foreign powers, against the influence of the larger members of the confederacy, and against the dangers to be apprehended from their own governments.

Let each State, said Mr. Madison, depend on itself for its security, in a position of independence of the Union, and let apprehensions arise of dangers from distant powers, or from neighboring States, and from their present languishing condition, all the States, large as well as small, would be transformed into vigorous and high-toned governments, with an energy fatal to liberty and peace. The weakness and jealousy of the smaller States would quickly introduce some regular military force, against sudden danger from their powerful neighbors; the example would be followed, would soon become universal, and the means of defence against external danger would become the instruments of tyranny at home. These consequences were to be apprehended, whether the States should run into a total separation from each other, or into partial confederacies. Either event would be truly deplorable, and those who might be accessory to either could never be forgiven by their country, or by themselves.'

To these consequences of a dissolution of the Union, Hamilton added another, equally serious. Alliances, he declared, must be formed with different rival and hostile nations of Europe, who would seek to make us parties to their own quarrels. The representatives of foreign nations having American dominions betrayed the utmost anxiety about the

1 Madison, Elliot, V. 256.

result of that meeting of the States. It had been said that respectability in the eyes of Europe was not the object at which we were to aim; that the proper design of republican government was domestic tranquillity and happiness. This was an ideal distinction. No government could give us tranquillity and happiness at home, which did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad. This was the critical moment for forming such a government. We should run every risk in trusting to future amendments. As yet, we retain the habits of union. We are weak, and sensible of our weakness. Henceforward the motives would become feeble and the difficulties greater. It was a miracle that they were here, exercising their tranquil and free deliberations on the subject. It would be madness to trust to future miracles.1

But these warnings were of no avail against the settled determination of those who saw greater dangers in the establishment of a government which was in their view to approximate the condition of the States to that of counties in a single State. The principle of a proportionate representation of the populations of the State, was just and necessary; but it was now leading to the extreme of an entire separation, because it was carried to the extreme of a full application to every part of the government. In like manner, there was an equally urgent necessity for some provision which should receive the States in their political capacity, and on a footing of 1 Madison, Elliot, V. 258.

equality, as constituent parts of the system. But this principle was now forcing the majority into the alternative of a partial confederacy, or of none at all, because it was insisted that the government must be exclusively founded on it. Neither party was ready to adopt the suggestion that the two ideas, instead of being opposed, ought to be combined, so that in one branch the people should be represented, and in the other the States. The consequence was that the proportionate rule of suffrage for the first branch was established by a majority of one State only; and the Convention passed on, with a fixed and formidable minority wholly dissatisfied, to consider what rule should be applied to the Senate.

2

1

The objects of a Senate were readily apprehended. They were, in the first place, that there might be a second chamber, with a concurrent authority in the enactment of laws; secondly, that a greater degree of stability and wisdom might reside in its deliberations, than would be likely to be found in the other branch of the legislative department; and, thirdly, that there might be some diversity of interest between the two bodies. These objects were to be attained by providing for the Senate a distinct and separate basis of its own. If such a basis is found among the individuals composing a political

1 It was made at this stage by Dr. Johnson.

2 The States opposed to an equality of suffrage in the first branch were Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina,

South Carolina, and Georgia, 6; those in favor of it were Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. The vote of Maryland was divided.

society, it must consist of the distinctions among them either in respect to social rank or in respect to property. With regard to the first, the absence of all distinctions of rank rendered it impossible to assimilate the Senate of the United States to the aristocratic bodies which were found in other governments possessed of two legislative chambers. Property, as held by individuals, might have been assumed as the basis of a distinct representation, if the laws and customs of the different States had generally admitted of its possession in large masses through successive generations. But they did not admit of it. The general distribution and diffusion of property was the rule; its lineal transmission from the father to the eldest son was the exception. Had the Senate been founded upon property, it must have been upon the ratio of wealth as between the different States, in the same manner in which the senatorial representation of counties was arranged under the first constitution of Massachusetts.1 was very soon settled and conceded, that the States, as political societies, must be preserved; and if they were to be represented as corporations, or as so many separate aggregates of individuals, they must be received into the representation on an equal footing, or according to their relative weight. An inquiry into their relative wealth must have involved the question, as to five of them at least, whether their slaves were to be counted as part of that wealth. No satisfactory decision of this naked question could have

1 Mr. Baldwin of Georgia suggested this model.

It

been had; and it is to be considered among the most fortunate of the circumstances attending the formation of the Constitution, that this question was not solved, with a view of founding the Senate upon the relative wealth of the States.

Two courses only remained. The basis of representation in the Senate must either be found in the numbers of people inhabiting the States, creating an unequal representation, or the people of each State, regarded as one, and as equal with the people of every other State, must be represented by the same number of voices and votes. The former was the plan insisted on by the friends and advocates of the "national" system; the latter was the great object on which the minority now rallied all their strength.

The debate was not long protracted; but it was marked with an energy, a firmness, and a warmth, on both sides, which reveal the nature of the peril then hanging over the unformed institutions, whose existence now blesses the people of America. As the delegations of the States approached the decision of this critical question, the result of a separation became apparent, and with it phantoms of coming dissension and strife, of foreign alliances and adverse combinations, loomed in the future. Reason and argument became powerless to persuade. Patriotism, for a moment, lost its sway over men who would at any time have died for their common country. Not mutterings only, but threats even were heard of an appeal to some foreign ally, by the smaller States, if the larger ones should dare to dis