The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (originally titled Article the First) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. It was one of twelve "articles of amendment" to the United States Constitution approved by the 1st Congress on September 25, 1789. They were sent to the legislatures of the several states for ratification. If adopted, it would establish a formula for determining the appropriate size of the House of Representatives following each constitutionally required wikt:decennial census. It is the only one of the twelve proposed amendments that has not been adopted, as it has not been ratified by enough states for it to become part of the Constitution.
Because Congress did not set a time limit for its ratification, the Congressional Apportionment Amendment is still technically pending before the states. Ratification by an additional 27 states is now necessary for this amendment to be adopted. The other 1789 article of amendment ("Article the Second") of the original 12, was finally ratified in 1992. It became the Twenty-seventh Amendment.
The "ideal" number of seats in the House of Representatives has been a subject of controversy since the country's founding. The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention set the representation ratio at one representative for every 40,000 people. Upon the suggestion of George Washington, the ratio was changed to 1:30,000. This was the only time Washington voiced an opinion on any of the actual issues debated during the convention.
In Federalist No. 55, James Madison argued that the size of the House of Representatives has to balance the ability of the body to legislate with the need for legislators to have a relationship close enough to the people to understand their local circumstances, that such representatives' social class be low enough to sympathize with the feelings of the mass of the people, and that their power be diluted enough to limit their abuse of the public trust and interests.
Anti-Federalists, who opposed the Constitution's ratification, noted that there was nothing in the document to guarantee that the number of seats in the House would continue to represent small constituencies as the general population of the states grew. They feared that over time, if the size remained relatively small and the districts became more expansive, that only well-known individuals with reputations spanning wide geographic areas could secure election. It was also feared that those in Congress would, as a result, have an insufficient sense of sympathy with and connectedness to ordinary people in their district.
This concern was evident in the various state ratifying conventions, where several specifically requested an amendment to secure a minimum size for the House of Representatives. Virginia's ratification resolution proposed,
Anti-Federalist Melancton Smith declared at the New York ratifying convention that,
Federalists, who supported the Constitution's ratification, placated those opposing its ratification by agreeing that the new government should immediately address Anti-Federalist concerns and consider amending the Constitution. The assurance that these issues would be addressed in the First Congress was essential to the ratification of the new form of government.
An amendment establishing a formula for determining the appropriate size of the House of Representatives and the appropriate apportionment of representatives among the states was one of several proposed amendments to the Constitution introduced first in the House on June 8, 1789, by Representative James Madison of Virginia. Madison's original intent was,
This, along with Madison's other proposals, was referred to a committee consisting of one representative from each state. After emerging from committee, the full House debated the issue and, on August 24, 1789, passed it and sixteen other articles of amendment. The proposals went next to the Senate, which made 26 substantive alterations. On September 9, 1789, the Senate approved a culled and consolidated package of twelve articles of amendment. Changed in this amendment was the apportionment formula to be followed once the number of House members reached 100.
At the time it was sent to the states for ratification, an affirmative vote by ten states would have made this amendment operational. That number rose to eleven on March 4, 1791, when Vermont joined the Union. By the end of 1791, the amendment was only one state short of the mark. However, when Kentucky attained statehood on June 1, 1792, the number climbed to twelve, and, even though Kentucky ratified the amendment that summer (along with the other eleven amendments), it was still one state short. No additional states ratified this amendment since. To become part of the Constitution, 27 additional ratifications are required.
Eugene Martin LaVergne, a former attorney claims to have found evidence that the entire proposed Bill of Rights, including this proposed amendment, was ratified by Connecticut in 1790. As such, Kentucky's 1792 ratification would have been sufficient for the amendment to meet the constitutional requirement to become part of the Constitution. However, according to LaVergne the Connecticut ratification was never forwarded to Congress for action. LaVergne argued the point in a lawsuit against a number of federal officials, but the case was dismissed. The dismissal was summarily affirmed "per curiam" by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, ending the case.
Federalist No. 55
The Federalist No. 55 is an essay by James Madison. It is the fifty-fifth of a collection called the Federalist Papers. It was published on February 13, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist Papers were published. In this paper, Madison examines the size of the United States House of Representatives. It is titled, "The Total Number of the House of Representatives."
The paper discusses critics' objections to the relatively small size of the House of Representatives (sixty-five members). Madison notes that the size of the House will increase as population increases. In addition, he states that the small size does not put the public liberty in danger because of the checks and balances relationship the House of Representatives has with the state legislatures, as well as the fact every member is voted in by the people every two years.
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IC 10
IC 10 is an irregular galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia.
It was discovered in 1887. Edwin Hubble suspected it might belong to the Local Group of galaxies, but this was uncertain for decades. The radial velocity of IC 10 was measured in 1962. It is approaching the Milky Way at about 350 km/s. This strengthened the evidence for its being in the Local Group. Its membership in the group was finally confirmed in 1996 by measurements of its distance by observations of Cepheids. Despite its closeness, the galaxy is rather difficult to study because it lies near the galactic plane of the Milky Way. It is heavily obscured by interstellar matter.
The apparent distance between IC 10 and the Andromeda Galaxy is about the same as the apparent distance between the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy, which suggests that IC 10 may belong to the M31 subgroup.
IC 10 is the only known starburst galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies. It has many more Wolf-Rayet stars per square kiloparsec (5.1 stars/kpc²) than the Large Magellanic Cloud (2.0 stars/kpc²) or the Small Magellanic Cloud (0.9 stars/kpc²). Although the galaxy has a luminosity similar to the SMC, it is much smaller. The evolutionary status of the Wolf-Rayet stars suggests they all formed in a relatively short period. The galaxy produces stars at the rate of 0.04–0.08 solar masses per year, which means that the gas supply in the galaxy can last for a few billion years longer.