"Shall Not Exceed"
The words used to set the "limit" to the size of Congressional districts, were intentionally chosen for their versatility of direction and interpretation. Meaning what?
Meaning, that these words:
"The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand,..",
are there to set the upper limit to the number of "Inhabitants" in any given House district. That sentence tells me that no district is allowed to be larger than 30,000 people. And I'm right!
Now here is where you will get an argument from the "state", concerning the interpretation of "shall not exceed". They will claim that these words tell us that no district is allowed to be smaller than 30,000 people. And they're right!
Wait a minute. "How can BOTH statements be true?" AH, Grasshopper! Now you have asked the right question. And for the right question, we have the right answer:
The answer is this; It is BOTH! Simple enough? The word "exceed", by definition of its true and complete meaning, is a word that describes a defined limit. The limit in this case is "...one for every thirty Thousand,..". Or in mathematical terms, 1/30,000. So, if a relationship is true, then it stands by maxim that the inverse must also remain true, so;
If 1/30,000 is not to be exceeded, then 30,000/1 is also not to be exceeded.
The wisdom of the founders was pure and complete, and if one would simply look to their words in support of this idea, one would find that they were trying to accomplish BOTH objectives with one statement. They knew that a Representative Republic was a delicate balance of one extreme and its opposite.
At one end of that scale lies a pure Democracy. That would be a relationship of One Representative for every one Inhabitant. In other words, every single citizen, is his own "Representative". Everyone! In math, this is 1/1=1.
At the other end of the scale is zero, or a pure Dictatorship of "One", as in a King or Lord, Leader, Czar, etc. In other words, only the King is allowed to vote and he supposedly "Represents" or speaks for, everyone. In math, this is 1/n, where, n = any number. As this number grows, the whole fraction approaches zero.
So there it is. There are the two extremes that our founding fathers were guarding against. In order to do this they had to pick a FRACTION that was in between the two extremes. A fraction that would set up a permanent way of making sure that NEITHER of the two extremes was ever possible, because BOTH were bad. So the whole idea was to set up a PERMANENT RELATIONSHIP! That relationship was defined by a fraction. That fraction was 1/30,000, not to be "exceeded" more than is "practicable".
Here's the what that scale looks like with zero on the left and the number 1 on the right:
[0 - Dictatorship = 1/n] - [The House = 1/30,000] - [Democracy = 1/1 = 1]
So now you understand. Now you know the truth. Now you know exactly what to say to your STATE Representative AND his "attorneys" when they try to claim that this "limit" is only one direction.
You show him this scale. Inform him or her, that no variation, UP OR DOWN will be tolerated. That "exceed" was put there on purpose to mean that the relationship shall not move UP OR DOWN. You will tell your Rep. that neither a pure Democracy, NOR a pure Dictatorship is acceptable. And therefore, you fully expect that the limit "...one for every thirty Thousand,.." shall be his new number-one goal. Politicians can be removed from office for violation of their Oath of Office. I suggest that this option be left open.
Replies
"The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand,.."
The argument sounds convincing, however, we have a problem here from my point of view. In reading the above it looks to be saying that there shall not be more than one Representative for each 30,000 people. That statement doesn't say there shall only be 30,000 per Rep. It just says that there can't be more than one Rep. per 30,000 people. In other words, you can't have 2 Reps. for 30,000 people. I fail to see how the above statement limits the number of people who can be represented by one Rep. If a Rep. represents 100,000 people, you have not exceeded the number of Reps. for 30,000 which says there cannot be more than one Rep. per 30,000.
Unless further statements clarify the meaning to restrict the number of people who can be represented by one Rep., it appears that it restricts the number of Reps. per 30,000 rather than the number of people represented by one Rep.
On the other hand, I'm not sure what difference it makes since its not our government anyway. Its all an illusion. We don't know and don't care how Walmart sets up their corporate structure so why would we try to make this foreign owned U.S. corporate de-facto government conform to our original de-jure Republic guidelines? The minute you point out their treachery they brand you sovereign citizen terrorist.
Well Daniel, I would love to say you're right but you're not.
You just made the same point I made in the article. You said;
"...you can't have two Reps. for every 30,000."
And you're right!
That ratio of 2/30,000 is equal to 1/15,000. This is only half the equation though. If you look at the scale I provided, you will see that 1/15,000 is a move to the left, toward total Democracy or 1/1 on the scale. However, the intent was not only to guard against this move, but also to guard against any move to the right, toward a pure Dictatorship or 1/infinity on the scale.
SO your statement is true, but the opposite is also true. You can't move off of the fractional number 1/30,000 UP OR DOWN, except "as much as is practicable".
That statement, "As much as is practicable" is a fancy way of saying,
"We know you can't get it exactly right on the number, but get it as close as you can within a minimal tolerance." (+/- 3% is more than enough to cover this requirement).
The math proves that this has been found to be a difference of only ONE Representative per state. Not worth arguing over if they would follow the law. And finally if you're still not convinced I have steered you right, I present the following.
The Federalist Papers # 56 make it abundantly clear what the intent of the Article was. To whit;
"Allowing to this case, (the number of constituents/district in England's House of Commons), the weight which is due to it, and comparing it with that of the House of Representatives as above explained, it seems to give the fullest assurance, that
a Representative for every THIRTY THOUSAND INHABITANTS
will render the latter (the House of Representatives), both a
safe and competent guardian
of the interests which will be confided to it."
- Madison
The Prosecution rests!
That may have been their intent, but the statement;
"The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand,.."
does not reflect that position.
On the other hand, the term "inhabitant" appears to be similar in meaning to citizen and resident. In other words the only entities being represented are legal fictions which leaves out the people.
Therefore 'We the people' have zero representation, that is, if you count your straw man [legal fiction] as to whom or what they are alluding to. Of course, when this was written it appears they were referring to people who are not recognized by Govco today.
No argument from me on most of that, but the intent is clear; and when ambiguity exists in the Constitution, the benefit of the doubt goes to the people, not Govco.
However, I still disagree that exceed means "no more than" only. It also means no less than too. That's the part you choose to ignore in interpreting the word exceed. That's called "cherry picking". You will always get the results you wish to have.
But this isn't La La Land and you can't pick the definition you want. You have to accept the whole definition of the word and therefore accept the fact that this was a lower limit and an upper one too.
Districts that are too large are just as dangerous to a Representative Republic as are districts that are too small. BOTH extremes need to be guarded against.
So there shall be no district larger than 31,000 people, NOR SMALLER than 29,000 people. (Approximately). I actually did the math and as it turns out, the smallest districts (in South Dakota), would have 29,078 Inhabitants each and the largest (in New York), would have 29,998.
But like I indicated before, the difference between over 30,000 or under in any given situation, is only +/- one Representative per state. So; Without further to do;
Again I rest my case!