of the strongest advocates for a national government, it became apparent to a large part of the assembly, that to exclude those governments from all agency in the election of both branches of the national legislature would be inexpedient. It would obviously have been theoretically correct to have given the election of both the Senate and the House to the people of the States, especially when it was intended to adhere to the principle of a proportionate representation of the people of the States in both branches.' But the necessity for providing some means by which the States, as States, might defend themselves against encroachments of the national government, made it apparent that they must become, in the election, a constituent part of the system. No mode of doing this presented itself, except to give the State legislatures the appointment of the less numerous branch of the national legislature, a provision which was finally adopted in the committee by the unanimous vote of the States.

2

The results thus reached had settled for the present the very important fact, that the people of the States were to be represented in both branches of the legislature; that for the one they were to elect their representatives directly, and for the other they were to be elected by the legislature of the State.

But when it had been ascertained by whom the members of the two branches were to be elected,

1 Mr. Wilson was in favor of 2 Madison, Elliot, V. 170. this plan, and Mr. Madison seems

there remained to be determined the decisive question, which was to mark still more effectively the distinction between a purely national and a purely federal government, namely, the rule of suffrage, or the ratio of representation in the national legisla

ture.

The rule of suffrage adopted in the first Continental Congress was, as we have seen, the result of necessity; for it was impossible to ascertain the relative importance of each Colony; and, moreover, that Congress was in fact an assembly of committees of the different Colonies, called together to deliberate in what mode they could aid each other in obtaining a redress of their several grievances from Parliament and the Crown. But while, from the necessity of the case, they assigned to each Colony one vote in the Congress, they looked forward to the time when the relative wealth or population of the Colonies must regulate their suffrage in any future system of continental legislation. The character of the government formed by the Articles of Confederation had operated to postpone the arrival of this period; because it was in the very nature of that system that each State should have an equal voice with every other. This system was the result of the formation of the State governments, each of which had become the present depositary of the political powers of an independent people.

But if this system were to be changed, if the

people of the States were to be represented in each branch of the national legislature, some ratio of representation must be adopted, or the idea of connecting them as a nation with the government that was to be instituted must be abandoned. It was obviously for the interest of the larger States, such. as Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, then the three leading States in point of population, to have a proportionate representation of their whole inhabitants, without reference to age, sex, or condition. On the other hand, it was for the interest of the smaller States to insist on an equality of votes in the national legislature, or at least on the adoption of a ratio that would exclude some portions of the population of the great States. Some of the lesser States were exceedingly strenuous in their efforts to accomplish these objects, and more than once, in the course of the proceedings, declared their purpose to form a union on no other basis.

In this posture of things the alternatives were, either to form no union at all, or only to form one between the large States willing to unite on the basis of proportionate representation; or to abolish the State governments, and throw the whole into one mass; or to leave the distinctions and boundaries between the different States, and adopt some equitable ratio of suffrage, as between the people of the several States, in the national legislature. The latter course was adopted in the committee, as to the first branch, by a vote of seven States in the

affirmative, against three in the negative, one being divided.1

The question was then to be determined, by what ratio the representation of the different States should be regulated; and here again any one of several expedients might be adopted. The basis of representation might be made to consist of the whole number of voters, or those on whom the States had conferred the elective franchise; or it might be confined to the white inhabitants, excluding all other races; or it might include all the free inhabitants of every race, excluding only the slaves; or it might embrace the whole population of each State. Some examination of each of these plans will illustrate the difficulties which had to be encountered.

To have adopted the number of legal voters of the States as the ratio of representation in the national legislature would have been to adopt a system in which there were great existing inequalities. The elective franchise had been conferred in the different States upon very different principles; it was very broad in some of the States, and much narrower in others, according to their peculiar policy and manners. These inequalities could scarcely have been removed; for the right of suffrage in some of the States was more or less connected with their systems of descent and distribution of property, and those systems could not readily be changed, so

1 Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,

ay, 7; New York, New Jersey, Delaware, no, 3; Maryland, divided.

as to adapt the condition of society to the new interest of representation and influence in the general government. This plan was, therefore, out of the question.

It was nearly as impracticable, also, to confine the basis of representation to the white inhabitants of the States. Some of the States such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Pennsylvania, in which slavery was already, or was ultimately to become, extinct, and Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, where slavery was likely to remain — had large numbers of free blacks. These inhabitants, who were regarded as citizens in some of the States, but not in others, were in all a part of their populations, contributing to swell the aggregate of the numbers and wealth of the State, and thus to raise it in the scale of relative rank. Their personal consequence, or social rank, was a thing too remote for special inquiry. A State that contained five or ten thousand of these inhabitants might well say, that, although of a distinct race, they formed an aggregate portion of its free population, too large to be omitted without opening the door to inquiries into the condition and importance of other classes of its free inhabitants. This was the situation of all the Northern States except New Hampshire, as well as of all the Middle and Southern States; and it was especially true of Virginia, which had nearly twice as many free colored persons as any other State in the Union.

It was equally impracticable to form a national