in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGRLOW, & Co. CAMBRIDGE. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCXXXII. JULY, 1871. ART. I.-FORMS OF MINORITY REPRESENTATION. It is not proposed to discuss in this place the principle of minority representation. In some form or other that principle is recognized in all governments which are called free,although, it must be confessed, nowhere to its fullest extent. The admission of opposition members into any legislative assembly is a partial but practical acknowledgment of its justice. In its commonest form minority representation is nothing more than a concession of sectional rights. Each State is assigned a certain number of representatives in Congress, and the States again divide themselves into single districts. Nothing is more common than for one or more congressmen to be elected from a State which is, on a general vote, opposed to them in politics. This division and subdivision are carried down to the arbitrary division of a city into wards, each entitled to elect certain officers. The purpose of the whole system is to grant the right of representation to minorities, be they parties or local sections of the entire constituency, in proportion to their numbers. The rule that the majority should govern, if carried out relentlessly in the election of representatives, would obliterate all election district lines and lead to a general vote of the whole body of the people for the whole legislative assembly. Such assemblies would then be entirely composed VOL. CXIII. NO. 232. 1 |