eight members. Nothing can be more fallacious, than to found our political calculations on arithmetical principles. Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power, than six or seven. But it does not follow, that six or seven hundred would be proportionably a better depository. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases, a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion; and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes: as on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude. In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.
It is necessary also to recollect here, the observations which were applied to the case of biennial elections. For the same reason that the limited powers of the congress, and the control of the state legislatures, justify less frequent elections than the public safety might otherwise require; the members of the congress need be less numerous than if they possessed the whole power of legislation, and were under no other than the ordinary restraints of other legislative bodies.
With these general ideas in our minds, let us weigh the objections which have been stated against the number of members proposed for the house of representatives. It is said, in the first place, that so small a number cannot be safely trusted with so much power.
The number of which this branch of the legislature is to consist, at the outset of the government, will be sixty-five. Within three years a census is to be taken, when the number may be augmented to one for every thirty thousand inhabitants; and within every successive period often years, the census is to be renewed, and augmentations may continue to be made under the above limitation. It will not be thought an extravagant con-
