But, in all events, he would contend that the purse-strings should be in the hands of the representatives of the people.

Mr. WILSON was himself directly opposed to the equality of votes granted to the Senate by its present constitution. At the same time, he wished not to multiply the vices of the system. He did not mean to enlarge on a subject which had been so much canvassed, but would remark, as an insuperable objection against the proposed restriction of money bills to the House of Representatives, that it would be a source of perpetual contentions, where there was no mediator to decide them. The President here could not, like the executive magistrate in England, interpose by a prorogation or dissolution. This restriction had been found pregnant with altercation in every state where the constitution had established it. The House of Representatives will insert other things in money bills, and, by making them conditions of each other, destroy the deliberate liberty of the Senate. He stated the case of a preamble to a money bill sent up by the House of Commons, in the reign of Queen Anne, to the House of Lords, in which the conduct of the misplaced ministry, who were to be impeached before the lords, was condemned, the commons thus extorting a premature judgment without any hearing of the parties to be tried, and the House of Lords being thus reduced to the poor and disgraceful expedient of opposing, to the authority of a law, a protest on their journals against its being drawn into precedent. If there was any thing like Poyning's law in the present case, it was in the attempt to vest the exclusive right of originating in the House of Representatives, and so far he was against it. He should be equally so if the right were to be exclusively vested in the Senate. With regard to the purse-strings, it was to be observed that the purse was to have two strings, one of which was in the hands of the House of Representatives, the other in those of the Senate. Both Houses must concur in untying, and of what importance could it be which untied first, which last? He could not conceive it to be any objection to the Senate's preparing the bills, that they would have leisure for that purpose, and would be in the habits of business. War, commerce, and revenue, were the great objects of the general government. All of them are connected with money. The restriction in favor of the House of Representatives would exclude the Senate from originating any important bills whatever.

Mr. GERRY considered this as a part of the plan that would be much scrutinized. Taxation and representation are strongly associated in the minds of the people; and they will not agree that any but their immediate representatives shall meddle with their purses. In short, the acceptance of the plan will inevitably fail, if the Senate. be not restrained from originating money bills.

Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. All the arguments suppose the right to originate and to tax to be exclusively vested in the Senate. The effects commented on may be produced by a negative only in the Senate. They can tire out the other House, and extort their con

currence in favorite measures, as well by withholding their negative as by adhering to a bill introduced by themselves.

Mr. MADISON thought, if the substitute offered by Mr. Randolph for the original section is to be adopted, it would be proper to allow the Senate at least so to amend as to diminish the sums to be raised. Why should they be restrained from checking the extravagance of the other House? One of the greatest evils incident to republican government was the spirit of contention and faction. The proposed substitute, which in some respects lessened the objections against the section, had a contrary effect with respect to this particular. It laid a foundation for new difficulties and disputes between the two Houses. The word revenue was ambiguous. In many acts, particularly in the regulation of trade, the object would be twofold. The raising of revenue would be one of them. How could it be determined which was the primary or predominant one; or whether it was necessary that revenue should be the sole object, in exclusion even of other incidental effects? When the contest was first opened with Great Britain, their power to regulate trade was admitted, their power to raise revenue rejected. An accurate investigation of the subject afterwards proved that no line could be drawn between the two cases. The words amend or alter form an equal source of doubt and altercation. When an obnoxious paragraph shall be sent down from the Senate to the House of Representatives, it will be called an origination under the name of an amendment. The Senate may actually couch extraneous matter under that name. In these cases, the question will turn on the degree of connection between the matter and object of the bill, and the alteration or amendment offered to it. Can there be a more fruitful source of dispute, or a kind of dispute more difficult to be settled? His apprehensions on this point were not conjectural. Disputes had actually flowed from this source in Virginia, where the Senate can originate no bill. The words, "so as to increase or diminish the sum to be raised," were liable to the same objections. In levying indirect taxes, which it seemed to be understood were to form the principal revenue of the new government, the sum to be raised would be increased or diminished by a variety of collateral circumstances influencing the consumption in general, — the consumption of foreign or of domestic articles, of this or that particular species of articles, and even by the mode of collection, which may be closely connected with the productiveness of a tax. The friends of the section had argued its necessity from the permanency of the Senate. He could not see how this argument applied. The Senate was not more permanent now than in the form it bore in the original propositions of Mr. Randolph, and at the time when no objection whatever was hinted against its originating money bills. Or if, in consequence of a loss of the present question, a proportional vote in the Senate should be reinstated, as has been urged as the indemnification, the permanency of the Senate will remain the same. If the right to originate be vested exclusively in the House of Repre

sentatives, either the Senate must yield, against its judgment, to tha* House, in which case the utility of the check will be lost, or the Senate will be inflexible, and the House of Representatives must adapt its money bill to the views of the Senate; in which case the exclusive right will be of no avail. As to the compromise of which so much had been said, he would make a single observation. There were five states which had opposed the equality of votes in the Senate, viz., Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. As a compensation for the sacrifice extorted from them on this head, the exclusive origination of money bills in the other House had been tendered. Of the five states, a majority, viz., Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina, have uniformly voted against the proposed compensation, on its own merits, as rendering the plan of government still more objectionable. Massachusetts has been divided. North Carolina-alone has set a value on the compensation, and voted on that principle. What obligation, then, can the small states be under to concur, against their judgments, in reinstating the section?

Mr. DICKINSON. Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not reason that discovered the singular and admirable mechanism of the English constitution. It was not reason that discovered, or ever could have discovered, the odd, and, in the eyes of those who are governed by reason, the absurd mode of trial by jury. Accidents probably produced these discoveries, and experience has given a sanction to them. This is, then, our guide. And has not experience verified the utility of restraining money bills to the immediate representatives of the people? Whence the effect may have proceeded, he could not say, whether from the respect with which this privilege inspired the other branches of government, to the House of Commons, or from the turn of thinking it gave to the people at large with regard to their rights; but the effect was visible and could not be doubted. Shall we oppose, to this long experience, the short experience of eleven years which we had ourselves on this subject? As to disputes, they could not be avoided any way. If both Houses should originate, each would have a different bill to which it would be attached, and for which it would contend. He observed, that all the prejudices of the people would be offended by refusing this exclusive privilege to the House of Representatives, and these prejudices should never be disregarded by us when no essential pur pose was to be served. When this plan goes forth, it will be attacked by the popular leaders. Aristocracy will be the watchword, the Shibboleth, among its adversaries. Eight states have inserted in their constitutions the exclusive right of originating money bills in favor of the popular branch of the legislature. Most of them, however, allowed the other branch to amend. This, he thought, would be proper for us to do.

Mr. RANDOLPH regarded this point as of such consequence, that, as he valued the peace of this country, he would press the adop

tion of it. We had numerous and monstrous difficulties to combat.

Surely, we ought not to increase them. When the people behold in the Senate the countenance of an aristocracy, and in the President the form at least of a little monarch, will not their alarms be sufficiently raised, without taking from their immediate representatives a right which has been so long appropriated to them? The executive will have more influence over the Senate than over the House of Representatives. Allow the Senate to originate in this case, and that influence will be sure to mix itself in their deliberations and plans. The declaration of war, he conceived, ought not to be in the Senate, composed of twenty-six men only, but rather in the other House. In the other House ought to be placed the origination of the means of war. As to commercial regulations which may involve revenue, the difficulty may be avoided by restraining the definition to bills for the mere or sole purpose of raising revenue. The Senate will be more likely to be corrupt than the House of Representatives, and should, therefore, have less to do with money matters. His principal object, however, was to prevent popular objections against the plan, and to secure its adoption.

Mr. RUTLEDGE. The friends of this motion are not consistent in their reasoning. They tell us that we ought to be guided by the long experience of Great Britain, and not our own experience of eleven years; and yet they themselves propose to depart from it. The House of Commons not only have the exclusive right of originating, but the Lords are not allowed to alter or amend a money bill. Will not the people say that this restriction is but a mere tub to the whale ? They cannot but see that it is of no real consequence, and will be more likely to be displeased with it, as an attempt to bubble them, than to impute it to a watchfulness over their rights. For his part, he would prefer giving the exclusive right to the Senate, if it was to be given exclusively at all. The Senate, being more conversant in business, and having more leisure, will digest the bills much better, and as they are to have no effect till examined and approved by the House of Representatives, there can be no possible danger. These clauses in the constitutions of the states had been put in through a blind adherence to the British model. If the work was to be done over now, they would be omitted. The experiment in South Carolina, where the Senate cannot originate or amend money bills, has shown that it answers no good purpose, and produces the very bad one of continually dividing and heating the two Houses. Sometimes, indeed, if the matter of the amendment of the Senate is pleasing to the other House, they wink at the encroachment; if it be displeasing, then the Constitution is appealed to. Every session is distracted by altercations on this subject. The practice, now becoming frequent, is for the Senate not to make formal amendments, but to send down a schedule of the alterations which will procure the bill their assent.

Mr. CARROLL. The most ingenious men in Maryland are puzzled to define the case of money bills, or explain the constitution on that point, though it seemed to be worded with all possible plainness and precision. It is a source of continual difficulty and squabble between the two Houses.

Mr. M'HENRY mentioned an instance of extraordinary subterfuge, to get rid of the apparent force of the constitution.

On the question on the first part of the motion, as to the exclusive originating of money bills in the House of Representatives,

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, (Mr. Blair and Mr. Madison, no; Mr. Randolph, Col. Mason, and Gen. Washington,* ay ;) North Carolina, ay, 4; Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 7. On the question on originating by the House of Representatives, and amending by the Senate, as reported, article 4, sect. 5,

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, (in the printed Journal, Virginia, no,) North Carolina, ay, 4; Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary land, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 7.

On the question on the last clause of article 4, sect. 5, viz., "No money shall be drawn from the public treasury but in pursuance of appropriations that shall originate in the House of Representatives,”

it passed in the negative,

Massachusetts, ay, 1; New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 10.206 Adjourned.

TUESDAY, August 14.

Article 6, sect. 9, was taken up.

In Convention. Mr. PINCKNEY argued that the making the members ineligible to offices was degrading to them, and the more improper, as their election into the legislature implied that they had the confidence of the people; that it was inconvenient, because the Senate might be supposed to contain the fittest men. He hoped to see that body become a school of public ministers, a nursery of statesmen. That it was impolitic, because the legislature would cease to be a magnet to the first talents and abilities. He moved to postpone the section, in order to take up the following proposition, viz. :

"The members of each House shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States, for which they, or any others for their benefit, receive any salary, fees, or emoluments of any kind; and the acceptance of such office shall vacate their seats respectively."

Gen. MIFFLIN seconded the motion.

Col. MASON ironically proposed to strike out the whole section, as a more effectual expedient for encouraging that exotic corruption which might not otherwise thrive so well in the American soil; for completing that aristocracy which was probably in the contemplation

He disapproved, and, till now, voted against the exclusive privilege. He gave up his judgment, he said, because it was not of very material weight with him, and was made an essential point with others, who, if disappointed, might be less cordial in other points of real weight.