National Gazette

Extract of a letter from a member of Congress, to his friend in Richmond, dated Philadelphia, January 8, 1792.

"I was yesterday evening favored with yours of the 27th ult. I have heard of the act of assembly alluded to, but had seen no copy of it, nor has a copy been received by any of the delegation: the letters in which it has been noticed pass it over so slightly, that we scarcely know how to understand it; some mentioning it in general terms as a law, and others, as conditional, depending on an act of Congress expected to pass.

"The bill apportioning representatives among the people of the several states, was brought in with a clause providing for an election of additional members to take their seats in the present Congress, but that clause was expunged with little or no debate. I do not recollect that the committee said any thing in support of it, but that they conceived it to be agreeable to the order of the house. If in this we erred, it was not owing to the cause suggested; we are as anxious to give our country her full weight in the political scale, as any of our constituents, and would most cheerfully have provided for the admission of additional members, had we conceived the constitution authorized it. Sect. 2d. Art. 1st, declares, that the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year, &c. That representatives, &c. shall be apportioned among the several states, &c. according to their respective numbers, &c. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years &c. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, &c. And until such enumeration shall be made, the state of New-Hampshire shall choose three, &c. Yet this provision cannot take immediate effect, a legislative act must intervene, if it were only to fix the ratio of representation, by which the number of members would be ascertained; and as no provision is made in the constitution for the admission of additional members, or for lessening the number of members from those states whose census will not authorize their present numbers (which by the constitution is equally required) until the next biennial election, we conceived that this constitutional right must be postponed till that period. These reasons were conclusive with me; but surely the time when the additional members should take their seats ought to be so regulated as to give all the states an opportunity of coming forward at the same time, otherwise very unequal advantages would accrue to those near the seat of government, and whose legislatures might be in session. And this can only be done by act of Congress, and was provided for in the clause of the bill abovementioned. But as this matter appeared so clearly in a different light to you and to the Assembly of Virginia, as not to induce a suspicion that Congress would act on the principle which they have embraced-and as the business is again taken up, and the whole ground I presume to go over, I shall be extremely obliged by a communication of your reasons, and will if possible become a convert.

"Will the people of Virginia proceed to elect members without any act of Congress on the subject? Though the business is again taken up and a resolution for bringing in the bill made the order of the day for next Thursday, I have no expectation that a law will finally pass in any shape before the second Tuesday in February-certainly not in time to be promulgated.

"Should Virginia bring forward a measure which cannot be supported, it will afford matter of triumph and malignant pleasure to various descriptions of men, while her most affectionate sons will feel a chagrin scarcely to be endured,""