The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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REPUBLICAN DISTRIBUTION OF CITIZENS.
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 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
REPUBLICAN DISTRIBUTION OF CITIZENS.[55]
A perfect theory on this subject would be useful, not because
it could be reduced to practice by any plan of legislation,
or ought to be attempted by violence on the will or
property of individuals: but because it would be a monition
against empirical experiments by power, and a model to which
the free choice of occupations by the people, might gradually
approximate the order of society.
The best distribution is that which would most favor
health, virtue, intelligence and competency in the greatest number
of citizens. It is needless to add to these objects, liberty
and safety. The first is presupposed by them. The last
must result from them.
The life of the husbandman is pre-eminently suited to the
comfort and happiness of the individual. Heatlh, the first of
blessings, is an appurtenance of this property and his employment.
Virtue, the health of the soul, is another part of
his patrimony, and no less favored by his situation. Intelligence
may be cultivated in this as well as in any other walk
of life. If the mind be less susceptible of polish in retirement
efforts. Is it more ignorant of some things?
It has a compensation in its ignorance of others. Competency
is more universally the lot of those who dwell in the
country, when liberty is at the same time their lot. The
extremes both of want and of waste have other abodes. 'T is
not the country that peoples either the Bridewells or the
the distresses and vice of overgrown cities.
The condition, to which the blessings of life are most denied
is that of the sailor. His health is continually assailed and
his span shortened by the stormy element to which he belongs.
His virtue, at no time aided, is occasionally exposed
to every scene that can poison it. His mind, like his body,
is imprisoned within the bark that transports him.
Though traversing and circumnavigating the globe, he sees
nothing but the same vague objects of nature, the same
monotonous occurrences in ports and docks; and at home in
his vessel, what new ideas can shoot from the unvaried use
of the ropes and the rudder, or from the society of comrades
as ignorant as himself? In the supply of his wants he often
feels a scarcity, seldom more than a bare sustenance; and if
his ultimate prospects do not embitter the present moment,
it is because he never looks beyond it. How unfortunate,
that in the intercourse, by which nations are enlightened and
refined, and their means of safety extended, the immediate
agents should be distinguished by the hardest condition of
humanity.
The great interval between the two extremes, is, with a few
exceptions, filled by those who work the materials furnished
by the earth in its natural or cultivated state.
It is fortunate in general, and particularly for this country,
that so much of the ordinary and most essential consumption,
takes place in fabrics which can be prepared in every
family, and which constitute indeed the natural ally of agriculture.
The former is the work within doors, as the latter is
without; and each being done by hands or at times, that can be
spared from the other, the most is made of everything.
The class of citizens who provide at once their own food
and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly
independent and happy. They are more: they are the best
basis of public liberty, and the strongest bulwark of public
safety. It follows, that the greater the proportion of this
and the more happy must be the society itself.
In appreciating the regular branches of manufacturing and
mechanical industry, their tendency must be compared with
the principles laid down, and their merits graduated accordingly.
Whatever is least favorable to vigor of body, to the
faculties of the mind, or to the virtues or the utilities of life,
instead of being forced or fostered by public authority, ought
to be seen with regret as long as occupations more friendly to
human happiness, lie vacant.
The several professions of more elevated pretensions, the
merchant, the lawyer, the physician, the philosopher, the
divine, form a certain proportion of every civilized society,
and readily adjust their numbers to its demands, and its
circumstances.
From The National Gazette, March 5, 1792.
TO JAMES MADISON
The last letter recd. from you was that of Feby. I. Since my answer
to that the state of the roads & rivers has been such as to render the
conveyance of letters very tedious if not uncertain, and thence to produce
the interval between that date & the present. I now inclose
5nos. of the National Gazette—which continue the intelligence through
out the period of my silence—You will find noticed the progress of the
business in Cons. and particularly the bills that have passed into laws.
The representation-bill which as it went to the Senate proposed again
the simple ratio of 1 for 30,000 applied to the respective members in
each state, and a second census within a short time to be followed by
a like ratio, has come back with the latter provision struck out, and
the former so altered as to make the number of Reps. amount to 120,
instead of 112. This is the more extraordinary as the No. 112 was considered
before as too great and a ratio of 1 for 33,000 insisted on &
the bill sacrificed to it. The secret of the business is that by these
different rules the relative number of Eastn. & Southn. members is
varied. The number of 120 is made out by applying 1 for 30,000 to
the aggregate population of the U. S. and allowing to fractions of
certain amount an additional member.[56]
The House of Reps. have been for several days taken up with the
Georgia election, which will probably consume several more, a good
deal of the more important business still remains to be done; altho'
there seems to be a pretty general determination to close the session
early in next week.
Leiper has not yet sold your Tobo The price continues so low that
he thinks a change must be for the better & ought to be waited for.
The price of sugar has rather risen of late, and seems likely to remain
high for some time. The state of the public debt has fallen considerably
as you will see by the inclosed papers. You had better have
complied with my advice with regard to your little interest in that
article, and had in my opinion still better send me a power of attorney
as to the principal as well as the interest. With my dutiful regards
to my mother.—Mad. MSS.
| The writings of James Madison, | |