minor states. These are valuable associations, and I am not prepared to say that they ought to be given up altogether. The system of the gentleman from Roxbury, however, not only obliterates them, but at the same time is supposed to affect the interests and corporate representation of the towns—a representation which, with all its inconveniences, possesses intrinsic value. It appears to me that the system of the select committee, combining valuation as the basis of the senate with corporate representation of the towns as the basis of the house, has, both as a system of checks and balances, and convenient and practical distribution of powers, some advantages over that now under discussion… .
… After all, what will be the effect of changing the basis of the senate from valuation to that of population? It will take three senators from Suffolk, give two more senators to the old county of Hampshire, leaving Berkshire and Plymouth to struggle for one more, and Norfolk and Bristol to contend for another, the disposition of which may be doubtful. All the rest of the Commonwealth will remain precisely in the same situation, whether we adopt the one basis or the other. Yet even this change will not produce any serious practical result, if we look forward twenty years. Suffolk has increased within the last ten years, ten thousand in the number of its inhabitants, that is to say, one quarter part of its population; a much greater ratio of increase than the rest of the State. Population will probably from the like causes continue to increase on the seaboard, or at least in the capital, from its great attractions, in a ratio quite as great beyond that of the interior. So that in a short time the difference of the two systems will be greatly diminished, and perhaps finally the inland counties will gain more by the restriction of the districts to six senators than they will now gain by the basis of population. In fifty years Suffolk upon this basis may entitle itself not to six only, but to eight.
Now I would beg gentlemen to consider, if in this view of the subject a change in the basis of the senate can be useful? The constitution has gone through a trial of forty years in times of great difficulty and danger. It has passed through the embarrassments of the revolutionary war, through the troubles and discontents of 1787 and 1788, through collisions of parties unexampled in our history for violence and zeal, through a second war marked with no ordinary scenes of division and danger, and it has come out of these trials pure and bright and spotless. No practical inconvenience has been felt or attempted to be pointed out by any gentleman in the present system, during this long period. Is it then wise, or just, or politic to exchange the results of our own experience for any theory, however plausible, that stands opposed to that experience, for a theory that possibly may do as well?
A few words as to the proposition of the gentleman from Worcester [Mr. Lincoln] for representation in the house. It seems to me—I hope the gentleman will pardon the expression—inconsistent not only with his own doctrine as to the basis of population, but inconsistent with the reasoning, by which he endeavored to sustain that doctrine. The gentleman considers population as the only just basis of representation in the senate. Why then, I ask, is it not as just as the basis for the house? Here the gentleman deserts his favorite principle, and insists on representation of towns as corporations. He alleges that in this way the system of checks and balances, (which the gentleman approves) is supported. But it seems to me that it has not any merit as a check; for the aggregate population of the county will express generally the same voice as the aggregate representatives of the towns. The gentleman has said that the poor man in Berkshire votes only for two senators, while the poor man in Suffolk votes for six. Is there not the same objection against the system of representation now existing as to the house, and against that proposed by the gentleman himself? A voter in Chelsea now votes for but one representative, while his neighbor, a voter in Charles-town, votes for six. Upon the gentleman’s own plan there would be a like inequality. He presses us also in reference to his plan of representation in the house, with the argument, that it is not unequal because we are represented, if we have a single representative; and he says he distinguishes between the right to send one and to send many representatives. The former is vital to a free government—the latter not. One representative in the British Parliament would have probably prevented the American revolution. Be it so. But if the doctrine be sound, does it not plainly apply as well to the senate as the house? If it be not unequal or unjust in the house, how can it be so in the senate? Is not Berkshire with its two senators, and Barnstable with its one senator, and Worcester with its four senators, upon this principle just as fully represented in the senate as Suffolk with its six senators? The argument of the gentleman may therefore be thrown back upon himself… .
… I beg however for a moment to ask the attention of the committee to the gross inequalities of the plan of the gentleman from Worcester respecting the house of representatives. There are 298 towns in the State, each of which is to send one representative. And upon this plan the whole number of representatives will be 334. There are but 24 towns, which would be entitled to send more than one representative. These 24 towns with a population of 146,000 would send 58 representatives, or only one upon an average for every 2526 inhabitants, while the remaining 274 towns with a population of 313,000 would send 274 representatives, or one for every 1144 inhabitants. I lay not the venue here or there in the Commonwealth, in the county of Worcester or the county of Essex; but such would be the result throughout the whole Commonwealth taken in the aggregate of its population. Salem would send one representative for every 3130 inhabitants and Boston one for every 4200 inhabitants, while every town but the 24 largest would send one for every 1144 inhabitants! What then becomes of the favorite doctrine of the basis of population? I would ask the gentleman in his own emphatic language, is not this system unjust, unequal and cruel? If it be equal, it is so by some political arithmetic, which I have never learned and am incapable of comprehending.
A few words upon the plan of the select committee, and I have done. Sir, I am not entitled to any of the merit, if there be any, in that plan. My own was to preserve the present basis of the senate, not because I placed any peculiar stress on the basis of valuation; but because I deemed it all-important to retain some element that might maintain a salutary check between the two houses. My own plan for the house of representatives was representation founded on the basis of population in districts, according to the system proposed by the gentleman from Northampton [Mr. Lyman]. Finding that this plan was not acceptable to a majority of the committee I acquiesced in the plan reported by it. I have learned that we must not, in questions of government, stand upon abstract principles; but must content ourselves with practicable good. I do not pretend to think, nor do any of its advocates think, that the system of the select committee is perfect; but it will cure some defects in our present system which are of great and increasing importance. I have always viewed the representation in the house under the present constitution, as a most serious evil, and alarming to the future peace and happiness of the State. My dread has never been of the senate, but of that multitudinous assembly, which has been seen within these walls, and may again be seen if times of political excitement should occur. The more numerous the body the greater the danger from its movements in times, when it cannot or will not deliberate. I came here therefore willing and ready to make sacrifices to accomplish an essential reduction in that body. It was the only subject relative to the constitution on which I have always had a decided and earnest opinion. It was my fortune for some years to have a seat in our house of representatives; and for a short time to preside over its sittings, at a period when it was most numerous, and under the most powerful excitements. I am sorry to say it, but such is my opinion, that in no proper sense could it be called a deliberative assembly. From the excess of numbers deliberation became almost impossible; and but for the good sense and discretion of those who usually led in the debates, it would have been impracticable to have transacted business with anything like accuracy or safety. That serious public mischiefs did not arise from the necessary hurry and difficulty of the legislative business is to be accounted for only from the mutual forbearance and kindness, of those who enjoyed the confidence of the respective parties. If the State should go on in its population we might hereafter have 800 or 900 representatives according to the present system; and in times of public discontent, all the barriers of legislation may be broken down and the government itself be subverted. I wish most deeply and earnestly to preserve to my native State a deliberative legislature, where the sound judgment, and discretion, and sagacity of its best citizens may be felt and heard and understood at all times and under all circumstances.
