of Commons very little
exceeds the proportion of one for every thirty thousand inhabitants.
Besides a variety of powerful causes not existing here, and which
favor in that country the pretensions of rank and wealth, no person is
eligible as a representative of a county, unless he possess real estate
of the clear value of six hundred pounds sterling per year; nor of a
city or borough, unless he possess a like estate of half that annual
value. To this qualification on the part of the county representatives
is added another on the part of the county electors, which restrains
the right of suffrage to persons having a freehold estate of the annual
value of more than twenty pounds sterling, according to the present
rate of money. Notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances, and
notwithstanding some very unequal laws in the British code, it cannot be
said that the representatives of the nation have elevated the few on the
ruins of the many.

But we need not resort to foreign experience on this subject. Our own
is explicit and decisive. The districts in New Hampshire in which the
senators are chosen immediately by the people, are nearly as large as
will be necessary for her representatives in the Congress. Those of
Massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose;
and those of New York still more so. In the last State the members of
Assembly for the cities and counties of New York and Albany are elected
by very nearly as many voters as will be entitled to a representative
in the Congress, calculating on the number of sixty-five representatives
only. It makes no difference that in these senatorial districts and
counties a number of representatives are voted for by each elector at
the same time. If the same electors at the same time are capable of
choosing four or five representatives, they cannot be incapable of
choosing one. Pennsylvania is an additional example. Some of her
counties, which elect her State representatives, are almost as large
as her districts will be by which her federal representatives will be
elected. The city of Philadelphia is supposed to contain between fifty
and sixty thousand souls. It will therefore form nearly two districts
for the choice of federal representatives. It forms, however, but one
county, in which every elector votes for each of its representatives in
the State legislature. And what may appear to be still more directly
to our purpose, the whole city actually elects a SI