the commissions given by each of the states which adopted the recommendation clearly implied that their delegates were to meet and act with the delegations of such other states as might see fit to be represented. The communication of the minority party in Rhode Island was received and read, and the interests of that state were attended to throughout the proceedings.

We are now carefully to observe the position of the states when thus assembled in Convention. Their meeting was purely voluntary; they met as equals; and they were sovereign political communities, whom no power could rightfully coerce into a change of their condition, and with whom such a change must be the result of their own free and intelligent choice, governed by no other than the force of circumstances. That they were independent of foreign control was ascertained by the Declaration of Independence, by the war, and by the Treaty of Peace. That they were independent of each other, except so far as they had made certain mutual stipulations in the Articles of Confederation, was the necessary result of the events which had made the people of each state its rightful and exclusive sovereigns. We must recur, therefore, to the Articles of Confederation for the purpose of determining the nature of the position in which the states now stood.

When the states, in 1781, entered into the Confederacy then established, they reserved their freedom, sovereignty, and independence, and every jurisdiction, power, and right not expressly delegated to the United States. By the provisions of the federal compact these separate and sovereign communities committed to a general council the management of certain interests common to them all; in that council they were represented equally, each state having one vote; but as neither the powers conferred upon that body, nor the restraints imposed by the states upon themselves, were to be enforced by any agreed sanctions, the parties to the compact were left to a voluntary performance of their stipulations. Still, there were certain powers which the states agreed should be exercised by the United States in Congress assembled, and certain duties towards the Confederacy which they agreed to discharge; and therefore, so far as authority and jurisdiction had been conferred upon the United States, so far they had been surrendered by the states. The peculiarity of the case was, that the

powers surrendered were ineffectual for the want of appropriate means of coercion.

These powers the states did not propose to recall. The Union was unbroken, though feeble, and trembling on the verge of dissolution. The purpose of all was to strengthen and secure its powers, to add somewhat to their number, and to render the whole efficient and operative by providing some form of direct and compulsory authority. For this end, as members of an existing confederacy, in possession of all the powers not previously delegated to the Union, the states had assembled upon the same equality, and under the same form of representation, with which they had always acted in the Congress.

As the states had conferred certain powers upon the Confederation, so it was equally competent to them to enlarge and add to those powers. They had formed state governments, and established written constitutions. But the people of the states, and not their governments, held the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power. They had created, and they could modify or destroy; they could withdraw the powers conferred upon one class of agents, and bestow them upon another class. What was wanted was the discovery of some mode of proceeding which, by involving the consent of the state governments, would avoid the appearance and the reality of revolution, and make the contemplated changes consist with the American idea of constitutional action.

Here also it seems proper to state the reasons why the process of framing the Constitution is so important as to demand a careful exhibition of the proceedings of those to whom this great undertaking was intrusted.

The Convention had confessedly no power to enact or establish anything. It was a representative body, clothed with authority to agree upon a system of government to be recommended to the adoption of their constituents. The constituents were twelve of the thirteen states of the Confederacy, each having an equal voice and vote in the proceedings; but neither the assent nor the dissent of a state, in the Convention, to the whole system, or to any part of it, bound the people of that state to receive or to reject it when it should come before them. Still, the results of the various determinations of a majority of the states in this body; the purposes of particular provisions which those results clearly disclose;

the relations which they evince between the different parts of the system--are all of the utmost importance in determining the sense in which the whole ultimately came before the enacting authority for approval or rejection. If, for example, a majority of the states came to a very early determination that the principle of the government should no longer be that of an exclusive representation of states, but should include a representation of the people of the different states in some fair and equitable ratio; if they adhered to this throughout their deliberations, and adjusted everything with reference to it; and if, when they finally provided for a mode of establishing the new system, they submitted it directly to the people of each state to declare whether they would be so represented, it is manifest that these results of their action have much to do with the inquiry, What is the true nature of the present government of the United States?

Every student of the proceedings and discussions in the national Convention should, however, be careful not to extend this principle of general interpretation to the views, opinions, or arguments expressed or employed by individuals in that assembly. The line of argument or illustration adopted by different members may be more or less important, as tending to explain the scope or purpose of a particular decision arrived at by a vote of the Convention; and occasionally, as will be seen in reference to the arrangements which were finally entered into as mutual concessions or compromises between different interests, the discussions will be found to be of great significance and importance. But it is, after all, to the results themselves, and to the principles involved in the various decisions of the Convention, as indicated by the votes taken, that we are to look for the landmarks that are to guide our inquiries into the fundamental changes, improvements, and additions proposed by the Convention to the country, and afterwards adopted by the people of the states.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGISLATIVE POWER.- BASIS OF REPRESENTATION, AND RULE OF SUFFRAGE.-POWERS OF LEGISLATION.

THE Convention having been organized, Governor Randolph of Virginia' submitted a series of resolutions, embracing the principal changes that ought to be proposed in the structure of the federal system.

Mr. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina also submitted a plan of government, which, with Governor Randolph's resolutions, was referred to a committee of the whole. It is not necessary here to state the details of these several systems; for although that introduced by Randolph gave a direction to the deliberations of the committee, the results arrived at were in some respects materially different.

The first distinct departure that was made from the principles of the Confederation was involved in one of the propositions brought forward by Governor Randolph, "that a NATIONAL government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary ;" and as this proposition was affirmed in the committee by a vote of six states, it is important to understand the sense in which it was understood by them."

Most of the framers of the Constitution seem to have considered that a compact between sovereign states, which rested for its efficacy on the good faith of the parties, and had no other compulsory operation than a resort to arms against a delinquent member, was a "federal" government. This was the principle of the Confederation. At this early stage of their deliberations, the idea which

1 Edmund Randolph. See ante, p. 310.

* Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, ay, 6; Connecticut, no, 1; New York divided (Colonel Hamilton ay, Mr. Yates no). Madison, Elliot, V. 132, 134.

was intended by those who favored a change of that principle, when they spoke of a "national" government, was one that would be a supreme power with respect to certain national objects committed to it, and that would have some kind of direct compulsory action upon individuals. This distinction was understood by all to be real and important. It led directly to the question of the powers of the Convention, and formed the early line of division between those who desired to adhere to the existing system, and those who aimed at a radical change. The former admitted the necessity for a more effective government, and supposed that the Confederation could be made so by distributing its powers into the three great departments of a legislative, executive, and judiciary; but they did not suggest any mode by which those powers could be made supreme over the authority of the separate states. The latter contended that there could be no such thing as government unless it were a supreme power, and that there could be but one supreme power over the same subjects in the same community; that supreme power could not, from the nature of things, act on the states collectively, in the usual and peaceful mode in which the operations of government ought to be conducted, but that it must be able to reach individuals; and that, as the Confederation could not operate in this way, the distribution of its powers into distinct departments would be no improvement upon the present condition of things.

But when the distinction between a national and a federal government had been so far developed, the subject was still left in a great degree vague and indeterminate. What was to mark this distinction as real, and give it practical effect? By what means was the government, which was now, as all admitted, a mere federal league between sovereign states, to become, in any just sense, national? The idea of a nation implies the existence of a people united in their political rights, and possessed of the same political interests. A national government must be one that exercises the political powers, and protects the political interests of such a people. But, hitherto, the people of the United States had been divided into distinct sovereignties; and although by the Articles of Confederation some portion of the sovereign power of each of the separate states had been vested in a general government, that government had been found inefficient, and incapable