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FReeper Book Club
The Debate over the Constitution
The States’ Men Speak First: The Battle is Joined
Centinel #1

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FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution

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Ironically it is a side note – a rather amusing one – that Bryan does not think that one representative per 30,000 inhabitants is sufficient, but his reasons are sound, being based on the capacity of communications in those days. One would love to see the look on his face were he told that a similar policy in the current United States would imply a House of some 10,000 members.

Perhaps his objection is not so much based in the limitations of communication of his day, as on a fundamental problem inherent in centralized government: If freedom is best preserved by self-government, then any process which leads to "more being governed by fewer" has the undesirable effect of eroding freedom.

Americans are still debating the proper balance between the ability of local government to apprehend local issues in detail and the economies of scale of a national government.

And doesn't this get to the very heart of self-government? Don't these "economies of scale of national government" merely remove from us the ability to govern ourselves? And doesn't the removal of that ability erode our freedom?

If each congressman speaks for 30,000 (and more!) constituents, how well will he speak for them? For which ones will he speak loudest? What will his speech be aimed at accomplishing? (cf. 56-60)

A single representative per every 500 people is possible - it's just not possible on a national scale. But then again, how much needs to be decided on a national scale anyway? Local public school policies? National security? Local seatbelt requirements? The coining of a national currency? Local highway speed limits? National foreign policy?

Were local concerns left in local hands, freedom would flourish - or at least flourish where it is prized, and fall into decay where it is not. That, again, is the purview of self-government.

A handful of "representatives" making rules for a vast nation of people is destructive to self-government and erosive to freedom. As Bryan says in 58:

"It would not be difficult to prove that any thing short of despotism could not bind so great a country under one government, and that whatever plan you might at the first setting out establish, it would issue in a despotism."

Prophetic, eh?

Early draft of the Constitution found in Phila.

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