These Two Are Sent Altogether Independently Of The
Population Which They Represent, Or Of The Number Of Members Which
The Same State Supplies To The Lower House.
When the Constitution
was framed, Delaware was to send one member to the House of
Representatives, and Pennsylvania eight; nevertheless, each of these
States sent two Senators.
It would seem strange that a young
people, commencing business as a nation on a basis intended to be
democratic, should consent to a system so directly at variance with
the theory of popular representation. It reminds one of the old
days when Yorkshire returned two members, and Rutlandshire two also.
And the discrepancy has greatly increased as young States have been
added to the Union, while the old States have increased in
population. New York, with a population of about 4,000,000, and
with thirty-three members in the House of Representatives, sends two
Senators to Congress. The new State of Oregon, with a population of
50,000 or 60,000, and with one member in the House of
Representatives, sends also two Senators to Congress. But though it
would seem that in such a distribution of legislative power the
young nation was determined to preserve some of the old fantastic
traditions of the mother country which it had just repudiated, the
fact, I believe, is that this system, apparently so opposed to all
democratic tendencies, was produced and specially insisted upon by
democracy itself. Where would be the State sovereignty and
individual existence of Rhode Island and Delaware, unless they could
maintain, in at least one House of Congress, their State equality
with that of all other States in the Union?
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