to that of the whole Union: in 1833 the number
of representatives of Virginia was likewise proportionate
to the total number of the representatives of the
Union, and to the relation which its population, augmented
in the course of ten years, bore to the augmented
population of the Union in the same space of time.
The new number of Virginian representatives will then
be to the old numver, on the one hand, as the new
numver of all the representatives is to the old number;
and, on the other hand, as the augmentation of the
population of Virginia is to that of the whole population
of the country. Thus, if the increase of the
population of the lesser country be to that of the
greater in an exact inverse ratio of the proportion
between the new and the old numbers of all the representatives,
the number of the representatives of Virginia will
remain stationary; and if the increase of the Virginian
population be to that of the whole Union in a feeblerratio
than the new number of the representatives of the Union
to the old number, the number of the representatives
of Virginia must decrease.
[Thus, to the 56th Congress
in 1899, Virginia and West Virginia send only fourteen
representatives.]]
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VIII
It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people
which is rich and strong with one which is poor and
weak, even if it were proved that the strength and
wealth of the one are not the causes of the weakness
and poverty of the other. But union is still
more difficult to maintain at a time at which one
party is losing strength, and the other is gaining
it. This rapid and disproportionate increase
of certain States threatens the independence of the
others. New York might perhaps succeed, with its
2,000,000 of inhabitants and its forty representatives,
in dictating to the other States in Congress.
But even if the more powerful States make no attempt
to bear down the lesser ones, the danger still exists;
for there is almost as much in the possibility of
the act as in the act itself. The weak generally
mistrust the justice and the reason of the strong.
The States which increase less rapidly than the others
look upon those which are more favored by fortune
with envy and suspicion. Hence arise the deep-seated
uneasiness and ill-defined agitation which are observable
in the South, and which form so striking a contrast
to the confidence and prosperity which are common
to other parts of the Union. I am inclined to
think that the hostile measures taken by the Southern
provinces upon a recent occasion are attributable to
no other cause. The inhabitants of the Southern
States are, of all the Americans, those who are most
interested in the maintenance of the Union; they would
assuredly suffer most from being left to themselves;
and yet they are the only citizens who threaten to
break the tie of confederation. But it is easy
to perceive that the South, which has given four Presidents,
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Democracy in America — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
