“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Countering Anti-Federalist fears that Congress wouldn’t represent the diverse interests of the American population, Tench Coxe came out swinging, insisting that the House would be “the immediate delegates of the people” and calling it a “popular assembly.” He made...
In his series of essays, the Anti-federalist Federal Farmer warned repeatedly that the proposed Constitution provided for too little representation in Congress. Previously, he argued that a tendency toward aristocracy would prevent adequate representation, and that...
When it was ratified, the U.S. Constitution set a cap on the number of representatives at no more than one per 30,000 persons. In his seventh letter dated Dec. 31, 1787, the Federal Farmer argues that this constituted too few representatives to accurately reflect the...
In his third letter dated Oct. 10, 1787, the anti-federalist writer Federal Farmer wrote skeptically of the proposed new federal government for fear it would bring about a “tendency toward aristocracy,” similar to those which could be found in European nations. ...
by Joe Wolverton II, for The New American Recently, the New York Times published on op-ed piece advocating an increase in the size of the House of Representatives. Not the chamber itself, mind you, but the number of representatives serving therein. The co-authors,...