This argument, though specious, will not, upon examination, be found solid. It is certainly true, that the state legislatures, by forbearing the appointment of senators, may destroy the national government. But it will not follow, that because they have the power to do this in one instance they ought to have it in every other. There are cases in which the pernicious tendency of such a power may be far more decisive, without any motive to recommend their admission into the system, equally cogent with that which must have regulated the conduct of the convention, in respect to the formation of the senate. So far as that mode of formation may expose the union to the possibility of injury from the state legislatures, it is an evil; but it is an evil, which could not have been avoided without excluding the states, in their political capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the national government. If this had been done, it would doubtless have been interpreted into an entire dereliction of the, federal principle; and would certainly have deprived the state governments of that absolute safeguard, which they will enjoy under this provision. But however wise it may have been, to have submitted in this instance to an inconvenience, for the attainment of a necessary advantage or a greater good, no inference can be drawn from thence to favour an accumulation of the evil, where no necessity urges, nor any greater good invites.
It may also be easily discerned, that the national government would run a much greater risk, from a power in the state legislatures over the elections of its house of representatives, than from their power of appointing the members of its senate. The senators are to be chosen for the period of six years: there is to be a rotation, by which the seats of a third part of them are to be vacated, and replenished every two years; and no state is to be entitled to more than two senators: a quorum of the body is to consist of sixteen members. The joint result of these circumstances would be, that a temporary combination of a few states, to intermit the appointment of senators, could neither annul the existence, nor impair the activity
