7274. REPRESENTATION, Equal.—[continued].
At the birth of our republic
I committed my opinion [an equal representation] to the world in the draft of a
constitution annexed to the “Notes on Virginia ”, in which a provision was inserted for
a representation permanently equal. The infancy
of the subject at that moment, and our
inexperience of self-government, occasioned
gross departures in that draft from genuine
republican canons. In truth, the abuses of
monarchy had so much filled all the space of
political contemplation, that we imagined
everything republican which was not monarchy.
We had not yet penetrated to the
mother principle, that “governments are republican
only in proportion as they embody
the will of their people, and execute it”.
Hence, our first constitutions had really no
leading principles in them. But experience
and reflection have but more and more confirmed
me in the particular importance of the
equal representation then proposed.—
To Samuel Kerchival. Washington ed. vii, 9.
Ford ed., x, 37.
(M.
1816)
