And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the practicable
sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious
modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.
PUBLIUS
____
FEDERALIST No. 52
The House of Representatives
From the New York Packet.
Friday, February 8, 1788.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
FROM the more general inquiries pursued in the four last papers, I pass
on to a more particular examination of the several parts of the
government. I shall begin with the House of Representatives.
The first view to be taken of this part of the government relates to the
qualifications of the electors and the elected. Those of the former are
to be the same with those of the electors of the most numerous branch of
the State legislatures. The definition of the right of suffrage is very
justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. It
was incumbent on the convention, therefore, to define and establish this
right in the Constitution. To have left it open for the occasional
regulation of the Congress, would have been improper for the reason just
mentioned. To have submitted it to the legislative discretion of the
States, would have been improper for the same reason; and for the
additional reason that it would have rendered too dependent on the State
governments that branch of the federal government which ought to be
dependent on the people alone.
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