1787] The resolutions reported.

First resolution

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afterwards worked out in detail by Hamilton, and given by him to Madison towards the close of the Convention, as a constitution for the United States which he would have wished the Convention to adopt.

The Virginia and the New Jersey plans of government were now considered together, for one day, in their entirety. Debate ran mostly upon the power of the Convention, under the action of Congress in proposing it, and the commissions of the deputies issued in virtue of Acts of the State legislatures, to depart radically from the Articles of Confederation. But the friends of the Virginia plan pointed out that the action to be taken would only be a proposal; it could compel no one; the people could reject it. And then the dangers of the country were urged as calling upon the Convention to do whatever should be deemed necessary for the public welfare. The States had sent them there, said Hamilton, "to provide for the exigencies of the Union"; to propose any plan not adequate to these exigencies, merely because it was not within their powers, would be to sacrifice the end to the means. The committee voted to adhere to the report already made. The Randolph resolutions as amended and reported were now before the House in Convention, and the serious business of framing the Constitution was taken up and prosecuted to the end. The first result was the adoption of a new series of twenty-three similar resolutions, declaring the sense of the Convention in regard to what the Constitution should contain. These resolutions were then given, on July 26, to a committee of detail, to prepare and report a draft of the Constitution. The draft Constitution was reported by the committee on August 6; on the next day it was taken up by the Convention and considered, as the original Randolph resolutions had been considered, point by point, until September 10. The work was now given to a committee of style and arrangement; the committee reported a revised draft of the Constitution on September 13; and the Convention, having made a few small changes, adopted the Constitution in its final form on the 17th of the same month.

The original Randolph resolutions will now be taken up in order and carried through their various stages until, excepting such as disappear on the way, they find lodgment in the Constitution. All the greater and most of the minor theories of government, advocated or proposed in the Convention, will in course of the survey come before the reader.

(1) "NATIONAL" GOVERNMENT

The first of the Randolph resolutions proposed that the Articles of Confederation ought to be so corrected and enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by them, namely, common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare. This resolution was postponed (and not

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"National" government

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called up again), to consider one declaring that a national government ought to be established, consisting of supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. The committee readily adopted the resolution, on May 30; six States voting for it, one, Connecticut, against it, and one, New York, being divided.

The resolution, thus adopted by the committee of the whole House, came before the Convention on June 19. The debate, turning on the word “national," was opened by Wilson in favour of the resolution. He observed that, according to the meaning which he attached to the words "national government," the proposed government would not swallow up the State governments, as some of the delegates seemed to wish. He was strongly in favour of preserving the States. Contrary to what he had understood to be Hamilton's opinion, he thought that the States might not only subsist, but subsist on friendly terms with the national government. The States were necessary for purposes which the national government could not reach; all large governments must be divided into smaller jurisdictions.

Hamilton, who also favoured the resolution, said that he had been misunderstood. He would do away with the States in the sense only of drawing no boundary between the national and the State legislatures; the former must therefore have indefinite authority. If it were limited at all, the States would gradually subvert it. Even as corporations, some of them would be formidable; as States, he thought that they ought to be abolished. He admitted the need of them as subordinate jurisdictions.

King conceived that the terms "States," "sovereignty," "national," and "federal" had been inaccurately used. The States were not sovereign in the sense contended for by some. They could not make war or peace, or alliances or treaties. They could not speak or listen to foreign sovereigns; they could not of themselves raise troops or equip vessels for war. If a union of the States comprised a confederation, it comprised also consolidation. Union of the States was a union of the men composing them; whence a national character. Congress (of the Confederacy) could act alone, without the States; it could act against instructions from the States. If Congress declared war, war was de jure declared; the States could not change the situation. If then the States retained some portion of sovereignty, they had divested themselves of essential portions of it; if they formed a confederacy in some respects, they formed a nation in others. He doubted whether it were practicable to destroy the States, but thought that much of their power should be taken away.

Martin considered that the separation from Great Britain put the former colonies in a state of nature towards each other; that this would have continued but for the Confederation; that they entered it on terms of equality; and that they were now to amend the articles

1787] Effect of the first resolution.

Second resolution 251

upon the same footing. He could never agree to inequality, putting ten States at the mercy of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

Wilson disputed the contention that independence gained from Great Britain made the colonies independent of each other. The Declaration of Independence spoke of the "United Colonies" as free and independent States, that is, independent unitedly, not individually.

Hamilton was of the same mind; he denied that separation from Great Britain had thrown the colonies into a state of nature. He admitted that they were now met on equality, but could see no inference that the form of government could not be changed. He would however allay the fears of the smaller States by mentioning two facts which would make them secure in a national government, though without their present equality. One was, the local situation of the largest three States; Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania were separated by distance and by all such peculiarities as distinguished one State from another. Hence there need be no fear of combination. The other was, that as there was a gradation in the States, from Virginia down to Delaware, it would always happen that ambitious combinations among a few States might and would be counteracted by defensive combinations of greater extent among the rest. The closer the union of the States, the less the opportunity for the stronger to injure the weaker.

On the next day it was moved by Ellsworth to drop the word "national" and make the resolution read, that "the government of the United States ought to consist" etc., which was agreed to without dissent. So the resolution went to the committee of detail, to be put into form on August 6, in the draft Constitution. There it was divided into Articles I and II; the first declaring the style of the government to be the United States of America, with a declaration prefixed that "We, the people of the States of " etc., finally changed to "We, the people of the United States," ordain etc.; the second, that the government should consist of supreme legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Both, with the declaration, were at once adopted by the Convention. But, without further debate upon the merits of the subject, both articles, reserving the declaration, were ultimately dropped by the final committee on style and arrangement as unnecessary by way of formal provision.

(2) REPRESENTATION

The second of the Randolph resolutions provided "that the rights of suffrage in the national legislature ought to be proportioned to the quotas of contribution, or to the number of free inhabitants, as the one or the other rule might seem best in different cases."

This resolution touched a vital point; it would make a radical

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Second resolution. Representation

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change in the existing order; it would put the States upon the footing of their relative importance. The smaller States, excepting the Carolinas and Georgia, took their stand at once, and maintained it, in one way or another, to the end. The deputies of Delaware, the smallest of the States in importance, were indeed restrained by their commission, in express terms, from consenting to anything whereby the existing equality of the States would be disturbed.

The House in committee took up the particular Randolph resolution on May 30. The language of the resolution was not acceptable to the leaders of the great States, though it ran in the right direction; and various attempts were made to change it, in the way of broadening it. In this state of things Read moved that the resolution be postponed; at the same time reminding the committee that, if any change in the rule of suffrage should be made, it would be the duty of the deputies from Delaware, according to their commission, to retire from the Convention. Gouverneur Morris and Madison strongly asserted the determination of the larger States for proportional representation as fundamental. Whatever reason, said Madison, might have existed for equality under a "federal" union among sovereign States, it must cease when a "national" government was put in its place. In the former case, the Acts of Congress had depended so much on the co-operation of the States, that the States had rights nearly in proportion to their extent and importance; in the latter case, the Acts of the government would take effect without calling upon the States for aid, and there would be the same reason for difference in representation of the States as there was in that of counties of varying importance within particular States.

The motion for postponement was agreed to. On June 9 the subject was brought before the committee again, and debate was opened by Brearly. The same question, he said, had been much agitated in forming the Confederation, and had then been rightly settled; and the smaller States had been saved. He admitted that the substitution of a ratio carried fairness on its face; in reality it was unfair. Virginia would have sixteen votes, Georgia but one, out of a total of ninety members in the legislature. The large States would carry everything before them. In his own State (New Jersey), where large and small counties were united for electing members of the State legislature, the large counties always carried their point. He would not say that it was fair that Georgia should have an equal vote with Virginia; the only remedy was to wipe out existing boundaries and have a new partition into thirteen equal parts.

Patterson considered the proposition for proportional representation as striking at the existence of the smaller States. If they were to be a "nation," State distinctions must be abolished, the whole thrown into hotch-pot and an equal division made; that was the only way to secure the equality desired by the greater States. There was no more reason

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Basis of representation

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that a single great State, contributing much, should have more votes than a small one contributing little, than that a single rich man should have more votes than a poor man had. "If the rateable property of A was to that of B as forty to one, ought A, for that reason, to have forty times as many votes as B?" If A had more to be protected, he ought to contribute more. Give to the large States influence in proportion to their importance, and their ambition would be increased accordingly, and the small States would have everything to fear. New Jersey would never confederate on the plan before the Convention.

Wilson contended that, as all authority was derived from the people, equal numbers ought to have an equal number of representatives, and different numbers should have different numbers of representatives. That principle, under pressure, had been violated in the Confederation. As to the A and B argument, he said that in districts as large as the States, the number of people was the best measure of their wealth; hence whether wealth or numbers formed the ratio, it would be the same. Persons, not property, had been admitted to be the measure of suffrage; were not the citizens of Pennsylvania equal to those of New Jersey? Did it require one hundred and fifty of the former to balance fifty of the latter? They had been told that each State being sovereign, all were equal. So each man was "naturally" a sovereign over himself, and all men therefore were "naturally" equal; but the individual could not retain this "natural" equality when he became a member of civil government; nor could a sovereign State when it became a member of a federal government. On the following day a change took place, which narrowed the question before the committee. Sherman made a suggestion that representation be put upon a different footing in the two branches of the legislature; proportional representation to be the rule in the first branch, equality in the second. And now King and Wilson brought the question to a point, by a motion that the right of suffrage in the first branch should not be according to the Confederation, but according to some equitable ratio; thus eliminating the second branch, for the present, from consideration. The debate proceeded accordingly, though more or less upon the broader ground of the original resolution.

Franklin said that he had at first thought that the members of the national legislature should consider themselves representatives of the whole country rather than of their particular States; in which case the proportion of members from each State would be of small importance. But as that idea had not been accepted, he thought that the number of representatives should bear some proportion to the number to be represented. He did not believe that the greater States would swallow the smaller; they would have nothing to gain by it. A like fear had been expressed when the union of England and Scotland was under consideration. Scotland would be ruined unless she had an equal number of representatives in Parliament with England; but the fear had proved