University of Virginia Library

TO HENRY LEE.

I have recd. Sir yours of the 6th inst, and have
looked over the printed sheet inclosed in it. Of
the literary character of the paper I may express
a laudatory opinion, without risk of contravening

that of others. As a political disquisition, it embraces
questions both of magnitude and of nicety,
on which opinions may be various, and of which
a critical review does not lie within the compass of
a letter, were it permitted by leisure and favoured
by the circumstances of the moment.[72]

The nature & extent of the obligation on a representative
to be guided by the known will of his
Constituents, though an old question, seems yet to
be in a controvertible state. In general it may be
said to be often a verbal controversy. That the
obligation is not in strictness constitutional or legal,
is manifest; since the vote of the Representative
is equally valid & operative whether obeying or
violating the instruction of his constituents. It can
only be a moral obligation to be weighed by the
conscience of the Representative, or a prudential
one to be enforced by the penal displeasure of his
Constituents.

In what degree a plurality of votes is evidence
of the will of the Majority of voters, must depend
on circumstances more easily estimated in a given
case than susceptible of general definition. The
greater the number of candidates among whom the
votes are divided, the more uncertain, must, of
course, be the inference from the plurality with
respect to the majority.

In our complex system of polity, the public will,

as a source of authority, may be the Will of the
People as composing one nation; or the will of the
States in their distinct & independent capacities;
or the federal will as viewed, for example, thro' the
Presidential Electors, representing in a certain
proportion both the Nation & the States. If in the
eventual choice of a President the same proportional
rule had been preferred, a joint ballot by the two
Houses of Congress would have been substituted for
the mode which gives an equal vote to every State
however unequal in size. As the Constitution
stands, and is regarded as the result of a compromise
between the larger & smaller States, giving to the
latter the advantage in selecting a president from
the Candidates, in consideration of the advantage
possessed by the former in selecting the Candidates
from the people, it cannot be denied whatever may
be thought of the Constitutional provision, that
there is, in making the eventual choice, no other
controul on the votes to be given, whether by the
representatives of the smaller or larger States, but
their attention to the views of their respective Constituents
and their regard for the public good.

You will not forget that the above remarks, being
thrown out merely in consequence of your application,
are for yourself, not for others. Though penned
without the most remote allusion to the particular
case before the Public, or even a knowledge of its
actual posture & aspects, they might be misconstrued
by the propensity of the conjuncture to view things
thro' that medium.

I return the two letters inclosed in yours, which
I ought not to do without expressing the high respect
I entertain for both the writers; Offering to yourself
my wishes for your useful success in whatever line
of literature you may finally determine to exercise
your talents.