"Provision ought to be made for the admission of states lawfully arising within the limits of the United States. "A republican government and the territory of each state ought to be guaranteed by the United States to each state. "Provision ought to be made for the completion of all the engagements of congress, and for its continuance until after the articles of union shall have been adopted. "Provision ought to be made for the amendment of the articles of union; to which the assent of the national legislature ought not to be required. "The legislative, executive, and judiciary powers, within the several states, ought to be bound by oath to support the articles of union. "The amendments which shall be offered to the confederation by the convention ought, after the approbation of congress, to be submitted to assemblies of representatives, recommended by the several legislatures to be expressly chosen by the people to consider and decide thereon." Randolph concluded with an exhortation to the convention not to suffer the present opportunity of establishing general harmony, happiness, and liberty in the United States to pass away unimproved.* The new articles of union would form a representative republic. The nobleness of the Virginia delegation appeared in the offer of an option to found representation on "free inhabitants" alone. The proposed government would be truly national. Not the executive, not the judges, not one officer employed by the national government, not members of the first branch of the legislature, would owe their election to the states; even in the choice of the second branch of the national legislature, the states were only to nominate candidates. It is worthy of note that, as Randolph declared the proportioned rule of suffrage to be "the basis upon which the larger states could assent to any reform," saying, "We ought to be one nation," William Paterson of New Jersey made note that "sovereignty is an integral thing," meaning that in the new union the states must be equal unless they all were to be merged into one. The house referred the propositions of *Gilpin, 731-735; Elliot, 126-128. + Paterson MSS. Virginia to a committee of the whole on the state of the union.* Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, a young man of twentynine, then presented a plan for a constitution, "grounded on the same principles † as the resolutions" of Virginia. It received the same reference, but no part of it was used, and no copy of it has been preserved. On the morning of the thirtieth, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts having been elected chairman of the committee of the whole, Randolph offered a resolution, ‡ which Gouverneur Morris had formulated, "that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary." The force of the word "supreme was explained to be, that, should the powers to be granted to the new government clash with the powers of the states, the states were to yield.# " Pierce Butler of South Carolina advanced the business of the day by saying in the spirit of Montesquieu: "Heretofore I have opposed the grant of new powers to congress because they would all be vested in one body; the distribution of the powers among different bodies will induce me to go great lengths in its support." I "In all communities," said Gouverneur Morris, "there must be one supreme power and one only. A confederacy is a mere compact, resting on the good faith of the parties; a national, supreme government must have a complete and compulsive operation." Mason argued "very cogently": "In the nature of things punishment cannot be executed on the states collectively; therefore such a government is necessary as can operate directly on individuals." A Roger Sherman, who arrived that morning and enabled Connecticut to vote, was not yet ready to do more than vest in the general government a power to raise its own revenue; ◊ and against the negative of his state alone, New York being divided, the motion was carried by Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the two Carolinas, on this day aided by Delaware. *Gilpin, 735; Elliot, 128. Gilpin, 747; Elliot, 132. Yates in Elliot, i., 391. | Gilpin, 747, 748; Elliot, 133. A Gilpin, 748; Elliot, 133. Gilpin, 748; Elliot, 133. Alexander Hamilton of New York next moved that "the rights of suffrage in the national legislature ought to be proportioned to the number of free inhabitants;" and Richard Dobbs Spaight of North Carolina seconded him. But, to escape irritating debates, the resolution was postponed, and Madison, supported by Gouverneur Morris, moved, in more general terms, "that the equality of suffrage established by the articles of confederation ought not to prevail in the national legislature; and that an equitable ratio of representation ought to be substituted." * Faithful to his instructions, George Read of Delaware asked that the consideration of the clause might be postponed; as on any change of the rule of suffrage it might become the duty of the deputies from his state to withdraw from the convention. "Equality of suffrage," said Madison, "may be reasonable in a federal union of sovereign states; it can find no place in a national government." But, from the spirit of conciliation, the request for delay was granted.† The next day Georgia gained the right to vote by the arrival of William Pierce, a Virginian by birth, in the war an aid to Greene, and now a member of congress. The Virginia resolve, that the national legislature should be composed of two branches, passed without debate, and, but for Pennsylvania, unanimously; Hamilton and Robert Yates of New York voting together." Three weeks later, Pennsylvania, which had hesitated only out of forbearance toward its own constitution, gave in its adhesion. The decision, which was in harmony with the undisputed and unchanging conviction of the whole people of the United States, was adopted, partly to check haste in legislation by reciprocal watchfulness, and partly to prevent the fatal conflict which might one day take place between a single legislative body and a single executive. On the method of electing the two branches, the upholders of the sovereignty of each state contended that the national government ought to seek its agents through the governments of the respective states; others preferred that the members of the first branch should be chosen directly by the people. * Gilpin, 750, 751; Elliot, 134. Gilpin, 751, 752; Elliot, 134, 135. Gilpin, 753; Elliot, 135. "The people," said Sherman, "should have as little to do as may be about the government; they want information and are constantly liable to be misled; the election ought to be by the state legislatures." "The people do not want virtue; but they are the dupes of pretended patriots," added Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. To this arraignment of the people by men of New England, Mason of Virginia replied: "The larger branch is to be the grand depository of the democratic principle of the government. We ought to attend to the rights of every class of the people. I have often wondered at the indifference of the superior classes of society to this dictate of humanity and policy." "Without the confidence of the people," said James Wilson of Pennsylvania, "no government, least of all a republican government, can long subsist; nor ought the weight of the state legislatures to be increased by making them the electors of the national legislature." Madison, though for the senate, the executive, and the judiciary he approved of refining popular appointments by successive "filtrations," held the popular election of one branch of the national legislature indispensable to every plan of free government. This opinion prevailed.* It was agreed, unanimously and without debate, that the national legislature should possess the legislative powers of the confederacy; but, to the extension of them to all cases to which the state legislatures were individually incompetent, Charles Pinckney, John Rutledge, and Butler, all the three of South Carolina, objected that the vagueness of the language might imperil the powers of the states. But Randolph disclaimed the intention of giving indefinite powers to the national legislature, and declared himself unalterably opposed to such an inroad on the state jurisdictions. Madison was strongly biased in favor of enumerating and defining the powers to be granted, although he could not suppress doubts of its practicability. "But," said he, "a form of government that will provide for the liberty and happiness of the community being the end of our deliberations, all the necessary means for attaining it must, however reluctantly, be submitted to." The clause was * Gilpin, 753, 754, 755, 756; Elliot, 135, 136, 137. Gilpin, 760; Elliot, 139. adopted by nine states, including New York and New Jersey. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, voting against Sherman, divided that state. The clauses in the Virginia plan, giving to the national legis lature the powers necessary to preserve harmony among the states, to negative all state laws contravening, in the opinion of the national legislature, the articles of union, or, as Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania added, “contravening treaties subsisting under the authority of the union," were agreed to without debate or dissent. Madison struggled to confer on the national legislature the right to negative at its discretion any state law whatever, being of the opinion that a negative of which the rightfulness was unquestioned would strip a local law of every pretence to the character of legality, and thus suppress resistance at its inception. On another day, explaining his motives, he said: "A negative on state laws is the mildest expedient that can be devised for enforcing a national decree. Should no such precaution be engrafted, the only remedy would be coercion. The negative would render the use of force unnecessary. In a word, this prerogative of the general government is the great pervading principle that must control the centrifugal tendency of the states, which, without it, will continually fly out of their proper orbits, and destroy the order and harmony of the political system."* But the convention refused to adopt his counsel. Lastly the Virginia plan authorized the exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent state. Madison, accepting the argument of Mason, expressed a doubt of the practicability, the justice, and the equity of applying force to a collective people. "To use force against a state," he said, "is more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would be considered by the party attacked a dissolution of all previous contracts. I therefore hope that a national system, with full power to deal directly with individuals, will be framed, and the resource be thus rendered unnecessary." The clause was postponed.† In this wise and in one day the powers of the legislature *June 8, Gilpin, 822, 823; Elliot, 171. Gilpin, 761; Elliot, 140. |