Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- PART I CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS: ON CONSTITUENCY AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
- PART II HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATIONS: ON THE ORIGINS OF TERRITORIAL CONSTITUENCIES IN THE UNITED STATES
- 3 Justifications and the Use of History
- 4 The English and Colonial Origins of Territorial Constituencies in the United States
- 5 Origins, Part 1: What Territorial Representation Was Not Meant To Do
- 6 Origins, Part 2: Territorial Representation as an Enabler of Democratic Values
- PART III NORMATIVE APPLICATIONS: ON LEGITIMATE REPRESENTATION AND INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN
- Index
5 - Origins, Part 1: What Territorial Representation Was Not Meant To Do
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- PART I CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS: ON CONSTITUENCY AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
- PART II HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATIONS: ON THE ORIGINS OF TERRITORIAL CONSTITUENCIES IN THE UNITED STATES
- 3 Justifications and the Use of History
- 4 The English and Colonial Origins of Territorial Constituencies in the United States
- 5 Origins, Part 1: What Territorial Representation Was Not Meant To Do
- 6 Origins, Part 2: Territorial Representation as an Enabler of Democratic Values
- PART III NORMATIVE APPLICATIONS: ON LEGITIMATE REPRESENTATION AND INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN
- Index
Summary
The history of representation in England, from which we have taken our model of legislation, is briefly this[:] before the institution of legislating by deputies, the whole free part of the community usually met for that purpose; when this became impossible, by the increase of numbers the community was divided into districts, from each of which was sent such a number of deputies as was a complete representation of the various numbers and orders of citizens within them; but can it be asserted with truth, that six men can be a complete and full representation of the numbers and various orders of the people in this state?
– Cato, no. 5, Fall 1787At the founding of the United States, territorial electoral constituencies were an institutional habit of mind so ingrained in thought and practice that almost no argument about them appears in the literature. Further, territory was the basis (often paired with wealth, religion, or literacy) of representation in all colonial charters and their subsequent state constitutions at the founding. It is not discussed in any depth by those authors who influenced the writers and “ratifiers” of the Constitution: James Harrington, David Hume, Algernon Sidney, John Locke, or Montesquieu. Nor does it appear in the writings of the era, those of Edmund Burke, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, or Thomas Paine, in other prominent primary sources nor in the writings of the Anti-Federalists. In only one place is another method of constituency definition even hinted at: professional class.
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- Information
- The Concept of ConstituencyPolitical Representation, Democratic Legitimacy, and Institutional Design, pp. 81 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005