586 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 



the voices, while the population of the thirteen more populous 

 commonwealths, amounting to more than 10,000,000 of souls, are 

 represented by a minority of the senatorial voices. 



But it is the democratic republic of North America which ex- 

 hibits the most thoroughgoing rotten borough Senate of any state 

 in the civilized world. In this Union the smallest commonwealth, 

 from the point of view of population, is Nevada, with 42,335 inhabi- 

 tants, according to the last census, and the largest is New York, with 

 7,268,894. On the basis of representation according to numbers, 

 the inhabitants of Nevada are about one hundred and seventy-five 

 times more strongly represented than the inhabitants of New York. 

 Again, there are now forty-five commonwealths in this Union, with 

 a population of over 76,000,000 of souls. Of them about 14,000,000 

 reside in the twenty-three least populous commonwealths, and over 

 62,000,000 in the twenty-two more populous commonwealths. 

 That is, 14,000,000 of people aie represented in the United States 

 Senate by forty-six senators, while more than 62,000,000 are repre- 

 sented by only forty-four senators. Of course, it may be said, and 

 it is said, that in states with systems of federal government the mem- 

 bers of the national Senate do not represent the people but the com- 

 monwealths of the Union, and that, therefore, the principle of repre- 

 sentation according to population does not apply to the Senates of 

 such states. Well, what is a commonwealth or state in a democratic 

 republic with a federal government? Is it anything more than the 

 organization of the people within a given district for their autono- 

 mous local government? And is there any sound reason why a few 

 people so organized in one district should be equally represented in 

 either house of the national congress with a great many more people 

 organized in another district for the same purpose? If it were always 

 true that the smaller population possessed all the elements of intel- 

 lectual and moral culture to a higher degree than the larger, it might 

 be held, perhaps, as a principle of political ethics, that the representa- 

 tion of the smaller number should be relatively stronger than that 

 of the larger. But who will say, for example, that the peasants and 

 mountaineers of Uri are superior in knowledge and virtue to the 

 citizens of Bern, or the miners of Nevada to the inhabitants of New 

 York ? I understand only too well that there are still those who will 

 say that the reason for the equal representation of the common- 

 wealths in the national Senate is that they are sovereign states, and 

 that sovereignties are equal in representative right no matter what 

 may be their relative strength in population or any of the other 

 elements of power. My answer to this is that this is a principle of 

 international law, not of constitutional law; that the common- 

 wealths in these four systems which we are considering are not 

 sovereign states; that in two of them they never were sovereign 



