ful practice of secessions; a practice which has shown itself, even in states where a majority only is required; a practice subversive of all the principles of order and regular government; a practice which leads more directly to public convulsions, and the ruin of popular governments, than any other which has yet been displayed among us.
Publius.
No. LIX.
By Alexander Hamilton.
Concerning the regulation of elections.
The natural order of the subject leads us to consider, in this place, that provision of the constitution which authorizes the national legislature to regulate, in the last resort, the election of its own members.
It is in these words:
"The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations except as to places of choosing senators."[1]
This provision has not only been declaimed against by those who condemn the constitution in the gross; but it has been censured by those who have objected with less latitude, and greater moderation; and, in one instance, it has been thought exceptionable by a gentleman who has declared himself the advocate of every other part of the system.
I am greatly mistaken, notwithstanding, if there be any article in the whole plan more completely defensible than this. Its propriety rests upon the evidence of this plain proposition, that every government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation. Every just reasoner will, at first sight, approve an adherence to this rule in the work of the convention; and will disapprove every deviation from it, which may not
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- ↑ 1st Clause, 4th Section of the 1st Article.
