Posted on 05/03/2010 6:15:04 AM PDT by Pharmboy
First, let me state that I don't discount all of these ideas as being something to consider.
With that being said, I disagree with this comment. In 1789, the idea of one person representing 30,000 people probably sounded impossible to the average citizen.
Think about it this way, what was the populations of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston in 1790?
According to the Census Bureau:
New York - 33,131
Philadelphia - 28,522
Boston - 18,320
Note that these are actual raw numbers and not "in thousands."
The 10th largest city in the U.S. in 1790 was Marblehead, Massachussetts at 5,661.
Think about that: New York City was represented by a single representative. Boston only accounted for about half of a seat in the House of Representatives.
In 1790, your representative would likely not have been from your hometown. He would have been from the largest town in your County or the neighboring County.
After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.
Up to 100 Representatives, there were to be only 30,000 citizens per Representative, so they certainly considered size of the future Republic, in my opinion.
Your comment that your Representative would be from your hometown is what I was addressing.
When you look at the fact that 1 person would be representing the largest city in the United States in 1790, that idea and argument falls apart.
In fact, most representatives would be from the next County over. That they would never step foot in many of the hamlets and villages they represented was clear to the Framers of the Constitution.
It’s not the substance of what your saying that I feel is in error, but the context of what you are saying. The Founders could never have imagined a city over 10 million people.
Their “cities” were 5,000, 10,000, or 30,000 at the most in the colonies. London was the largest city in the world in 1790, and it was around 750,000 people.
Using the 30,000 to 1 scale, London would have had 25 representatives, or over a third of the number of seats for the entire original Congress.
The Framers lived in an agrarian world. They wrote numbers based on rural living and small cities. Their context was different that our context. And that is why, over the years, the Constitution has been adjusted.
I’m not saying we should just leave it alone and not consider it, I’m just saying that the way many people envision the world of the Framers is incorrect.
Ah! I gotcha now. I’m sorry, I was arguing the points that weren’t under dispute.
Yes, I agree that the Founders likely didn’t imagine the world as we know it. Likewise, they probably wouldn’t have ever thought that the Progressive takeover in the 1920s would ever come to fruition, but it did. And I’m sure they never would’ve thought we’d walk on the moon or talk via bits and bytes across a worldwide network.
As a traditionalist in every sense, however, I believe that there’s wisdom beyond our complete understanding in the writings of the Founders, and if they wanted it pegged at 50,000, I’m sure there’s a good reason; even if that means 6,000 Representatives in the House.
We have the means to make effective Federal government occur through regional districts, but the likelihood of Article the First coming into law is incredibly slim if not impossible.
Actually the specification is:
The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative;which I read as placing an upper limit on the number of representatives rather than an upper limit on the number of persons represented by each representative.
>>>Do you really think that the Founders that had 69 seats in the lower house of Congress and 26 seats in the upper house of Congress (almost 3:1 ratio) would have really have wanted a Congress of 10,268 seats in the lower house and 100 seats in the upper house (a 1,027:1 ratio)?
Let’s be serious.<<<
Yes, let’s be serious. The founders understood that there is a certain threshold number for any community in which people don’t know most of their neighbors. I know this from personal experience, having lived in Alaska most of my adult life. I lived in Ketchikan, population about 15,000. After a few years, I got to know just about everyone. I live now in a village of several hundred. I really know everyone. However, in the Mat-Su valley, where there are 60,000 people, you experienced a certain amount of “strangerness” in the crowd.
A representative assembly with a 30,000:1 ratio would do wonders to addressing many concerns. Just about every town would have a representative. Many minority communities would have a representative - for instance, there would be several Athabascan and Yup’ik representatives from our state in the federal government. And there would be an Amish rep, a Hassidic rep, a Lakota rep, you name it.
And the voter would have a good chance of knowing the representative personally, which really changes the political interaction between citizen and government.
So they’d meet in an arena used for hockey games. That’s mere logistics. The concept is great.
Jusst my two cents.
It not the upper level of number of citizens represented by a representative, it’s the lower level. What State would want less Representation?
29,999 citizens gives you 1 representative
30,000 citizens gives you 1 representative
30,001 citizens gives you 2 representatives
If this wasn’t the law, then States would be clammering to have 1 representative per 1 citizen.
In 1790, New York City had a population of 33,131. It was the largest city in the United States. Times have changed in a way that the Framers could not have imagined.
That would just double the number of crooks on the payroll.
Times have changed. Technology has changed. Population has changed.
Human nature, however, has not changed. Right and wrong have not changed. The tendency for men to abuse power, once it's granted to them, has not changed.
The Constitution, if followed, still works magnificently.
More better.
Well given that the Senate was supposed to represent the State Government, maybe not.
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Thanks Pharmboy. Too bad the politicians who regard holding the reins of government as an alternative lifestyle can't hold a candle to them. |
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Ah, Gordon Wood. Liberal.
“Not accomplish(ing) much” is exactly what this country needs. We need fewer laws, and more freedom. The only thing I want these politicos to “accomplish” is ELIMINATING laws.
Thanks...I thought so.
What you suggest may sound wonderful on the front end, but it gets to be untenable on the rear end. How are you to “house” all these reps?
As to “getting representation”, don’t we have that at varying levels? It all trickles down to the federal level in 1 way or another. And don’t we need more “representation” (a`la the original Senate) rather than more-direct “democracy” as this suggests?
Naw, then you get the unelected staffers guiding all the decisions because the electeds are wandering around trying to figure things out. Or you get carpetbaggers who nominally reside in another district so they can serve some more.
Maybe and maybe not. Out of sight, out of mind might apply and give challengers a better chance against the "eligible again" former incumbent. Has to result in a lower re-election rate of the former incumbents than we now have of incumbents.
Read some of my previous posts on this, Reb. The Representatives would not all meet in DC. The US would be sectioned into Federal districts wherein the Representatives would meet and teleconference with the rest of the districts to commence business. I’m actually working on my Master’s thesis on telecommuting in this manner, and based on my research, I would say it’s entirely possible to have 6,000 government Representatives meet via existing technologies. There are companies such as IBM, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, and various legal, accounting, and finance firms that use international virtual teaming technologies to run their businesses. Why couldn’t it work for the Federal government?
Our Founders specifically wrote this as the first article for amending the Constitution, and they spoke about it at length in the Federalist Papers and through various Constitutional Conventional proceedings. I’m guessing this would make our country a little unbalanced at first, but once established, this form of Representative government would be much more in line with the Founding Fathers’ vision vs. the socialist claptrap we have now.
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