There may be a gradual decrease of the rate of increase; but it will be small as lone as the agriculture shall yield its abundance. Great Britain has doubled her population in the last 50 years, notwithstanding its amount in proportion to its territory at the commencement of that period; and Ireland is a much stronger proof of the effect of an increasing product of food in multiplying the consumers.
How far this view of the subject will be affected by the republican laws of descent and distribution, in equalizing the property of the citizens, and in reducing to the minimum mutual surpluses for mutual supplies, cannot be inferred from any direct and adequate experiment. One result would seem to be a deficiency of the capital for the expensive establishments which facilitate labor and cheapen its products, on one hand, and, on the other, of the capacity to purchase the costly and ornamental articles consumed by the wealthy alone, who must cease to be idlers and become laborers; another, the increased mass of laborers added to the production of necessaries, by the withdrawal, for this object, of a part of those now employed in producing luxuries, and the addition to the laborers from the class of present consumers of luxuries. To the effect of these changes, intellectual, moral, and social, the institutions and laws of the country must be adapted, and it will require for the task all the wisdom of the wisest patriots.
Supposing the estimate of the growing population of the United States to be nearly correct, and the extent of their territory to be eight or nine hundred millions of acres, and one fourth of it to consist of inarable surface; there will, in a century or little more, be nearly as crowded a population in the United States as in Great Britain or France; and if the present constitution, [of Virginia,] with all its flaws, has lasted more than half a century, it is not an unreasonable hope that an amended one will last more than a century.
If these observations be just, every mind will be able to develop and apply them.
No. 5
Note.—The caption, as well as the copy of the following paper, is in the handwriting of Mr. Madison, and the whole manuscript, and the paper on which it is written, corresponds with the debates in the Convention with which it was preserved. The document was placed in Mr. Madison's hands for preservation by Col. Hamilton, who regarded it as a permanent evidence of his opinion on the subject. But as he did not express his intention, at the time, that the original should be kept, Mr. Madison returned it, informing him that he had retained a copy. It appears, however, from a communication of the Rev. Dr. Mason to Dr. Eustis, (see letter of Dr. Eustis to J. Madison, 28th April, 1819,) that the original remained among the papers left by Col. Hamilton.
In a letter to Mr. Pickering, dated Sept. 16, 1803, (see Pitkin's History, Vol. 2, p. 259–60) Col. Hamilton was under the erroneous impression that this paper limited the duration of the presidential term to three years. This instance of the fallibility of Col. Hamilton's memory, as well as his erroneous distribution of the numbers of the "Federalists," among the different writers for that work, it has been the lot of Mr. Madison to rectify; and it became incumbent, in the present instance, from the contents of the plan having been seen by others, (previously as well as subsequently to the publication of Col. Hamilton's letter,) that it, also, should be published.
The people of the United States of America do ordain and establish this Constitution for the government of themselves and their posterity;—
Article I.—Sec. 1. The legislative power shall be vested in two distinct bodies of men, one to be called the Assembly, the other the Senate, subject to the negative hereinafter mentioned.
Sec. 2. The executive power, with the qualifications hereinafter specified, shall ho vested in a President of the United States.
Sec. 3. The supreme judicial authority, except in the cases otherwise provided for in this Constitution, shall be vested in a court, to be called the Supreme Court, to consist of not less than six nor more than twelve judges.
Art. II.—Sec. 1. The Assembly shall consist of persons to be called representatives, who shall be chosen, except in the first instance, by the free male citizens and inhabitants of the several slates comprehended in the Union, all of whom, of the age of twenty one years and upwards, shall be entitled to an equal vote.
Sec. 2. But the first Assembly shall be chosen in the manner prescribed in the last Article, and shall consist of one hundred members; of whom New Hampshire shall have five; Massachusetts, thirteen; Rhode Island, two; Connecticut, seven; New York, nine; New Jersey, six; Pennsylvania, twelve; Delaware, two; Maryland, eight; Virginia, sixteen; North Carolina, eight; South Carolina, eight; Georgia, four.
