Staunton Spectator

The bill for the Apportionment of Representatives among the several States according to the Fifth Census, having passed both branches of Congress, requires only the assent of the President of the U. States to become a law. It is in the shape in which it passed the House of Representatives, the friends of the Senate's amendment not being able to hold on to it against the large majority in the other House by which it was disagreed to. In this case, the great States have been too much for the small. It may be remarked, by the way, that there never perhaps has been any measure before Congress, a comparison of the division upon which in each House shows so plainly the importance of the organization of the Senate as one of the three branches of the Legislature. That body has failed to protect the rights of the small States in this case, it is true; but it struggled for them: and they would have been saved, if the majority in the popular body had not been of such an overwhelming power, as to leave no hope of successfully combatting it, in the action on this subject. It is in prevention, the reader will perceive, that the power of the Senate lies. If the question had been to take away a right from the small States, instead of to confer one, the Senate's majority would have stood firm together, and saved the right.- Nat. Int.