The Eighth Article Papers, III.

Section 1, Clause 5: The Numbers comprising the majority and two thirds of The House of the People shall be determined by the most recent Census, or by other method that The House of the People shall deem necessary.

A House of the People, consisting of the entirety of the People has certain drawbacks that should be understood, and at the very least, attempted to be overcome.

One of those very drawbacks is the vary Numbers of the People’s House. While the House of Representatives can easily find the majority for their present Members at any one time, this is not the case with the House of the People. One would have to assume that the a House consisting of the entire US Population would grow in size on a daily basis.

The Fathers of our Constitution found themselves in a similar Query, as the House of Representatives is structured to represent the People in an even manner. This is not possible if the State of Vermont, with a 600,000 Population is given the Representation of 10 Seats in the House of Representatives and the State of California, with a 36 million Population is given the Representation of just 2 Seats.

To avoid this dilemma, the Fathers of our Constitution established for the counting of our Population from time to time in order keep the Representative Seats per Population ratios equal. This is established in Article. I., Section. 2., Clause 3:

…The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct…

Since the Constitutionally established Census has been used to no small degree of success for the last 230 Years, it makes sense to utilize this very same method for establishing certain thresholds required by The House of the People in order to determine if the majority of the People have agreed upon the business before them.

In the last Census, taken in the Year of our Lord, Two Thousand, the Census Bureau counted 281,421,906 total US population. If we were to presume that this proposal were in effect, The House of the People, voting 140,710,954 would constitute a majority, while voting 188,552,677 would constitute two thirds.

Calculating precisely what would be needed to reach those numbers is vital to guaranteeing that the will of the People is carried out. Therefore, it is equally as important to structure and stipulate exactly how those requirements are met.