be removed if a law were made necessary. The provision reported by the committee was therefore retained, and it was left in the power of the two houses alone, during a session of Congress, to adjourn to any place, or to any time, on which they might agree.1

Still it was needful that the Constitution should empower the legislature to establish a seat of gov ernment out of the jurisdiction of any of the States, and away from any of their cities. The time might come when this question could be satisfactorily met. The time would certainly come, when the people of the whole Union could see that the dignity, the independence, and the purity of the government would require that it should be under no local influences; when every citizen of the United States, called to take part in the functions of that government, ought to be able to feel that he and his would owe their protection to no power, save that of the Union itself. Some disadvantage, doubtless, might be experienced, in placing the government away from the great centres of commerce. But neither of the principal scats of wealth and refinement was very near to the centre of the Union; and if either of them had been, the necessity for an exclusive local jurisdiction would probably be found, after the adoption of the Constitution, to outweigh all other considerations. Accordingly, when the Constitution was revised for the purpose of supplying the needful provisions omitted

1 Elliot, V. 409, 410. See post, as to the power of the Pres

ident to assemble and adjourn Congress.

in its preparation, it was determined that no peremp tory direction on the subject of a seat of government should be given to the legislature; but that power should be conferred on Congress to exercise an exclusive legislation, in all cases, over such district, not exceeding ten miles square, as might, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States. This provision has made the Congress of the United States the exclusive sovereign of the District of Columbia, which it governs in its capacity of the legislature of the Union. It enabled Washington to found the city which bears his name; towards which, whatever may be the claims of local attachment, every American who can discern the connection between the honor, the renown, and the welfare of his country, and the dignity, convenience, and safety of its government, must turn with affection and pride.

With respect to a regular time of meeting, no instructions had been given to the committee of detail; but they inserted in their draft of the Constitution a clause which required the legislature to assemble on the first Monday of December in every year. There was, however, a great difference of opinion as to the expediency of designating any time in the Constitution, and as to the particular period adopted in the report. But as it was generally agreed that Congress ought to assemble annually, the provision which now stands in the Constitution, which requires annual sessions, and establishes the first Monday in Decem

ber as the time of their commencement, unless a dif ferent day shall be appointed by law, was adopted as a compromise of different views.1

1 Mr. Justice Story has stated in his Commentaries (§ 829), that this clause came into the Constitution in the revised draft, near the close of the Convention, and was silently adopted, without opposition. This

is a mistake. The clause was contained in the draft of the committee of detail, and was modified as stated in the text, on the 7th of August, after a full debate. Elliot, V. 377, 383-385.

CHAPTER X.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF DETAIL, CONTINUED. THE POWERS OF CONGRESS. THE GRAND COMPROMISES OF THE CONSTITUTION RESPECTING COMMERCE, EXPORTS, AND THE SLAVETRADE.

In the examination which has thus far been made of the process of forming the Constitution, the reader will have noticed the absence of any express provisions concerning the regulation of commerce, and the obtaining of revenues. A system of government had been framed, embracing a national legislature, in which the mode of representation alone had been determined with precision. The powers of this legislature had been described only in very general terms. It was to have "the legislative rights vested in Congress by the Confederation," and the power "to legislate in all cases for the general interests of the Union, and also in those to which the States were separately incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation."

It might undoubtedly have been considered that, as the want of a power in the Confederation to make uniform commercial regulations affecting the foreign

and domestic relations of the States was one of the principal causes of the assembling of this Convention, such a power was implied in the terms of the resolution, which had declared the general principles on which the authority of the national legislature ought to be regulated. Still, it remained to be determined what kind of regulation of commerce was required by "the general interests of the Union," or how far the States were incompetent, by their separate legislation, to deal with the interests of commerce so as to promote "the harmony of the United States." In the same way, a power to obtain revenues might be implied on the same general principles. But whether the commercial power foreshadowed in these broad declarations was to be limited or unlimited; whether there were any special objects or interests to which it was not to extend; and whether the revenues of the government were to be derived from imposts laid at pleasure upon imports or exports, or both; whether they might be derived from excises on the manufactures or produce of the country; whether its power of direct taxation was to be exercised under further limitations than those already agreed upon for the apportionment of direct taxes among the States; all these details were as yet entirely unsettled.

Two subjects, one of which might fall within a general commercial power, and the other within a general power to raise revenues, had already been incidentally alluded to, and both were likely to create great embarrassment. General Pinckney had