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1787]

Suffrage for the Senate

259

States, the number of representatives being declared for the several States proportionately to population, with provision for change in the case of changes of population. This, so far as the principle of proportional representation was concerned, was adopted by the Convention, and was without further difficulty introduced into the Constitution (section 2 of Article I).

The rule of suffrage in the Senate, or second branch of the legislature, was taken up by the Convention on the same day; and the struggle as to equality was renewed. The resolution reported by the committee of the whole House declared in favour of the same rule in the Senate as in the first branch. Ellsworth now moved that the rule in the second branch be the same as that in the Confederation. He did not regret the result of the vote fixing the rule for the first branch; he hoped it would furnish ground of "compromise" for the rule in the second. The Virginia plan was partly national, partly federal; proportional representation was conformable to the national principle, equality to the federal. The former would secure the larger States, the latter the smaller. The larger States would still have an influence which would maintain their superiority. Holland had a prevailing influence in the Dutch confederacy, notwithstanding equality. The small States must have the power to defend themselves; he could not admit there was no danger that the larger States would combine. Combination among the smaller States would be more difficult because they were numerous. Besides, had they not plighted their faith to the existing article of the Confederation touching suffrage? New England, excepting Massachusetts, would not agree to the government proposed by the Randolph resolutions.

Wilson, refusing to be moved by hints of disruption on the part of "twenty-two against ninety of the population," went on to say that the rule fixed for the first branch did not remove the objection to equality in the second. Equality in the Senate would enable the minority to control the majority in all cases. Seven States would control six, though the former had but twenty-four (sic) ninetieths of the population. They were framing a government for men, not for States. On every principle the rule of suffrage should be proportional in both branches of the government. The danger of combination among the larger States was imaginary; rivalry was more likely, as Madison had said. Sometimes monarchy, sometimes aristocracy, had been feared by the other side; if the executive were taken from one of the large States, would not the other two be thrown into the scale with the rest? Whence then the danger of monarchy? Were the people of the three larger States more aristocratic than those of the smaller? How then could a danger of aristocracy arise from them? They talked of States, and forgot what States were composed of. Was a real majority a hotbed of aristocracy? Aristocracy was a government of the minority. Bad governments governed too

260 Arguments from other governments.

Slavery [1787

much or too little. Which of these evils afflicted the United States? It was the latter,—weakness and inefficiency. They had been sent to the Convention to find a remedy; if the motion prevailed, the country would be left fettered as before, with the further mortification of seeing the principle adopted in the first branch defeated in the second.

The argument, said Ellsworth in reply, that the minority would rule the majority, if his own motion prevailed, was unsound. Power was given to the few to save them from destruction by the many. Was the idea novel? He pointed to the British Constitution, to the negative of the House of Lords. No instance of a confederacy without equality had in fact existed. They were razing the foundations when only the roof needed repairs. No salutary measure had ever been lost for want of a majority of the States to favour it. And he appealed again to the House to remember the plighted faith under which each State, great and small, held an equal right of suffrage in the government.

Madison, replying, said that it was a mistake to assert that there was no instance in which confederated States had not equality of suffrage. Passing over the German system, in which the King of Prussia had nine votes, he spoke of the Lycian Confederacy, the members of which had votes according to their importance; a government recommended by Montesquieu as the fittest model of a confederacy. To the appeal to plighted faith, he replied that those who required the keeping of faith should themselves be guiltless. Of all the States, Connecticut was perhaps least able to urge the point; by a recent vote that State had positively refused to comply with requisitions of Congress, and had sent a copy of the vote to that body. It was not enough that proportional voting governed one branch of the legislature; the majority of the States might still injure the majority of the people, by obstructing their wishes and by extorting measures from them. He contended that the division between the States was not between great and small; they were chiefly divided in regard to slavery. The division lay between northern and southern States; and if defensive power was necessary, it should be given accordingly. He had been so impressed with that fact, that he had been seeking a solution of the question before the Convention in that direction. The one which had occurred to him was, that representation in one branch should be according to the number of free inhabitants, and in the other according to the whole number, slaves counted as free citizens. But he would not add new difficulties to the problem.

Signs of willingness to make concession in favour of the smaller States now began to appear; but no one would go far enough. Wilson admitted that there might be trouble with the number of senators, on the Virginia plan. He made this suggestion : let there be one senator to each State for every one hundred thousand inhabitants; States not having that number having still one senator. Franklin proposed a plan drawn from the adjustment of rights in fitting out a ship having

1787]

Equal suffrage lost.

New plan

261

several owners. It was in substance as follows. The legislatures of the States should send an equal number of delegates to the second branch. In questions affecting the States themselves, or the extent of authority over their citizens, there should be equal suffrage; so with appointments to civil office in which the second branch had a part. In fixing salaries, and in providing for public expenses and revenues, the States should have suffrage in proportion to the sums which they severally contributed.

King was alarmed at the willingness to sacrifice the rights of men to the phantom of State sovereignty. He was prepared for any event rather than yield to a vicious principle. He might yield to some such expedient as that suggested by Wilson; he would not listen to a proposal of equality. Madison too was willing to follow Wilson's suggestion, provided that due independence be given to the Senate.

Bedford argued that the Convention should provide against ambition and avarice. The voting in the Convention itself had been dictated by those passions. The large States were seeking to aggrandise themselves at the expense of the small. Georgia was indeed a small State, but was actuated by the prospect of being great; South Carolina was actuated both by present interest and future prospects. So of North Carolina; so of the three great States. Could the small States act from pure disinterestedness? They would be ruined by inequality, whether through combination or through competition of the greater States. The small States would meet the large on no ground but that of the Confederation. They had been told that this was the last chance; he had no fear. The large States dared not dissolve the Confederation; if they did dissolve it, the small would find foreign allies of higher honour and good faith.

Ellsworth's motion for equal suffrage was lost, on July 2, by an equal division; and the debate was continued on the report of the committee in favour of proportional suffrage. But the Convention was soon at a full stop, as Sherman said; unwilling that it should break up, he proposed the appointment of a special committee to devise, if possible, some expedient. The suggestion was adopted.

Three days later this committee brought in a report, founded upon a motion made before it by Franklin, the purport of which was, that all money bills should (as in most of the States) originate in the first branch of the legislature, and that such bills should not be amended in the second, and that in the second branch each State should have an equal vote. Both of these proposals were to be adopted, or neither. The members of the committee had been of different minds; the report was brought forward merely to suggest some ground of accommodation. It was but barely agreed to by those opposed to equality; the other side considered that they had practically gained their point. The concession in regard to money bills was not generally acceptable to the larger States. Experience, Madison said, had proved that such concessions

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If seven States in the Senate wished a bill, they could find someone in the other branch who would set it in motion. And amendments could be handed in privately by the senators to members of the other House. Experience had also shown that such regulations were a source of frequent and obstinate altercation. A like motion, judged on its own merits, had been rejected on a former occasion, for these reasons. He considered that the Convention was reduced to the alternative of departing from justice to conciliate the smaller States and the minority, or of displeasing these by justly gratifying the larger States and the majority. He could not hesitate. It was vain to purchase concord on terms which must bring discord. The Convention ought to adopt a plan which would bear examination; if at first men judged of the system by the Convention, they would at last judge of the Convention by the system.

Gouverneur Morris believed that if they recommended a plan which was reasonable, reasonable minds would embrace it everywhere. The ties of interest, kindred, and common habits were too strong to be broken easily. He was sure of New Jersey. The country at any rate must be united; if persuasion did not unite it, the sword would, and the gallows and the halter would finish the work. He did not like the plan of equality in the Senate; it would cause constant dispute and appeal to the States, and thus undermine the government. Suppose that the delegates from Massachusetts and those from Rhode Island, in the Senate, should disagree, and that the former were outvoted; what would be the result? They would declare that their State would not abide by the decision. State attachments had been the bane of the country; he would have their ideas enlarged. Who could say whether he, much less his children, another year would live in this State or in that?

Comments on the warmth of the debate, with disclaimers and explanations, followed; and then discussion went off upon other parts of the special report, which may be passed over. Two days later (July 7) the question of equality in the Senate, under the special report, was again taken up. Gerry would agree to the report rather than have no accommodation. A government short of a proper national one, if generally acceptable, would be better than a proper government which, if carried out at all, must deal with discontented States. An equal vote in the Senate would, in the opinion of Sherman, be most likely to give to the government the requisite vigour. The small States had more vigour than the large ones; hence the more influence the large States had, the weaker would be the government. If they voted by States in the Senate, equally, there must always be a majority of States on the side of public measures; if they did not, there might be a majority of States against them. The government would find it hard to compel a majority, and would be weaker than ever.

After further remarks by Wilson against yielding, a vote was taken

1787]

Equality adopted.

Adjustment of numbers

263 on the words of the special report, "that in the second branch each State shall have an equal vote," and this part was adopted; six States voting for it and three against, to wit, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Massachusetts and Georgia were divided. One week later, on July 14, the subject was, on the motion of Wilson, reconsidered. He said that had their constituents voted as they had themselves, the vote would have stood as two-thirds to one-third against equality. The state of the case would yet become known; it would appear that this fundamental point had been carried by one-third against two-thirds.

An adjustment was now moved by Charles Pinckney, making the Senate consist of thirty-six members; the two smallest States, Rhode Island and Delaware, having one member each, the largest, Virginia, having five, and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, four members each. Wilson, Madison, and King, from the three large States, favoured the motion, but without abating their belief in proportional suffrage. Gerry opposed the motion; there was no hope, he said, that it would succeed; adjustment must go further in favour of the smaller States. King preferred doing nothing to yielding to equality. The objection to proportional voting in the Senate, drawn from "the terms of the existing compact" in the Confederation, was inapplicable; the rule in the Confederation for apportioning the public burden was fixed; in the proposed government it could not be fixed, because indirect taxation was to be adopted. The objection from danger to the smaller States had little weight with him; the general government could never wish to intrude upon the States; there could be no temptation.

Madison too was still firmly opposed to equal suffrage in the Senate. If the smaller States really wished for a strong government, one that could enforce obedience upon the larger States as well as upon themselves, they were mistaking the means. He reminded them of the consequences of establishing the Confederation upon wrong principles. All the chief parties to it joined at once in fettering the government. It had been said that the government was to be partly federal, partly national. It did not follow that in one branch of the government equal suffrage, based on the equality of the States, should prevail, while in the other proportional suffrage based upon general population, should govern. The true ground for compromise, if there was any, was this: in all cases in which the government is to act upon the people, let the people be represented and the votes be proportional; in all cases in which the government is to act upon the States as such, let the States be represented and the votes be equal. But there was no ground for compromise. He called for a single instance in which the general government was not to operate upon the people individually. The large States would find some way to have an influence in the government proportionate to their importance; if they could not have proportional representation, their co-operation must be voluntary. Even in the Confederation

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