advocated in the

the concentration of all the powers of

to have the Senate refreshed and re

formation of our Constitution, a very

wise and happy medium was adopted