The Constitution’s Final Edit
Who made it? And why?
Have you ever wondered what the last change to the U.S. Constitution was, before the delegates at Philadelphia signed it?
It was actually pretty momentous.
The Constitution provides that in the lower house of Congress “the Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.” The last change was from “one for every forty Thousand” to “one for every thirty Thousand.”
Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts explained that “if it was not too late he could wish [this change], for the purpose of lessening objections to the Constitution.” His request was soon seconded by Daniel Carrol of Maryland and Rufus King of Massachusetts — and then a really important person took a position on this proposal.
George Washington had been elected president of the Constitutional Convention at the very beginning, reflecting the enormous respect that the delegates — and nearly all Americans — held him in. Consequently, he had been careful to take no particular positions on the questions that arose. He explained, as he put this question to the delegates for a vote, that “although his situation had hitherto restrained him from offering his sentiments on questions depending in the House, and it might be thought, ought now to impose silence on him, yet he could not forbear expressing his wish that the alteration proposed might take place.” Why? “The smallness of the proportion of Representatives had been considered by many members of the Convention, an insufficient security for the rights & interests of the people.”
This was too important a change for Washington to stay silent.
The more people that a legislator represents, the easier it is for him to disregard the interests and concerns of his district — simply because he knows that no single person’s irritation or upset is likely to lead to his removal at the next election. In addition, the more voters there are in a district, the less likely it is that they will know the character of a candidate — because you are not likely to know him.
For more than a century, we stuck with that ratio. The first House of Representatives had 65 members. Every ten years, a growing population meant a growing House — until in 1911, there were 438 members, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for such a large legislative body to operate. Congress went ahead and set the maximum size at 435 members.
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Clayton E. Cramer is a software engineer and historian. His sixth book, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2006), is available in bookstores. His web site is www.claytoncramer.com.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
30 Comments
1. Manxman:One of the real hot trends we see going on in government right now in northeast Ohio is a thing called “regionalism,” where, in the supposed interest of economic development and efficiency, a new layer of inclusive, intrusive government is being created above the county level. This is a good example of what this article is talking about – the danger in moving the source of power farther and farther away from the person/group being taxed and pushed around by bureaucrats & elected gov’t reps. This is no accident. The people pushing regionalism are deliberately making government less granular so the sheep in the suburbs can be fleeced more easily to pay for the problems of the dysfunctional urban areas.
Jul 5, 2009 - 5:52 am 2. Douglas:If Washington or Jefferson were alive today, they would condemn us as cowards for not revolting against a government far more oppressive than King George’s.
Jul 5, 2009 - 6:30 am 3. FREE:Look like its time to start with clean slate.
Jul 5, 2009 - 6:54 am 4. Jake:The day after the constitution was enacted is a good place to start.
Remember, we have access to much more information than they did in 1787. But, the downside is the amount of spin we have to endure from the MSM. The internet blogs have helped somewhat in this regard but you still have to be very careful about who’s views you accept. For those of us who do care, you can watch your representatives very closely. Sadly, poor performers are rarely voted out unless they fall victim so some blatant error in judgement a.k.a Gov Sanford..
Jul 5, 2009 - 7:04 am 5. DanRampage:I don’t think 10,000 is unreasonable. Rather than a stadium, let’s have them work from home, or and cast their votes from a local office. Then we now where they are when we want to speak our mind.
Jul 5, 2009 - 7:08 am 6. antaine:Douglas –
There are times when I seriously question if the framers knew we would be where we are now, would they have proceeded with independence in the first place, or sought other Enlightenment routes to better their situation as British subjects.
I like to think the system is not beyond redemption, but that relies on all the rest of us to give our philosophies and courage a good shot of 1787…
Jul 5, 2009 - 8:05 am 7. Bill Carson:Remember, evidence of Representative’s characters were not archived on-line in the 18th century. Policies were not indexed by keywords and presentations not widely available on YouTube. There’s no democracy deficit today. People are free to know the character of any representative they care to investigate. They just don’t care that much. And if people in the 18th century lived as comfortably, safely and leisurely as us, I doubt they’d care either.
Jul 5, 2009 - 9:26 am 8. comatus:I agree with Manxman about the dangers of “regional” government, but I’d like to point out that the perceived “need” stems from a certain shortsightedness that occurred around the time of the the Northwest Ordinance, the “Second Constitution,” which has had so much influence on Ohio history. State government assumed the (cultural) primacy of cities, and a straight-line development from rural to urban. It never crossed their minds that people would want to preserve a rural or semi-rural life when given the option. Much deviltry has ensued.
We should pay more attention to the Ordinance and the thinking that gave rise to it. It certainly was successful in populating the wilderness, but, to take one point of view, it’s unconstitutional, statist as all hell, and elitist to boot. But we have it just the same, and it casts a longer shadow on local affairs than the Constitution does.
Jul 5, 2009 - 9:28 am 9. Anonymous:“Hmmm. Maybe that’s a feature, not a bug.”
It most absolutely IS a feature, one of the most important features of the Constitution. Imagine if lobbyists had to bribe hundreds of representatives, instead of just one, to get their pet projects rammed through the legislature.
Better yet is if they’d get the same pay rate as New Hampshire’s hundreds of state legislators – $200 a year.
Jul 5, 2009 - 1:02 pm 10. David Thomson:“It most absolutely IS a feature, one of the most important features of the Constitution.”
I have never given this idea one minute of my time. It may now dominate much of my thinking. There is indeed something good to say about there being around 10,000 elected House of Representatives members. This actually sounds like an excellent idea. And they should be part timers who are paid no more than perhaps $10,000 annually.
Jul 5, 2009 - 2:41 pm 11. josil:One of the continuing deficiencies in representation of local concerns is the tendency of representatives to go “native”. So, our members of Congress tend to be more concerned with the central government and the DC scene than the district they are supposed to represent. And our CA state representatives sent to Sacramento go native as well. Unless citizens pay big bucks for access, there is very little representation. Gerrymandering and money help keep representatives in office independent of district needs.
Jul 5, 2009 - 2:41 pm 12. Paul:It was felt in the days before the endless laws, ordnance’s, rules, regulations, agencies, bureaus, departments that 10,000 was fair representation.
And now we have half a million, so that even if we had the minimalist government of old days,we would be diluted 5 thousand percent!
If 500,000 is fine, why not 10 million and reduce the house to a hundred? Or why not just one person?
We don’t have, at the federal level, anything like representative government.
Jul 5, 2009 - 5:43 pm 13. Sean:Another side effect of 1 rep per 30,000 people is that a much higher percentage of the population was actively taking part in running the country.
Jul 5, 2009 - 9:11 pm 14. Marc Malone:The restriction of 435 members was reasonable at the time. But now, we have gotomeeting.com! This could be their new ad! I like the idea of the part-time Congresscritter living in my district. I like the idea of being able to have my dog dump on his lawn if I’m upset with him.
It would put an end to the Progressive movement, as the Staists could not concentrate power. Hard to be a political bully, when you run into the bullied at the supermarket.
Jul 6, 2009 - 12:36 am 15. Ed:I wonder if the splitting into different countries is that far off the mark. Create regional governments composed of no more than 20 or 30 million people. The state of California would actually become one itself, but it probably should be broken up into sub states anyway. Take most of the federal governments current taxation and regulatory power and give it to these bodies. Leave the DC government in charge of national defense and treaties only. Either that or go with a 10,000 person House. Something needs to be done to get people closer to their representatives.
Jul 6, 2009 - 12:49 pm 16. Dr. Feelgood:The chances of ever holding our representatives to account are remote. They need only to convince a majority of voters, and the sheer number of folks who punch a ticket on the basis of name recognition alone is quite staggering. Most people simply aren’t paying attention.
Instead of increasing the number of representatives perhaps we should now seriously entertain the notion of decreasing the number of voters. Limited franchise is a viable concept and would go far toward rectifying Congressional impunity. I’ve been a long-time advocate of raising the voting age to correspond with the elected position (e.g., 35 for POTUS). One should not delegate power that he is not qualified to wield. Further reduce the pool of voters by withholding franchise from ALL who collect tax-payer-funded entitlements. The representation ratio would return to a more manageable level.
And to piggyback on this topic; we need to fix the Senate, too. Repeal the 17th Amendment.
Jul 6, 2009 - 1:44 pm 17. Clayton E. Cramer:The state of California would actually become one itself, but it probably should be broken up into sub states anyway.
Yes, I’ve made that argument here that California should be subdivided.
Jul 6, 2009 - 2:56 pm 18. Clayton E. Cramer:Instead of increasing the number of representatives perhaps we should now seriously entertain the notion of decreasing the number of voters.
It might be safer just to reduce the powers of the government, so that it didn’t matter quite as much who was voting, and how ignorant or immoral their decisions were. Unfortunately, H.L. Mencken’s description of democracy as “jackals leading jackasses” is not just funny, but perilously close to being true. Even the majority makes good decisions, it is a bit scary to find out how they came to those decisions.
Jul 6, 2009 - 3:00 pm 19. Joshua:Cramer: It is impractical to go back to the 30,000:1 ratio; that would give us a House with more than 10,000 members. It might be entertaining to watch the House meet in a small stadium, but it would not be very productive.
Life imitating the Star Wars prequels (where the Galactic Senate really did consist of thousands of members, and not surprisingly, its meeting hall really did resemble a small stadium), anyone?
Douglas: If Washington or Jefferson were alive today, they would condemn us as cowards for not revolting against a government far more oppressive than King George’s.
In that case they should have been careful what they wish for. As victorious revolutionaries go, Washington and Jefferson were historical outliers; the likes of Oliver Cromwell, Max Robespierre and Vladimir Ulyanov are much closer to the historical norm.
Revolution is a lot like chemotherapy on a cancer patient. We were fortunate that our first one didn’t turn out to be a cure worse than the disease. The second time, if there is to be one, we may not be so lucky.
Jul 6, 2009 - 3:03 pm 20. Clayton E. Cramer:Revolution is a lot like chemotherapy on a cancer patient. We were fortunate that our first one didn’t turn out to be a cure worse than the disease. The second time, if there is to be one, we may not be so lucky.
Complete agreement. They are an absolute last resort, and the situation has to get really, really bad before decent people cross that line. See article by me from the May 6, 2002, Shotgun News.
Jul 6, 2009 - 3:57 pm 21. Dr. Feelgood:[i]It might be safer just to reduce the powers of the government…[/i]
I agree but I thought the Constitution already does that, and the government runs roughshod over it with impunity. With Congresscritters skirting the already-established limits on powers and the majority of citizens apathetic to it, how can we further restrain them? With a feckless executive (last how many administrations?) Congress is a fox in the henhouse. How do we divest them of all the powers they’ve appropriated? Your solution (the right one, I concur) requires state governments to stand against federal intrusion, but none have proven willing to do so. As long as the federal government holds out the carrot of funding states will toe the line. The first state to take a stand will see its entire government replaced within two cycles, and good luck getting elected officials to advocate their own demise. We need to cut (or even eliminate) federal taxes first. That by itself would limit Congressional power, if they weren’t able to simply vote for deeper debt, that is.
Jul 6, 2009 - 5:33 pm 22. Richard de Castro:I agree, it’s a feature.
What isn’t clear is what was the legal justification for exceeding the Constitutional mandate of one representative per 30,000 people? I’ve never understood its legality.
Keeping the power decentralized is better than attempting to reduce the power: attempts to reduce the power are short-lived at best (remember the Contract for America?). The best we can hope for is confusion to our enemies.
Jul 6, 2009 - 6:30 pm 23. Clayton E. Cramer:I agree but I thought the Constitution already does that, and the government runs roughshod over it with impunity. With Congresscritters skirting the already-established limits on powers and the majority of citizens apathetic to it, how can we further restrain them?
Alas, part of the problem is that there isn’t sufficient rage about an out of control federal government, and at least partly because much of the population doesn’t read anything deeper than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. I’m sort of tempted to write a piece for PajamasMedia comparing the worst, darkest fears of the Antifederalists for what the new government might become, and what it actually became. The Antifederalists were not sufficiently paranoid! (I’m pleased to report that one of my relatives was an Antifederalist delegate to the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention–although he said nothing that was recorded.)
Jul 6, 2009 - 7:14 pm 24. Rich Rostrom:Effective and responsible representative government of 400M people is a problem for which there is no obvious good answer. Either constituencies become oversized or the assembly becomes unwieldy.
And no, electronic meetings are no answer. If every member has the right to speak, to submit bills or propose amendments, or to make motions – and there are 10,000 of them – then orderly proceedings would be impossible, no matter how the members communicate.
What may be needed is some entirely different structure. But what that could be, I have no idea, and AFAIK neither does anyone else.
Jul 6, 2009 - 9:58 pm 25. Rich Rostrom:R De Castro: the rule is
“the Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand”.
It’s not a floor, but a ceiling – a cap on the number of Representatives for any given level of population. For instance, if the U.S. has 300,000 people, there can be at most 10 Representatives. Less than 1/30,000 would be permitted.
Today, there are 435 Representatives for the 280.9M people recorded in the 2000 Census as residing in the 50 states: 1 for every 645,633 people. 1/645,633 is less than 1/30,000.
That limit has never been exceeded, so there is no question of legality.
Jul 6, 2009 - 10:15 pm 26. Richard de Castro:D’oh!
OK, got it….that pesky 17th century phrasing. Thanks.
Jul 7, 2009 - 5:52 am 27. Tom Grantham:If the smallest state, by population is Wyoming, and they are about 500,000 why shouldn’t that be the standard for each representative? Having a larger Congressional membership should eliminate some of the need (or at least the desire) to Gerrymand and I might even know my Congressman.
Jul 7, 2009 - 3:11 pm 28. Starkwood:HAs anyone given consideration to the damage done by the 17th Amendment…giving the Senate to the voters instead of the state legislatures. That, I think, did more damage to states’ rights than growing districts. Prior to 17th amendment, a state legislature could replace a Senator if they did not keep control of the scope of government intrusion into states’ rights.
Jul 7, 2009 - 3:41 pm 29. Brian H:Rich and Richard.
Nope.
You are interpreting the clause as though it was written, “the Number of Representatives for (per) every thirty Thousand shall not exceed one”.
But that is not what it says. The intent was to avoid having too few Representatives (”the smallness of the number”) wielding too much power each, not too many.
Also note the sense of Washington’s comment: he was worried that 1:40,000 would distance the Representatives from the voters too much. So clearly the intent is to minimize the number of voters per Representative, not the number of Representatives per voter.
Jul 7, 2009 - 5:51 pm 30. Brian:#28… yes indeed. This amendment completely altered the structure and purpose behind the Senate and has led directly to the erosion of States rights.
The Federal government has very limited powers according to the constitution… NONE of the work they currently perform falls within these powers! No matter how noble you think National heathcare is or saving a bank or whatever, it simply is not the federal governments role according to the constitution. So our representatives are walking all over the document of our land with impunity.
Jul 9, 2009 - 10:14 pm