Theory Of Representation

The foJIowing is an Extract from the Speech of John Quincy Adams on an amendment made to the Apportionment BUI of the House bv the Senate, by which the ratio of representador) shoukl be raisedso as it diminish the number of members in the House of Representatives. The opinions presented are of high valne from their general hearings upon the Theory of our Government: The bill as omended by the Senate gave 223 membere, and was a decimition of this House as it now existed. In Roman history, when there had been any grent mutiny or rebellion in t'e army ogainst the commanding genera], he had the power of performing that operntion, of decimating the aimy; that was, of anthorising evcry ton men to put one man to denthMr. A. could not conceive of any thing more perfectlv analogous to this than this attempt on the part' of the Senate to decimale this House os it now existed. Instead of foliowing the course which God and nature had given, of increasing the representaron f this House, the Senate had determined to arrest the course of nature, andas the population increnped to diminish their ropresentation. They had now a House of L42 members; the Senate proposed to reduce that number. These L42 meinbera were fixed at a time when the population of this country was about 12,000 witli an increase of 50 per cent., with a ppulation of 13,000,000, the people wer( depri ved oí one-lenth part of the representa! ion which was not thought too much for 12,000, 000. He did not professto be one of the pure 'Democracy' of this country in the same i in which that word was undorstood in n party poinl of view; but he professed to be a Democrat to the uimo6t extent, so far as related :o the composition of this House. Thia House was the democratie branch of the Government of the United States. It represented the people, and that ihere should be a proportion, so far as practicable, between theber of the people and the number of their representatives on tljis floor, appeared to him to be a first principie in our Government which never ought to be violated. He never would viólate it until the represent ation should come to wliat it miirht in the course of a century- . until it should he so numerous that the same objection which made it necessary that there should be a reprebentation of the people would apply to these representatives themselves. - This was ihe only objection which. it appeared to him, ought to be considered in settling this point. What was true demccrac)? The theory of Nature.that existed in nature and in ihe world. It was that Government, po far as the people could be convened, should be a Government of the people themselves: and every thing in the nature of representation was only a necessary departure from this, in consequence of the number growing so large that the people csnnot assemble to consult on measures of legislntion. Representation, therefore, .vas a necessary expedienr, substituted for the action of the people themselves. So long as tho assembly was not so numerous as that it became impracticable for them to act, so long the greater the number of representation was, the nearer il approached to the democracy of the people. This was sel evident, and it was the principie on which the Constitution of United States was framed.