THIRTY THOUSAND.
FISA BRINGS DOWN THE HOUSE.
5:5
The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended that the total population of Congressional districts never exceed 50 to 60 thousand. Currently, the average population size of the districts is nearly 700,000 and, consequently, the principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned.
September 17, 1787, was the final day of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Two days earlier the convention unanimously agreed to the text of the Constitution and, having since been engrossed on the parchment, it was now ready to be signed by all the delegates.
Despite that, an urgent proposal had just been made to the assembly by the delegate from Massachusetts. Nathaniel Gorham stated that he wished, for the purposes of lessening the objections to the Constitution, that the clause declaring “the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every forty thousand…” might be reconsidered in order to strike out forty thousand and replace it with thirty thousand. Said motion having been seconded by others present, George Washington rose to address this question. Though he had been the President of the convention, this was the first time he addressed the assembly on a substantive matter.
>“When the President rose, for the purpose of putting the question, he said that although his situation had hitherto restrained him from offering his sentiments on questions depending in the House, and it might be thought, ought now to impose silence on him, yet he could not forbear expressing his wish that the alteration proposed might take place. It was much to be desired that the objections to the plan recommended might be made as few as possible. The smallness of the proportion of Representatives had been considered by many members of the Convention, an insufficient security for the rights & interests of the people. He acknowledged that it had always appeared to himself among the exceptionable parts of the plan; and late as the present moment was for admitting amendments, he thought this of so much consequence that it would give much satisfaction to see it adopted.”
Facing no opposition, this proposal was affirmed unanimously. The word forty was then partially erased so that it could be changed to thirty. (This alteration was noted in the Constitution as: “the Word ‘Thirty’ being partly written on an Erazure in the fifteenth Line of the first Page…”.) In fact, as shown below, a residual tinge from the erased text is still evident when viewing the Constitution.
https://thirty-thousand .org/
https://thirty-thousand .org/pages/GeorgeWashington.htm
Now, the fidelity of the other House is to be the victim. The improbability of such a mercenary and perfidious combination of the several members of government, standing on as different foundations as republican principles will well admit, and at the same time accountable to the society over which they are placed, ought alone to quiet this apprehension. But, fortunately, the Constitution has provided a still further safeguard. The members of the Congress are rendered ineligible to any civil offices that may be created, or of which the emoluments may be increased, during the term of their election. No offices therefore can be dealt out to the existing members but such as may become vacant by ordinary casualties: and to suppose that these would be sufficient to purchase the guardians of the people, selected by the people themselves, is to renounce every rule by which events ought to be calculated, and to substitute an indiscriminate and unbounded jealousy, with which all reasoning must be vain. The sincere friends of liberty, who give themselves up to the extravagancies of this passion, are not aware of the injury they do their own cause. As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.
Federalist Papers No. [55]
https://avalon.law.yale .edu/18th_century/fed55.asp