Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 2.djvu/210

 204 RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION Tuesday MADISON _.4ugust 7 great majority of the people will not only be without landed but any other sort of, property. These will eithercombineunder the influence of their common situation; in which case, 5 the rights of property & the public liberty, 6 (will not be secure in their hands:) or which is more probable, they will become the tools of opulence & ambition, in which case there will be equal danger on another side. The example of England has been misconceived (by Col Mason). A very small pro- portion of the Representatives are there'chosen by freeholders. The greatest part are chosen by the Cities & boroughs, in many of which the qualification of suffrage is as low as it is in any one of the U.S. and it was in (the boroughs & Cities) rather than the Counties, that bribery most prevailed, & the influence of the Crown on elections was most dangerously exerted? Docr. Franklin. It is of great consequence that we shd. not depress the virtue & public spirit of our common people; of which they displayed a great deal during the war, and which contributed principally to the favorable issue of it.  Crossed out: "if the authority be in their hands by the rule of suffrage". as Crossed out: "good, will not he thought bid fair to be very secure ". a7 "Note to Speech of J. Madison of August 7th, I78 ?. As appointments for the General Government here contemplated will, in part, be made by the State Governments: all the Citizens in States where the right of suffrage is not limited to the holders of property, will have an indirect share of repre~ sentation in the General Government. But this does not satisfy the fundamental principle that men cannot be justly bound by laws in making of which they have no part. Persons and property belng both essential objects of GoYernment, the most that either can claim, is such a structure of it as will leave a masonable security for the other. And the most obvious provision of this double character, seems to be that of confining to the holders of property, the object deemed least secure in popular Governments, the right of suffrage for one of the two Legislative branches. This is not without example among us, as well as other Constitutional modifications, favoring the influence of property in the Government. But the United 8tate have not reached the stage of Society in which conflicting feelings of the Class with, and the Class without property, have the operation natural to them in Countries fully peopled. The most difficult of all political arrangements is that of so adjusting the elalms of the two Classes as to give security to each, and to promote the welfare of all. The federal principle, which enlarges the sphere of power without departing from the elective basis of it, and controls in various ways the propensity in small republics to rash measures and the facility of forming and executing them, will be found the best expedient yet tried for solving the problem." Madison Papers, Library of Congress, Vol. IV, p. 7- See further Appendix A, CCCXLII and CCCXLIII.

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