dependence, is in the name of the people. "We, the people of the United States, ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." We observe that the Confederation was "between the States,""the said States hereby severally enter into a firm league." The greater sovereignty of the people was ignored. Now, however, this ultimate popular sovereignty is in the forefront, and, by "ordaining the Constitution for the United States," imposes its will on the separate States as represented by legislatures, and overrides state constitutions and state laws. It thus asserts its overruling authority in the opening clause of the Constitution; it requires all state officers to take oath to support it; and confirms it by the people's ratification as required by its final clause. The alpha and the omega recognize only the people, and not the corporate States, as ordainers of the new Constitution. The words "league" and "compact" disappear, and the principles they represent are annihilated by the people's sovereign will.

The motives for this radical and mighty change in the form of government can be traced in the record of past events. It becomes very apparent as we pursue the course of the debates in the Convention, where its importance was so fully recognized, that the decisions of that body on the issues between

the partisans of the national and of the confederate plans caused the withdrawal of some state sovereignty members and the abstention of some hesitating unionists.

Governor Randolph, in his opening speech recommending the national plan of Virginia, said, "We ought to be one nation." A resolution prepared by Gouverneur Morris was early accepted by six States against one, "that a national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary." And it was avowed that this supremacy meant that in collisions of authority between Union and State the former must prevail. Morris enforced his proposition, saying, "In all communities there must be one supreme power, and one only. A confederacy is a mere compact, resting on the good faith of the parties. A national, supreme government must have a complete and compulsive operation." Mason, of Virginia, struck the vital chord of our system when he said, "In the nature of things punishment cannot be executed on the States collectively; therefore such a government is necessary as can operate directly on individuals." Lansing, of New York, who afterwards seceded, moved to give States an equality of power even in the first branch of the national legislature, and said thereupon, "The sense of the Convention on this point will determine

the question of a federal or national government." His motion was defeated, obtaining but four votes out of eleven, establishing it as the people's government in distinction from that of the States.

VI

THE DEBATE ON THE LEGISLATIVE
ORGANIZATION

THERE was a general conviction that the legislature for the Union should be composed of two branches. Pennsylvania appeared to have doubts, and her delegation alone interrupted at the time the unanimity of voices on this vote; but later they also gave their adhesion.

When the next question came, how these two branches should be chosen, the debate became interesting and much more obstinate. Were the States to retain their equality of suffrage as in the Confederacy? Should all the States have votes proportioned to their population? Should this proportion prevail in both branches of the new legislature? Should the members of both Houses be appointed by the legislatures of States or by the people? Great diversity of opinion appeared on all these points, and particularly between the representatives of large and of small States.

Hamilton demanded that suffrage in the national legislature should be proportioned to the number of free inhabitants. Madison, inclined to feel his way more cautiously, offered

a resolution which simply declared against equality of suffrage as provided by the Articles of Confederation, and for an equitable ratio of representation instead. He argued that, while "equality of suffrage may be reasonable in a federal union of sovereign States, it can find no place in a national government." This question was vital to the delegation from Delaware, who came specifically instructed to insist on the equality of state suffrage. The larger States felt sharply the injustice which existed for them in any government where a small population, small revenues, and small industrial interests should exert an equal influence over legislation with those of vastly greater extent. The small States, on the other hand, feared to be reduced to a nullity, with all their separate interests, if they did not obtain for the future the same equality which had existed in the past. The debate then took a wider range, and brought into collision the nationalists and the federalists on the question whether the members of the proposed Congress of two branches should be elected by the people, or appointed by the legislatures of the respective States.

The advocates of state sovereignty demanded that the state government should furnish the agents necessary to the execution of the affairs of the new Union. They still