The Constitution of the United States Compared with Our Own

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. The House of Representatives of the Union is composed of members " chosen every second year by the people of the several States." The principle of popular representation was, as we have seen, no new thing to the American people at the time of the Revolution. They had been nursed in liberty under the old colonial charters, and had been accustomed to the process of voting the taxes and controlling the supplies, after the manner of the British House of Commons. The mode of election only, was a subject of controversy at the period of framing the Constitution. Various arrangements were proposed and debated: Article 1, sect. 2. election by the State legislatures; indirect election by delegates, &c.; but the only true mode, according to Burke, of securing the real responsibility of the representatives to the people, was adopted--that of direct election by the people themselves. The right of the franchise, conferred by the State, ought unquestionably to raise, in the mind of every one invested with it, a sense of the responsibility it places him under, to exercise such right, according to the best of his judgment, for the purposes for which it was conferred upon him, namely, the public good. Thus considered, the possession of the franchise ought to elevate the feeling of personal dignity, strengthen the suggestions of duty, and furnish strong motives for mental cultivation and study, without which it is impossible to follow with intelligence the discussions on the great public measures of the day. It is without doubt a gratifying and a noble incident in the condition of a great State, that by the willing consent of the more instructed classes, and of those possessing, by means of property, the greatest stake in the pre...