the Confederation was depending before Congress, Massachusetts was then for inserting the power of emitting paper money among the exclusive powers of Congress. He observed, that the proposed negative would extend to the regulations of the militia - a matter on which the existence of the state might depend. The national legislature, with such a power, may enslave the states. Such an idea as this will never be acceded to. It has never been suggested or conceived among the people. No speculative projector and there are enough of that character among us, in politics as well as in other things-has, in any pamphlet or newspaper, thrown out the idea. The states, too, have different interests, and are ignorant of each other's interests. The negative, therefore, will be abused. New states, too, having separate views from the old states, will never come into the Union. They may even be under some foreign influence. Are they, in such case, to participate in the negative on the will of the other states?

Mr. SHERMAN thought the cases in which the negative ought to be exercised might be defined. He wished the point might not be decided till a trial at least should be made for that purpose.

Mr. WILSON would not say what modifications of the proposed power might be practicable or expedient. But, however novel it might appear, the principle of it, when viewed with a close and steady eye, is right. There is no instance in which the laws say that the individual should be bound in one case, and at liberty to judge whether he will obey or disobey in another. The cases are parallel. Abuses of the power over the individual persons may happen, as well as over the individual states. Federal liberty is to the states what civil liberty is to private individuals; and states are not more unwilling to purchase it, by the necessary concession of their political sovereignty, than the savage is to purchase civil liberty by the surrender of the personal sovereignty which he enjoys in a state of nature. A definition of the cases in which the negative should be exercised is impracticable. A discretion must be left on one side or the other. Will it not be most safely lodged on the side of the national government? Among the first sentiments expressed in the first Congress, one was, that Virginia is no more, that Massachusetts is no more, that Pennsylvania is no more, &c.; we are now one nation of brethren; -we must bury all local interests and distinctions. This language continued for some time. The tables at length began to turn. No sooner were the state governments formed than their jealousy and ambition began to display themselves. Each endeavored to cut a slice from the common loaf, to add to its own morsel; till at length the Confederation became frittered down to the impotent condition in which it now stands. Review the progress of the Articles of Confederation through Congress, and compare the first and last draught of it. To correct its vices is the business of this Convention. One of its vices is the want of an effectual control in the whole over its parts. What danger is there that the whole will unnecessarily sacrifice a part? But reverse the case, and leave the who'e at the mercy of each part,

and will not the general interest be continually sacrificed to local interests?

Mr. DICKINSON deemed it impossible to draw a line between the cases proper, and improper, for the exercise of the negative. We must take our choice of two things. We must either subject the states to the danger of being injured by the power of the national government, or the latter to the danger of being injured by that of the states. He thought the danger greater from the states. To leave the power doubtful would be opening another spring of discord, and he was for shutting as many of them as possible.

Mr. BEDFORD, in answer to his colleague's question, where would be the danger to the states from this power, would refer him to the smallness of his own state, which may be injured at pleasure without redress. It was meant, he found, to strip the small states of their equal right of suffrage. In this case, Delaware would have about one ninetieth for its share in the general councils; whilst Pennsylvania and Virginia would possess one third of the whole. Is there no difference of interests, no rivalship of commerce, of manufactures? Will not these large states crush the small ones, whenever they stand in the way of their ambitious or interested views? This shows the impossibility of adopting such a system as that on the table, or any other founded on a change in the principle of representation. And, after all, if a state does not obey the law of the new system, must not force be resorted to, as the only ultimate remedy, in this as in any other system? It seems as if Pennsylvania and Virginia, by the conduct of their deputies, wished to provide a system in which they would have an enormous and monstrous influence. Besides, how can it be thought that the proposed negative can be exercised? Are the laws of the states to be suspended in the most urgent cases, until they can be sent seven or eight hundred miles, and undergo the deliberation of a body who may be incapable of judging of them? Is the national legislature, too, to sit continually, in order to revise the laws of the states?

Mr. MADISON observed, that the difficulties which had been started were worthy of attention, and ought to be answered before the question was put. The case of laws of urgent necessity must be provided for by some emanation of the power from the national government into each state so far as to give a temporary assent, at least. This was the practice in the royal colonies before the revolution, and would not have been inconvenient if the supreme power of negativing had been faithful to the American interest, and had possessed the necessary information. He supposed that the negative might be very properly lodged in the Senate alone, and that the more numerous and expensive branch, therefore, might not be obliged to sit constantly. He asked Mr. Bedford, what would be the consequence to the small states of a dissolution of the Union, which seemed likely to happen if no effectual substitute was made for the defective system existing; and he did not conceive any effectual system could be

substituted on any other basis than that of a proportional suffrage. If the large states possessed the avarice and ambition with which they were charged, would the small ones in their neighborhood be more secure when all control of a general government was withdrawn?

Mr. BUTLER was vehement against the negative in the proposed extent, as cutting off all hope of equal justice to the distant states. The people there would not, he was sure, give it a hearing.

On the question for extending the negative power to all cases, as proposed by Mr. Pinckney and Mr. Madison,

Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, (Mr. Randolph and Mr. Mason, no; Mr. Blair, Dr. M'Clurg, and Mr. Madison, ay; Gen. Washington not consulted,) ay, 3; Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 7; Delaware, divided, (Mr. Read and Mr. Dickinson, ay; Mr. Bedford and Mr. Basset, no.)98

On motion of Mr. GERRY and Mr. KING, to-morrow was assigned for reconsidering the mode of appointing the national executive; the reconsideration being voted for by all the states except Connecticut and North Carolina.

Mr. PINCKNEY and Mr. RUTLEDGE moved to add to the fourth resolution, agreed to by the committee, the following, viz.: "that the states be divided into three classes; the first class to have three members, the second two, and the third one member, each; that an estimate be taken of the comparative importance of each state at fixed periods, so as to ascertain the number of members they may from time to time be entitled to." The committee then rose, and the House adjourned.

Mr. Luther Martin, from Maryland, took his seat.

SATURDAY, June 9.

In Committee of the Whole. Mr. GERRY, according to previous notice given by him, moved "that the national executive should be elected by the executives of the states, whose proportion of votes should be the same with that allowed to the states in the election of the Senate." If the appointment should be made by the national legislature, it would lessen that independence of the executive which ought to prevail; would give birth to intrigue and corruption between the executive and legislature previous to the election, and to partiality in the executive afterwards to the friends who promoted him. Some other mode, therefore, appeared to him necessary. He proposed that of appointing by the state executives, as most analogous to the principle observed in electing the other branches of the national government: the first branch being chosen by the people of the states, and the second by the legislatures of the states, he did not see any objection against letting the executive be appointed by the executives of the states. He supposed the executives would be most likely to select the fittest men, and that it would be their interest to support the man of their own choice.

Mr. RANDOLPH urged strongly the inexpediency of Mr. Gerry's mode of appointing the national executive. The confidence of the

people would not be secured by it to the national magistrate. The small states would lose all chance of an appointment from within themselves. Bad appointments would be made, the executives of the states being little conversant with characters not within their own small spheres. The state executives, too, notwithstanding their con- } stitutional independence, being in fact dependent on the state legislatures, will generally be guided by the views of the latter, and prefer either favorites within the states, or such as it may be expected will be most partial to the interests of the state. A national executive thus chosen will not be likely to defend with becoming vigilance and firmness the national rights against state encroachments. Vacancies also must happen. How can these be filled? He could not suppose, either, that the executives would feel the interest in supporting the national executive which had been imagined. They will not cherish the great oak which is to reduce them to paltry shrubs.

On the question for referring the appointment of the national executive to the state executives, as proposed by Mr. Gerry,

Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 9; Delaware, divided.99

Mr. PATTERSON moved, that the committee resume the clause relating to the rule of suffrage in the national legislature.

Mr. BREARLY seconds him. He was sorry, he said, that any question on this point was brought into view. It had been much agitated in Congress at the time of forming the Confederation, and was then rightly settled by allowing to each sovereign state an equal

A

Otherwise, the smaller states must have been destroyed instead of being saved. The substitution of a ratio, he admitted, carried fairness on the face of it, but, on a deeper examination, was unfair and unjust. Judging of the disparity of the states by the quota of Congress, Virginia would have sixteen votes, and Georgia but one. like proportion to the others will make the whole number ninety. There will be three large states, and ten small ones. The large states, by which he meant Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, will carry every thing before them. It had been admitted, and was known to him from facts within New Jersey, that where large and small counties were united into a district for electing representatives for the district, the large counties always carried their point, and consequently the large states would do so. Virginia with her sixteen votes will be a solid column indeed, a formidable phalanx. While Georgia, with her solitary vote, and the other little states, will be obliged to throw themselves constantly into the scale of some large one, in order to have any weight at all. He had come to the Convention with a view of being as useful as he could, in giving energy and stability to the federal government. When the proposition for destroying the equality of votes came forward, he was astonished, he was alarmed. Is it fair, then, it will be asked, that Georgia should have an equal vote with Virginia? He would not say it was. What remedy, then? One only that a map of the United States be spread out, that all the

existing boundaries be erased, and that a new partition of the whole be made into thirteen equal parts.

Mr. PATTERSON considered the proposition for a proportional representation as striking at the existence of the lesser states. He would premise, however, to an investigation of this question, some remarks on the nature, structure, and powers of the Convention. The Convention, he said, was formed in pursuance of an act of Congress; that this act was recited in several of the commissions, particularly that of Massachusetts, which he required to be read; that the amendment of the Confederacy was the object of all the laws and commissions on the subject; that the Articles of the Confederation were therefore the proper basis of all the proceedings of the Convention; that we ought to keep within its limits, or we should be charged by our constituents with usurpation; that the people of America were sharpsighted, and not to be deceived. But the commissions under which we acted were not only the measure of our power, they denoted also the sentiments of the states on the subject of our deliberation. The idea of a national government, as contradistinguished from a federal one, never entered into the mind of any of them; and to the public mind we must accommodate ourselves. We have no power to go beyond the federal scheme; and if we had, the people are not ripe for any other. We must follow the people; the people will not follow

us.

The proposition could not be maintained, whether considered in reference to us as a nation, or as a confederacy. A confederacy supposes sovereignty in the members composing it, and sovereignty supposes equality. If we are to be considered as a nation, all state distinctions must be abolished, the whole must be thrown into hotchpot, and when an equal division is made, then there may be fairly an equality of representation. He held up Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as the three large states, and the other ten as small ones; repeating the calculations of Mr. Brearly, as to the disparity of votes which would take place, and affirming that the small states would never agree to it. He said there was no more reason that a great individual state, contributing much, should have more votes than a small one, contributing little, than that a rich individual citizen should have more votes than an indigent one. If the ratable 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? Such a principle would never be admitted; and, if it were admitted, would put B entirely at the mercy of A. As A has more to be protected than B, so he ought to contribute more for the common protection. The same may be said of a large state, which has more to be protected than a small one. Give the large states an influence in proportion to their magnitude, and what will be the consequence? Their ambition will be proportionally increased, and the small states will have every thing to fear. It was once proposed by Galloway, and some others, that America should be represented in the British Parliament, and then be bound by its laws. America could not have been entitled to more than one third of the representatives which would fall to the share of Great Britain: would Amer