Gentlemen have argued, as though it was universally conceded as a political axiom, that population is in all cases and under all circumstances the safest and best basis of representation. I beg leave to doubt the proposition. Cases may be easily supposed, in which, from the peculiar state of society, such a basis would be universally deemed unsafe and injurious. Take a state where the population is such as that of Manchester in England, (and some states in our Union have not so large a population) where there are five or ten thousand wealthy persons, and ninety or one hundred thousand of artizans reduced to a state of vice and poverty and wretchedness, which leave them exposed to the most dangerous political excitements. I speak of them, not as I know, but as the language of British statesmen and parliamentary proceedings exhibit them. Who would found a representation on such a population, unless he intended all property should be a booty to be divided among plunderers? A different state of things exists in our happy Commonwealth, and no such dangers will here arise from assuming population as the basis of representation. But still the doctrine, in the latitude now contended for, is not well founded. What should be the basis on which representation should be founded, is not an abstract theoretical question, but depends upon the habits, manners, character and institutions of the people, who are to be represented. It is a question of political policy, which every nation must decide for itself, with reference to its own wants and circumstances… .
… To the plan of the gentleman from Roxbury [Mr. Dearborn] two objections existed. The first was, that it destroyed the system of checks and balances in the government, a system which has been approved by the wisdom of ages. The value of this system has been forcibly illustrated by the gentleman from Boston [Mr. Prescott], in the extract which he read from the remarks of Mr. Jefferson on the constitution of Virginia.1 I will not therefore dwell on this objection. The next objection is that it destroys all county lines and distinctions, and breaks all habits and associations connected with them. They might thus be broken up, but it was by tearing asunder some of the strongest bonds of society. The people of each county are drawn together by their necessary attendance upon the county courts, and by their county interests and associations. There is a common feeling diffused among the mass of the population, which extends to, but never passes the boundary of each county; and thus these communities become minor states. These are valuable associations, and I am not prepared to say that they ought to be given up altogether. The system of the gentleman from Roxbury, however, not only obliterates them, but at the same time is supposed to affect the interests and corporate representation of the towns—a representation which, with all its inconveniences, possesses intrinsic value. It appears to me that the system of the select committee, combining valuation as the basis of the senate with corporate representation of the towns as the basis of the house, has, both as a system of checks and balances, and convenient and practical distribution of powers, some advantages over that now under discussion… .
… After all, what will be the effect of changing the basis of the senate from valuation to that of population? It will take three senators from Suffolk, give two more senators to the old county of Hampshire, leaving Berkshire and Plymouth to struggle for one more, and Norfolk and Bristol to contend for another, the disposition of which may be doubtful. All the rest of the Commonwealth will remain precisely in the same situation, whether we adopt the one basis or the other. Yet even this change will not produce any serious practical result, if we look forward twenty years. Suffolk has increased within the last ten years, ten thousand in the number of its inhabitants, that is to say, one quarter part of its population; a much greater ratio of increase than the rest of the State. Population will probably from the like causes continue to increase on the seaboard, or at least in the capital, from its great attractions, in a ratio quite as great beyond that of the interior. So that in a short time the difference of the two systems will be greatly diminished, and perhaps finally the inland counties will gain more by the restriction of the districts to six senators than they will now gain by the basis of population. In fifty years Suffolk upon this basis may entitle itself not to six only, but to eight.
Now I would beg gentlemen to consider, if in this view of the subject a change in the basis of the senate can be useful? The constitution has gone through a trial of forty years in times of great difficulty and danger. It has passed through the embarrassments of the revolutionary war, through the troubles and discontents of 1787 and 1788, through collisions of parties unexampled in our history for violence and zeal, through a second war marked with no ordinary scenes of division and danger, and it has come out of these trials pure and bright and spotless. No practical inconvenience has been felt or attempted to be pointed out by any gentleman in the present system, during this long period. Is it then wise, or just, or politic to exchange the results of our own experience for any theory, however plausible, that stands opposed to that experience, for a theory that possibly may do as well?
A few words as to the proposition of the gentleman from Worcester [Mr. Lincoln] for representation in the house. It seems to me—I hope the gentleman will pardon the expression—inconsistent not only with his own doctrine as to the basis of population, but inconsistent with the reasoning, by which he endeavored to sustain that doctrine. The gentleman considers population as the only just basis of representation in the senate. Why then, I ask, is it not as just as the basis for the house? Here the gentleman deserts his favorite principle, and insists on representation of towns as corporations. He alleges that in this way the system of checks and balances, (which the gentleman approves) is supported. But it seems to me that it has not any merit as a check; for the aggregate population of the county will express generally the same voice as the aggregate representatives of the towns. The gentleman has said that the poor man in Berkshire votes only for two senators, while the poor man in Suffolk votes for six. Is there not the same objection against the system of representation now existing as to the house, and against that proposed by the gentleman himself? A voter in Chelsea now votes for but one representative, while his neighbor, a voter in Charles-town, votes for six. Upon the gentleman’s own plan there would be a like inequality. He presses us also in reference to his plan of representation in the house, with the argument, that it is not unequal because we are represented, if we have a single representative; and he says he distinguishes between the right to send one and to send many representatives. The former is vital to a free government—the latter not. One representative in the British Parliament would have probably prevented the American revolution. Be it so. But if the doctrine be sound, does it not plainly apply as well to the senate as the house? If it be not unequal or unjust in the house, how can it be so in the senate? Is not Berkshire with its two senators, and Barnstable with its one senator, and Worcester with its four senators, upon this principle just as fully represented in the senate as Suffolk with its six senators? The argument of the gentleman may therefore be thrown back upon himself… .
… I beg however for a moment to ask the attention of the committee to the gross inequalities of the plan of the gentleman from Worcester respecting the house of representatives. There are 298 towns in the State, each of which is to send one representative. And upon this plan the whole number of representatives will be 334. There are but 24 towns, which would be entitled to send more than one representative. These 24 towns with a population of 146,000 would send 58 representatives, or only one upon