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Often appears with: elections and representation · political legitimacy and consent · justice as a virtue · state sovereignty · forms of government · fate, destiny, and necessity · counsel and advisers to rulers · constitutions and founding law · assemblies, councils, and senates · westminster election defeat 1868 · virginia plan · universal suffrage transitional problems
Usually: argument (7) · detachment (3) · exhortation (3) · skepticism (3) · the fall of the great (2) · censure (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · list or catalogue (1) · reflection (1) · injustice endured (1)
“A vice in the Representation, like an error in the first concoction, must be followed by disease, convulsions, and finally death itself.” United States. Constitutional Convention (recorded by James Madison), The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which F · vivid
“But does it follow that the minority should have no representatives at all? Because the majority ought to prevail over the minority, must the majority have all the votes, the minority none? Is it necessary that the minority should not even be heard?” John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government · precept
Hamilton answers New York’s objections to the House’s small size, listing fears about unsafe representation, insufficient local knowledge, class bias, and rising disproportionality as populations grow, then criticizes number-crunching as politically misleading.
indeed, in the whole Constitution seems to be rendered more worthy of attention, by the weight of character and the apparent force of argument with which it has been assailed. The charges exhibited against it are, first, that so small a number of representatives will be an unsafe depositary of the public interests; secondly, that they will not possess a proper knowledge of the local circumstances of their numerous c…
Mill insists that majority rule in deliberation does not require total exclusion of minorities; in a genuinely equal democracy, each minority should be proportionately represented, not silenced by electoral machinery.
who alone possess practically any voice in the state. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities. The confusion of ideas here is great, but it is so easily cleared up that one would suppose the slightest indication would be sufficient to place the matter in its true light before any mind of average intelligence. It would be so but…
Mill argues that without a system granting plural influence for education and knowledge, universal suffrage would bring severe evils, and he critiques compromises that disrupt Hare’s proportional representation by constituency registration.
to give their votes as such in any constituency in which they choose to register; retaining, in addition, their votes as simple citizens in the localities in which they reside. Until there shall have been devised, and until opinion is willing to accept, some mode of plural voting which may assign to education as such the degree of superior influence due to it, and sufficient as a counterpoise to the numerical weight…
Mill says his Reform Bill speeches advanced proportional representation and defended a substitute in some constituencies, then notes how limited voting reforms and later cumulative voting in London School Board elections helped spread proportional ideas.
nights, was wholly unsuccessful, and the practices which we sought to render more difficult, prevailed more widely than ever in the first General Election held under the new electoral law. In the general debates on Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, my participation was limited to the one speech already mentioned; but I made the Bill an occasion for bringing the two great improvements which remain to be made in Representat…
After the Reform Act Parliament dissolved in autumn 1868, Mill lost his Westminster seat and reflects on why conservatives opposed him, noting their expectations failed given his stance for democracy paired with reforms like proportional representation.
recent labours in the same school of thought, to stand, as it now does, in company with Mr. Bain's treatises, at the head of the systematic works on Analytic psychology. In the autumn of 1868 the Parliament which passed the Reform Act was dissolved, and at the new election for Westminster I was thrown out; not to my surprise, nor, I believe, to that of my principal supporters, though in the few days preceding the el…
Randolph’s proposed Virginia Plan resolutions outline a bicameral national legislature, proportional representation by contribution or free inhabitants, an executive chosen by the legislature, and a judiciary with defined jurisdiction over piracy, captures, and national disputes.
National Legislature the articles of Union; and to call forth the force of the Union ag^{st} any member of the Union failing to fulfil its duty under the articles thereof. 7. Res^d that a National Executive be instituted; to be chosen by the National Legislature for the term of ---- years, to receive punctually at stated times, a fixed compensation for the services rendered, in which no increase or diminution shall …
Patterson argues proportional representation would undermine smaller states, saying the convention must stay within the Confederation’s federal scope and that representation should balance state contributions and protection needs rather than pure numbers.
has little to boast of, but as a Man he has every virtue to recommend him. Mr. Brearly is about 40 years of age."--Pierce's Notes, *Am. Hist. Rev.*, iii., 327. M^r Patterson considered the proposition for a proportional representation as striking at the existence of the lesser States. He w^d premise however to an investigation of this question some remarks on the nature structure and powers of the Convention. The Co…
Wilson defends dissolving the Confederacy only if a majority of states unite, arguing equal representation by equal numbers of people, and that sovereign equality of states is incompatible with federal government.
a despot, than to such a fate. He would not only oppose the plan here but on his return home do every thing in his power to defeat it there. M^r Wilson, hoped if the Confederacy should be dissolved, that a *majority*, that a *minority* of the States would unite for their safety. He entered elaborately into the defence of a proportional representation, stating for his first position that as all authority was derived …
Madison, Gerry, and Patterson speeches are summarized in a note, contrasting the political effects of requiring the first branch to originate money bills and defending or opposing equal votes in the Senate.
[127] King gives the three speeches of Gerry, Madison and Patterson as follows: "*Gerry.* I agree to the measure, provided that the first Br. (H. of Reps.) shall originate money bills and money appropriations. The prejudices as well as the interest of our Constituents must be regarded--two or three thousand men are in office in the States--their influence will be in favor of a…
James Wilson argues that equal state votes in the Senate are a fundamental, perpetual representational flaw that will lead to political dysfunction, and insists state preservation does not require that equality.
take place it was true, the N. side would still outnumber the other; but not in the same degree, at this time; and every day would tend towards an equilibrium. M^r Wilson would add a few words only. If equality in the 2^d branch was an error that time would correct, he should be less anxious to exclude it being sensible that perfection was unattainable in any plan; but being a fundamental and a perpetual error, it o…