Why did john Adams believe a legislature should have two houses?

Answer 1

The theory is that there should be a "lower" house with fast turnover to keep in touch with the times, and an "upper" house whose members would stay in office longer so that they could have a "long view" of the laws they were passing.

To bad that it only worked for a hundred years or so.

Answer 2

Originally, the two houses represent two different interests. under the original Constitution the senate represented the state, and the house represented the people. which may or may not have similar interests. you may be interested the orignally, the senators were appointment by the state (not elected by the people), and the house members were elected by the people.

Now that both the house and the senate are open to general elections of the people, do they not both now accountable to the people, and senator no longer accountable to the state? If this so, then do we both houses any longer?

Answer 3

James Madison was an adamant believer in the representation of the people. However, because of the evidence that was available to him, it seemed that the legislative branch would be likely to abuse its power. (He had witnessed an abusive British Parliament, for example). For this reason, he thought it would be a good idea to divide the legislative branch into two houses.

Also, the House of Representatives is directly representative of the people, and so the opinions of the Representatives are likely to change more often than the opinions of senators. So, by dividing the legislative branch in to two houses, Congress is not able to create laws based on the current whims and passions of the people.

Answer 4

John Adams recommended that the government have a bicameral legislature because he believed that it was important to have a system in place that could check the powers of popular majorities seated in the lower level. This strengthened the federalist system of government so that the citizens would not always fear that their freedoms would be taken away.