Publius showed in Federalist No. 59 that it was unsafe to entrust the administration of federal elections wholly to the states without any regulatory check by the Congress. He turns in No. 60 to arguing that, although the Constitution for practical reasons still leaves the ordinary conduct of elections to states, it would not have been unsafe to lodge the power over them entirely in the national government. And if an exclusive control would be safe, who can complain of a partial control in the last resort?

Among the more fevered of the Anti-Federalists, there is an anxiety that Congress will dictate, not the eligibility of voters (which it cannot do), but the timing and location of elections in such a way as to “promote the election of some favourite class of men in exclusion of others.” If it were even possible to pull this off, there would be “an immediate revolt of the great body of the people,–headed and directed by the state governments.” The suspected bias, moreover, would be in favor of exactly whom? The rich are hardly a monolithic class, but consist of various interests, including “landed men and merchants” among others.

But it can’t be done anyway. In one of Alexander Hamilton’s more devastating putdowns, he points out that a power to legislate on the time and place of elections could not achieve the suspected object:

Are the wealthy and the well born, as they are called, confined to particular spots in the several states? Have they by some miraculous instinct or foresight set apart in each of them a common place of residence? Are they only to be met with in the towns or cities? Or are they, on the contrary, scattered over the face of the country as avarice or chance may have happened to cast their own lot, or that of their predecessors?

Oh. As Emily Litella would say, “Never mind.”

(For explanation of this recurring feature, see here.)