Apportionment Act of 1792

Apportionment Act of 1792
Citations

Long title	An Act for apportioning Representatives among the several States, according in the first enumeration.
Enacted by	the 2nd United States Congress
Effective	March 4, 1793
Statutes at Large	1 Stat. 253
Legislative history
Passed the House on February 21, 1792 (34–16) Passed the Senate on March 12, 1792 (14–13) with amendment House agreed to Senate amendment on March 23, 1792 (31–29) Vetoed by President George Washington on April 5, 1792 Passed the House on April 10, 1792 Passed the Senate on April 10, 1792 Signed by President George Washington on April 14, 1792

The Apportionment Act of 1792 (1 United States House of Representatives at 105, effective with the 3rd Congress on March 4, 1793, and established that a number of representatives would be allotted to each state based upon the population enumeration provided by the 1790 Census,

Earlier apportionment legislation had been approved by the House in February 1792 and the Senate in March 1792, but was [1] It was the first presidential veto of legislation in American history.^[2]

Background 1
Text 2
Legislative history 3
Review 4
Veto 5
See also 6
References 7
Further reading 8
External links 9

Background

Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution stipulates that the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives is to be effected on the basis of population.^[3]

Text

An Act apportioning Representatives among the several States, according to the first enumeration. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the third day of March one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, the House of Representatives shall be composed of members elected agreeably to a ratio of one member for every thirty-three thousand persons in each state, computed according to the rule prescribed by the constitution; that is to say:
Within the state of New Hampshire, four; within the state of Massachusetts, fourteen; within the state of Vermont, two; within the state of Rhode Island, two; within the state of Connecticut, seven; within the state of New York, ten; within the state of New Jersey, five; within the state of Pennsylvania, thirteen; within the state of Delaware, one; within the state of Maryland, eight; within the state of Virginia, nineteen; within the state of Kentucky, two; within the state of North Carolina, ten; within the state of South Carolina, six; and within the state of Georgia, two members. APPROVED, April 14, 1792.^[4]

Legislative history

An earlier apportionment bill was Article I Section II of the United States Constitution.^[5] The next day, the House attempted to override the President's veto but failed to reach the two thirds vote required and on 10 April efforts began to revise the bill a third time.^[6]

Review

On March 26, the bill was presented to the President. There was great disagreement among Washington's advisors, and therefore he called upon Edmund Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, [1]

Contrary to Jefferson and Randolph, both Knox and Hamilton urged that he approve the bill. Knox argued on 3 April that the Constitution was unclear about "whether the numbers of representatives shall be apportioned on the aggregate number of all the people of the United States, or on the aggregate numbers of the people of each state." As the constitutionality of the bill was, Knox said, "only doubted not proved but the equity of the measure apparent, it would appear rather a delicate measure for the President to decide the question contrary to the bill as passed." Hamilton wrote Washington on the following day that, while he had not yet read the bill, it seemed to him that the bill "performs every requisition of the constitution; and it will not be denied that it performs this in the manner most consistent with equality." Like Knox, Hamilton believed that "In cases where two constructions may reasonably be adopted, and neither can be pronounced inconsistent with the public good, it seems proper that the legislative sense should prevail" and the bill should be signed into law.^[1]

Veto

After considering both sides of the argument, Washington decided that Jefferson and Randolph were correct, and Washington agreed that the bill was unconstitutional. Even so, Washington feared that by vetoing it he would increase geographical tensions by siding with the south, as Jefferson and Randolph were both from Virginia. Further discussion with Randolph, Jefferson, and James Madison, however, allayed Washington's concerns, and on 5 April the president decided to return the bill to the House of Representatives with the two objections that "there is no one proportion or divisor which, applied to the respective numbers of the States will yield the number and allotment of representatives proposed by the Bill" and that "the Bill has allotted to eight of the States, more than one [representative] for thirty thousand." Congress, after receiving Washington's veto message, the first in U.S. history, threw out the original bill and decided, on 10 April 1792, to apportion representatives at "the ratio of one for every thirty-three thousand persons in the respective States".^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d The Papers of George Washington
^ Washington exercises first presidential veto
^ "Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2:§§ 630--35, 641--47, 673--80". The Founder's Constitution. The University of Chicago Press. 2000.
^ https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/1790_Apportionment.pdf
^ The Library of Congress: Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 2nd Congress, 1st Session, p.539. Retrieved on 2008-10-3.
^ *James, Edmund J. 1897. "The First Apportionment of Federal Representatives in the United States." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 9 (Jan.): 10-12.

External links

Founders Online, Opinion on Apportionment Bill, 4 April 1792
The Papers of George Washington
George Washington's Presidential Vetoes

Apportionment Act of 1792