Was the ratio of representatives in Congress to eligible voters in the late 1780s less equitable than the French parliamentary system (PR system) after the ratification of the 1787 US Constitution?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Was the ratio of representatives in Congress to eligible voters less equitable than the French parliamentary system (PR system) after the ratification of the 1787 US Constitution? I’m interested to know if the ratio of one representative or Senator to a voting citizen 1: 30,000 (?) under the US system for example would have been less equitable than the French Proportional Representation system the late 1780s. I remember reading something to that effect that the French system of representation was fairer in that respect but more information was not given so I don’t know what ratio there was between a Parlement representative and a voting citizen in France.

2

Are you asking about the Parlements or about the Estates-General?

The population of France in the 1780s was about 27.5 million. There were about 600 members of the Third Estate in the Estates General, so that gives a ratio of roughly 45,000 or 46,000 citizens to each member of the Third Estate.

This tells us nothing, though, about how equitable representation was. For that, we’d need to know how much variance there was; was there a uniform ratio of citizens to representatives in every electoral district, or did ratios vary quite widely from district to district? I don’t have much information on that. I believe that representatives were allocated to districts in proportion to their population, but was that a rough proportion or a very exact one? Plus, how good was their information about how many people lived in each district? (They presumably knew how many voters lived in each district, but that’s not the same thing at all.)

3

Thanks UDS1 I should have been more careful with my dates as the French Constitution was enacted in 1891. So what I am asking is whether the French seats-to-voter ratio in the French Parlement was more equitable than the US seats - to -voter ratio at the time ?

4

I meant to write 1791

5

Some major nitpicking required here.

First, the ration only applied to the House. All states have always had two Senators. Second, the text reading actually is “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.”

The first Congress was a mess. There were supposed to be 65 Representatives, but neither North Carolina nor Rhode Island had yet ratified the Constitution so only 59 were elected. Let’s just skip it and move on to 1792, where they had the census count from 1790. The size of the House zoomed up to 105 seats for the now 15 states. The total population was 3,929,000 so the overall ratio would be 1:37,000.

The smallest state in 1790 was Delaware with a population of 59,000. It received only one seat, so a ratio of 1:59,000. Vermont was second with 68,000, but it had two seats so 1:34,000. And onward up to Virginia with 747,000 divided among 19 seats or 1:39,000. The count is based on total population, not eligible population. As populations increased the number represented also did, as everybody expected. Today the ratio is 1:762,000.

Wikipedia has a chart of eligible populations, which put the ratio as large as 1:11,000 for Delaware. But that was never a number anyone used. Only total population.

6

Thanks Exapno_Mapcase for that clarification.