This was a section providing for the arrangement of the small counties into other districts. Now as each county is to have its own representative, of course there is no sense in that.

for striking out until it reaches that number.

Mr. J. PRICE WETHERILL. The proposition before us will not settle the difficulty. I think if we examine the jour

The CLERK. It is proposed to strike out all after the word "representative." The section, if amended as proposed, would read:

"The General Assembly shall apportion the State every ten years, beginning at its first session after the adoption of this Constitution, by dividing the population of the State, as ascertained by the last preceding census of the United States, by the number 150, and the quotient shall be the ratio of representation in the House of Representatives. Every county shall be entitled to one representative. Every county having a population not less than the ratio and threefifths, shall be entitled to two representatives, and for each additional number of inhabitants equal to the ratio, one representative."

Mr. MACVEAGH. It is insensible, now. Mr. J. PRICE WETHERILL. Before action on that amendment, I should like to ask the gentleman from Dauphin what will be the size of the House under this section after the amendment is passed giving each county one representative?

Mr. MACVEAGH. it is then proposed, with a view to this contingency, which was anticipated as possible though not as probable by me this morning I confess, to provide by an amendment that the number of the House shall be one hundred and fifty. If the section had been adopted as it came from the committee without the introduction of the amendment now voted in, it would leave a varying number. I do not think it would have run over one hundred and fortythree or one hundred and forty-five under the present census, but it is now proposed to add an amendment when this is stricken out to make the number one hundred and fifty by taking the largest fraction unrepresented when the number is below that. I should suppose, though I have not made the calculation-the gentleman from Philadelphia has-that it would come very near making the House one hundred and fifty, or perhaps make it over that. If it does, then this amendment to which I refer, which has been carefully prepared by the delegate from Delaware, (Mr. Broomall,) provides

not appear in the Constitution as printed, and as having passed second reading, we have decided that the House of Representatives shall consist of one hundred and fifty members. We, I think, have so decided. Now we find if we pass this section as now amended we shall decide that the House of Representatives shall consist of one hundred and fifty-eight members and not one hundred and fifty. You cannot fix an arbitrary rule that each county shall have a representative and then follow it by mixing territory, as I said yesterday, with population as a basis of representation and make it tally with the figures which we desire and which we should have, and hence our error and hence our trouble under this amendment.

We have a House, we do not know exactly of what size; it may be one hundred and fifty-five this year and perhaps one hundred and sixty next. When we adopt the principle of representation based upon population, and when we get at that by fixing the number of representatives at one hundred and fifty, there can be no mistake. In the one we do not violate principle and in the other we do, and when we do not violate principle we know we are right, and when we do violate principle we cannot tell where we stand.

Mr. EWING. Mr. President: I wish to correct what I think is a wrong impression of the gentleman from Philadelphia. In the first place, the Convention has not, I think, fixed any absolute number that the House of Representatives shall contain. In the next place, the proposition of the gentleman himself presented here would give one hundred and forty-two members from fifty-eight counties, each entitled to one or more members, and leave eight small counties not entitled to a representative as it now stands amended; and with the amendment offered by the gentleman from Dauphin, these eight counties will each have a representative, and the House will consist of one hundred and fifty members. The mistake of the gentleman from Philadelphia arises, I presume, from a printed memorandum that has been laid on the desks of members, in which he blunders as to what the

ratio is under his own proposition. He puts it down to twenty-three thousand, whereas it is twenty-three thousand four hundred and seventy-eight.

Mr. J. PRICE WETHERILL. Mr. President I never made any such mistake. Mr. EWING. I do not know who made it. It has been made by some one.

Mr. J. PRICE WETHERILL. I desire to explain. The calculation was made not by myself, but by myself in connection with the gentleman from Blair, and we know we are right.

Mr. EwING. I am not particular whether it was made by the gentleman from Philadelphia or the gentlemen from Philadelphia and Blair together. They are wrong and any gentleman who will take the trouble of dividing the population of the State, 3,521,791, by one hundred and fifty will find that they are wrong by nearly five hundred on this ratio; and if gentlemen run over the whole of it they will find that he is wrong by at least seven members on his general calculation.

Mr. MACVEAGH. Whether right or wrong, it has nothing to do with the pending proposition.

Mr. EWING. No.

that although I shall vote in favor of this amendment, because whatever becomes of the proposition itself this amendment should be attached to it, yet I intend to vote against the proposition, in consequence of the result of the last vote taken. I have taken up the map and hastily contrasted certain counties to see the enormous inequality of representation in different parts of the State by it. We complain of the Legislature gerrymandering the State, by which inequality of representation is produced; but there never was a Legislature in any part of the United States that dared to make the inequality of representation which we have done by that last vote. I never will consent that a man shall be counted several times more in one portion of the State than in another. I want all representation to be as nearly as possible equal, and I will never vote for a proposition that does not do that. Why, in the county of Delaware there is a city of 15,000 population that will have no representation but that which is given to its county; yet the interests of that city are more diverse from the inierests of the people of the county than the interests of the people of Elk are from those of Forest.

Talk about the necessity of county representation, arising out of the different interests. There is no diversity of interest between counties that equals the

The PRDSIDENT. The question recurs on the amendment as amended.

Mr. BROOMALL. I offer the following amendment to the amendment, to come in at the end:

"And the number of Represenlatives shall be made one hundred and fifty by giving representatives to the lowest unrepresented fractions, or taking them from the smallest represented fractions, as the case may require."

The necessity for the amendment which I have offered is obvious. By the plan as suggested by the Committee on the Legislature the number of the House may vary from one hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty. It is desirable that it should be made uniform, and that can only be done by operating upon the fractions. The amendment proposes to do just that, to make the number one hundred and fifty by taking from the smallest represented fractions or giving to the largest unrepresented fractions, as the case may require. I now desire to say

county and the county itself, and when I am required to admit that a citizen of Chester shall count but the fifth part of a man measured by the standard of Elk, I would have to advise every constituent I have to repudiate the whole instrument rather than consent to any such monstrosity.

Now let me contrast a few of these cases:

I find by the vote just taken that in Lebanon there will be one representative to 34,096 of population, while in Cameron there will be one representative to 4,273. In Wayne, one representative to 33,188; in Elk, one to 8,488.

In Tioga, one representative to 35,097; in Forest, one to 4,010.

In Huntingdon, one representative to 31,251; and in Sullivan, one to 6,191.

In Cambria, one representative to 36,569; and in Pike, one to 8,436.

In Centre, a representative to 24,418; and in M'Kean, one to 8,825.

In Indiana, a representative to 36,138; and in Fulton, one to 9,360.

I was stopped at this point in going over the map by the necessity of taking the floor at this time, and I do not know what other monstrosities this proposition will show when it is carried out. I know this, that when the people of Indiana are told that it requires nine of them to measure a man by the standard of Forest, they will think they have had vey little cause to complain of anything in the way of gerrymandering and of unfair representation in any Legislature that ever existed in the State or elsewhere.

Sir, there will be opposition enough to this Constitution, and there will be a great deal of it here in Philadelphia. There will be unfair opposition enough, and a matter like this will be taken hold of by those whose opposition to the Constitution requires to be concealed. There will be causes taken hold of by men who will be opposed to the Constitution for something they dare not tell, and the magistracy of Philadelphia will use this as an excuse to remedy the wrongs that have been inflicted upon them in depriving them of that patronage and the perquisites on which they have been fattening for years. They will tell the people of Philadelphia that one of them, measured by the standard of Forest, will be but the sixth part of a man, and that being demonstrably true will have an effect that we can hardly measure. Why, for the purpose of conciliating a few small counties, shall we outrage all the rest of the State? I will vote a rainst the proposition voting, however, for the amendment, thinking that if the proposition has the misfortune to carry, it should at least be made as little objectionable as possible. Mr. MINOR. I think the statements of the member who has just taken his seat ought not to pass unchallenged. He labors under a very great mistake, and we may as well meet it here as anywhere. His assertion is in substance that no Legislature has ever been guilty of making such discrepancies and differences as we have done by the vote just taken, that, never were there made such great discriminations in numbers. The gentleman, if he had looked at the figures, would have found hinself thoroughly mistaken. Let us look at the last apportionment only of this State, and see how it stands.

I find there, for instance, two counties, Westmoreland and Montgomery, differing nearly twenty-three thousand in population, and yet those two are just

alike in their proportion of members in the House of Representatives.

Again, Potter and M'Kean are placed together and Mercer is put by itself. Although Mercer has nearly 30,000 population more than the other two put together, yet it has only the same representatinn.

Again, Bradford and Montgomery differ very much, over 28,000, and yet are represented alike.

Again, Dauphin and Perry are put together, and they have the same representation as Schuylkill, although the difference in population is over 30,000.

Then, who we come to Dauphin and Perry put together, and Lancaster alone, we find the two are given the same number of representatives as the one, although the population differs over 35,000.

Now, I might go on with these figures, but what we have given are enough to show that the result of the legislative action to which the gentleman would carry us back by voting down what we have just voted in, will inevitably give rise to gerrymandering and political figuring. A regular Pandora's box would thus be opened in every Legislature which might make an apportionment, out of which would come all the evils that can well be imagined or that scheming politicians can devise. We cannot do exact justice, of course, to every county, but we can come nearer than we have. Even under a basis of population, taking the ratio of 150, you reduce it down to eight reprerentatives to be divided among seven counties, and you dispose of those by giving each county a member. This subject makes no difference to me or my district, for every proposition that has been introduced on this floor, so far as I recollect, leaves my county in the same condition 1elatively as every other proposition. I favor this on principle, and I want the evils that we have seen in the past done away with, and done away with forever, so far as is possible, without giving rise to others which are greater.

Mr. ANDREW REED. I do not see any reason for adopting the amendment just proposed. I can see no reason whatever why the House of Representatives should have a fixed number. I cannot see any great necessity why it should be one hundred and forty-seven, one hundred and forty-eight, or one hundred and fifty. And what is the use of marring the scheme we have just adopted by adding on these fractions afterward? I think

we can get along well enough with it as it is. I can see no propriety in having a fixed number, and if our House of Representatives should, during one decade of ten years, consist of one hundred and forty-seven members, and during the next ten years of one hundred and fiftytwo members, let it be so. It would make no difference, and I can conceive of no argument why this amendment should be added to the scheme just adopted.

Mr. HALL. I have listened with pleas ure, as I always do, to the gentleman from Delaware, differing very materially, however, from his conclusions, and not being entirely able to see the application of his argument to the amendment he has proposed. Still, since he has made it and since I do differ so materially with him, I wish to say a few words counter to the argument he has made. It seems to have been adopted as an axiom by all those in this Convention who are opposed to representation of counties, that population is the only true and fair basis. They not only assume that to be an axiom, but they assume it to be an axiom always recognized throughout the American government. It seems strange, after the speech of the gentleman from Delaware, and after the many warm and eloquent harangues that have been made by other gentlemen of the same view, that history should prove this supposition to be entirely incorrect. Not only has that assumed axiom never been adopted in this country as a principle of government, but it has been always treated as an unsafe basis of representation. Why, sir, in the national government, as we are all aware, Senators are not chosen by population. They are chosen by committees, two to each State, and even in the House of Representatives there is at least one member to each State, although it is professedly based upon population. The Constitution of the United States does not base representation on population alone, because it provides even as to the constitution of the lower House of Congress, that each State shall be entitled to one member. That is in principle what we propose here, when we say that each county shall be entitled to one member, so that we have a direct, complete and honored precedent for our action in this Convention.

Not only is this principle of representation of communities recognized in the United States government, but it is also recognized in many State Constitutions. I look

ed them over when this question was before us in committee of the whole, then intending to make some remarks on the subject, but I did not intrude upon the Convention, and I have not now the facts before me, but the principle is recognized in some Constitutions by limiting the number of representatives which certain counties shall have; for instance, by providing that no county shall have more than a certain number, thus admitting that mere population is not the true basis of representation; and in some other Constitutions the same principle is recognized by providing that each county shall have at least one representative in one House of the Legislature. The basis for representation adopted in this State has never been population. Under the Constitution of 1700 every county was entitled to a representative and under the present Constitution the basis is not population but taxables.

Here then is the history of our government and here are the facts as to existing Constitutions. Population seems to be very rarely if ever acknowledged as the true basis of representation. There must be checks and balances in the construction of our forms of government which must be obtained by some other mode. Population is recognized to some extent, but it has placed upon it checks. The evils resulting from the aggregation of population in cities like Philadelphia, and in other great communities, must be avoided and counterbalanced by some other principle of representation. In the government of several of the States we find they have adopted the plan of representation by communities, and we propose simply in our Constitution to provide the same check-representation by communities.

Well, now, that is the history of this country, and it seems to me to prove that representation by population simply, as is contended for here, has not been generally accepted as correct in principle, or to any great extent carried out in practice.

This is a representative democracy. It would be a pure democracy were it not for the fact that the numbers of our people are so great that it would be impossible for them to meet and deliberate together as was the custom in some of the ancient republics. Therefore, as this cannot be, we must have representatives. Now, if we were a pure republic, it would not be population that would govern, but the electors; logically the basis should be