Litchfield enquirer., 1873-01-16
From lhs Galaxy, July, 1867. Personal Representation.

Inc year l0oI DlQS 1Alf 6O become I3- mons in American History as the year of New Constitutions. To say nothing of National Amendments, in no less than ten Southern States and ln the great State of New York at the North new Constitu- tious are now in the process of drafting The present hour is therefore fit one to rigidly inspect our republican system, with view to prune off what is vicious, and to graft on what has hitherto been lacking.
 The people of the United States have long been taught to regard the electoral scheme as the most admirable feature of our form of government. In point of fact, however, our present system of elect ing representatives is thoroughly unwise, and with the growth of the country it's in, justice becomes daily more palpable. It's faults. indeed, have been amply demon strated by several noted American writers as we'll as by De Tocqueville, John Stu art Mill and other eminent foreign pub icists, whose various objections may be tersely set forth as follows:
 ]. Our present system of electing rep resentatives leads to the separation of the whole voting population into two great parties, compelling forced and unnatural uniformity of view, intensifying partisan conflicts, and giving undue power to small majorities.
 2. It has led in practice to the non-rec- ognition of the rights of minorities, as we'll as to their misrepresentation in our legis- lative bodies.
 5. It condemns to private life the best, wisest and most original minds in the country, and gives nearly all the prizes of high public station to 'savailable'' medi- ocrities
 4. It fills our legislative halls with purchasable representatives. who, in spite of their known unwothiness, are kept in official position by ignorant or indifferent constituencies.
 5. It has given birth to the Convention, the Caucus, the Lobby, the Ring-irre- sponsible bodies, unknown to the Con stltutlon, yet Ofttimes far more powerful in controlling Legislation than wise pub- lie opinion.
 6. It incites to demagogism-that is, to unwise and hurtful adulation of the people, makes the majority intolerant and tyrannical, and compels an unwholesome uniformity of view and action at times when debate and opposition are needful to form correct public sentiment.
 Let us illustrate the working of the present system by taking, as eausal ex- ample, the election of 1866, in the State of New York. The total vote was FIG, ,e41. of which 366, 1915 were Republican and 352, ,526 Democratic. Were each party represented in the Legislature in propor- tion to its vote, the Senate would have IT Republicans and 15 Democrats, and the Assembly 60 Democrats and @ Republi- can; yet in the former body there are on- ly six, and in the latter but 46 Democrats. Notwithstanding this great dispropor- tion, 35, 900 Republicans in the City of New York have only one representative at Albany, when their number entitled them to five. They have no representatives in Congress, when, under just system of representation, they should have two out of the six. Must not the system itself Do vicious which permits such discrepancies?
 Again the difference of political feeling between the people of the City of New York and the State of New York, cannot be regarded as other than public mis. fortune. It would be better if there were more Democrats in the rural districts and fewer in the Metropolis. But the appa- rent disproportion is not so great as it is made to appear by our system of repre- sentation.
 One more evil feature of our present, system. When parties are of about equal strength, as is nearly always the case in ordinary times in free republics, the real ly influential vote IS not that of the mass of citizens of one or the other party, but of small fraction, the balance of-power party, as it Is sometimes called. Take the case of Connecticut, for instance. the vote of which for the past eleven years has been as follows: