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at present it shall be in a prescribed ratio-Agreed to-Motion to
amend by striking out the provision for impeaching the Executive
-Disagreed to-Motion to provide that the Electors of the Execu-
tive shall not be members of the National Legislature, nor National
officers, nor eligible to the supreme magistracy-Agreed to.

Seventeenth resolution, providing for future amendments-Agreed to.

Eighteenth resolution, requiring the oath of State officers to sup-

port the Constitution-Agreed to.

Nineteenth resolution, requiring the ratification of the Constitu
tion by State Conventions-Motion to amend by providing for its
reference to the State Legislatures-Disagreed to-Motion to a
second Federal Convention-Not seconded.

The eighth resolution, relative to the suffrage in the second
branch, resumed-Motion to amend so as to provide that the rep-
resentation consist of two members from each State, who shall
vote per capita-Agreed to.

DEBATES

IN THE

CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATION,

FROM

FEBRUARY 19TH, TILL APRIL 25TH, 1787.

DEBATES

IN THE

CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATION,

FROM FEBRUARY 19TH TILL APRIL 25TH, 1787.

IN CONGRESS, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1787.*

Mr. PINCKNEY, in support of his motion entered on the Journal, for stopping the enlistment of troops, argued that he had reason to suppose the insurrection in Massachusetts, the real, though not ostensible object of this measure, to be already crushed; that the requisition of five hundred thousand dollars for supporting the troops had been complied with by one State only, viz. Virginia, and that but in part; that it would be absurd to proceed in the raising of men who could neither be paid, clothed nor fed, and that such a folly was the more to be shunned, as the consequences could not be foreseen, of embodying and arming men under circumstances which would be more likely to render them the terror than the support of the Government. We had, he observed, been so lucky in one instance-meaning the disbanding of the army on the peace-as to get rid of an armed force without satisfying their just claims; but that it would not be prudent to hazard the repetition of the experiment.

Mr. KING made a moving appeal to the feelings of

* From 1783 till this period Mr. Madison was not a member.

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