1787 Federalist 50 · Founding Made Plain

11787 Federalist No. 50

2Periodical Appeals

3to the People Considered

4From the New York Packet.

5Tuesday, February 5, 1788.

6HAMILTON OR MADISON

7To the People of the State of New York:

8IT MAY be contended, perhaps,

9 that instead of OCCASIONAL appeals to the people,

10 which are liable to the objections

11 urged against them,

12 PERIODICAL appeals are the proper and adequate means

13 of PREVENTING AND CORRECTING INFRACTIONS

14 OF THE CONSTITUTION.

15It will be attended to,

16 that in the examination of these expedients,

17 I confine myself to their aptitude

18 for ENFORCING the Constitution,

19 by keeping the several departments of power

20 within their due bounds,

21 without particularly considering them

22 as provisions for ALTERING the Constitution itself.

23In the first view,

24 appeals to the people at fixed periods

25 appear to be nearly as ineligible

26 as appeals on particular occasions as they emerge.

27If the periods be separated by short intervals,

28 the measures to be reviewed and rectified

29 will have been of recent date,

30 and will be connected with all the circumstances

31 which tend to vitiate and pervert

32 the result of occasional revisions.

33If the periods be distant from each other,

34 the same remark will be applicable

35 to all recent measures;

36 and in proportion as the remoteness of the others

37 may favor a dispassionate review of them,

38 this advantage is inseparable from inconveniences

39 which seem to counterbalance it.

40In the first place,

41 a distant prospect of public censure

42 would be a very feeble restraint on power

43 from those excesses

44 to which it might be urged

45 by the force of present motives.

46Is it to be imagined

47 that a legislative assembly,

48 consisting of a hundred or two hundred members,

49 eagerly bent on some favorite object,

50 and breaking through the restraints

51 of the Constitution in pursuit of it,

52 would be arrested in their career,

53 by considerations drawn

54 from a censorial revision of their conduct

55 at the future distance

56 of ten, fifteen, or twenty years?

57In the next place,

58 the abuses would often have completed

59 their mischievous effects

60 before the remedial provision would be applied.

61And in the last place,

62 where this might not be the case,

63 they would be of long standing,

64 would have taken deep root,

65 and would not easily be extirpated.

66The scheme of revising the constitution,

67 in order to correct recent breaches of it,

68 as well as for other purposes,

69 has been actually tried in one of the States.

70One of the objects of the Council of Censors

71 which met in Pennsylvania in 1783 and 1784,

72 was, as we have seen, to inquire,

73 "whether the constitution had been violated,

74 and whether the legislative

75 and executive departments

76 had encroached upon each other."

77This important and novel experiment in politics

78 merits, in several points of view,

79 very particular attention.

80In some of them it may, perhaps,

81 as a single experiment,

82 made under circumstances somewhat peculiar,

83 be thought to be not absolutely conclusive.

84But as applied to the case under consideration,

85 it involves some facts,

86 which I venture to remark,

87 as a complete and satisfactory illustration

88 of the reasoning which I have employed.

89First. It appears, from the names of the gentlemen

90 who composed the council,

91 that some, at least, of its most active members

92 had also been active and leading characters

93 in the parties which pre-existed in the State.

94Secondly. It appears

95 that the same active and leading members

96 of the council

97 had been active and influential members

98 of the legislative and executive branches,

99 within the period to be reviewed;

100 and even patrons or opponents

101 of the very measures

102 to be thus brought to the test of the constitution.

103Two of the members had been vice-presidents of the State,

104 and several other members of the executive council,

105 within the seven preceding years.

106One of them had been speaker,

107 and a number of others distinguished members,

108 of the legislative assembly

109 within the same period.

110Thirdly. Every page of their proceedings

111 witnesses the effect of all these circumstances

112 on the temper of their deliberations.

113Throughout the continuance of the council,

114 it was split into two fixed and violent parties.

115The fact is acknowledged and lamented by themselves.

116Had this not been the case,

117 the face of their proceedings

118 exhibits a proof equally satisfactory.

119In all questions,

120 however unimportant in themselves,

121 or unconnected with each other,

122 the same names stand invariably contrasted

123 on the opposite columns.

124Every unbiased observer may infer,

125 without danger of mistake,

126 and at the same time without meaning to reflect

127 on either party,

128 or any individuals of either party,

129 that, unfortunately, PASSION, not REASON,

130 must have presided over their decisions.

131When men exercise their reason coolly and freely

132 on a variety of distinct questions,

133 they inevitably fall into different opinions

134 on some of them.

135When they are governed by a common passion,

136 their opinions, if they are so to be called,

137 will be the same.

138Fourthly. It is at least problematical,

139 whether the decisions of this body do not,

140 in several instances,

141 misconstrue the limits prescribed

142 for the legislative and executive departments,

143 instead of reducing and limiting them

144 within their constitutional places.

145Fifthly. I have never understood

146 that the decisions of the council

147 on constitutional questions,

148 whether rightly or erroneously formed,

149 have had any effect

150 in varying the practice

151 founded on legislative constructions.

152It even appears, if I mistake not,

153 that in one instance the contemporary legislature

154 denied the constructions of the council,

155 and actually prevailed in the contest.

156This censorial body, therefore,

157 proves at the same time,

158 by its researches, the existence of the disease,

159 and by its example, the inefficacy of the remedy.

160This conclusion cannot be invalidated

161 by alleging that the State

162 in which the experiment was made

163 was at that crisis,

164 and had been for a long time before,

165 violently heated and distracted

166 by the rage of party.

167Is it to be presumed,

168 that at any future septennial epoch

169 the same State will be free from parties?

170Is it to be presumed

171 that any other State,

172 at the same or any other given period,

173 will be exempt from them?

174Such an event ought to be neither presumed nor desired;

175 because an extinction of parties

176 necessarily implies

177 either a universal alarm for the public safety,

178 or an absolute extinction of liberty.

179Were the precaution taken

180 of excluding from the assemblies elected by the people,

181 to revise the preceding administration

182 of the government,

183 all persons who should have been concerned

184 with the government within the given period,

185 the difficulties would not be obviated.

186The important task would probably devolve on men,

187 who, with inferior capacities,

188 would in other respects be little better qualified.

189Although they might not have been personally concerned

190 in the administration,

191 and therefore not immediately agents

192 in the measures to be examined,

193 they would probably have been involved

194 in the parties connected with these measures,

195 and have been elected under their auspices.

196PUBLIUS.