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right, and they will become inattentive to your welfare The wealthy will ever exist; and you never can be safe unless you gratify them, as a body, in the pursuit of honor and profit. Prevent them by positive institutions, and they will proceed in some left-handed way. A son may want a place -you mean to prevent him from promotion. They are not to be paid for their services; they will in some way pay themselves; nor is it in your power to prevent it. It is good policy that men of property be collected in one body, to give them one common influence in your government. Let vacancies be filled up, as they happen, by the executive. Besides, it is of little consequence, on this plan, whether the states are equally represented or not. If the state governments have the division of many of the loaves and fishes, and the general government few, it cannot exist. This Senate would be one of the baubles of the general government. If you choose them for seven years, whether chosen by the people or the states, whether by equal suffrage or in any other proportion, how will they be a check? They will still have local and state prejudices. A government by compact is no government at all. You may as well go back to your congressional federal government, where, in the character of ambassadors, they may form treaties for each state.

I avow myself the advocate of a strong government; still I admit that the influence of the rich must be guarded; and a pure democracy is equally oppressive to the lower orders of the community. This remark is founded on the experience of history. We are a commercial people, and as such will be obliged to engage in European politics. Local government cannot apply to the general government. These latter remarks I throw out only for the consideration of the committee who are to be appointed.

Gov. RANDOLPH. I am in favor of appointing a committee; but, considering the warmth exhibited in debate on Saturday, I have, I confess, no great hopes that any good will arise from it. Cannot a remedy be devised? If there is danger to the lesser states, from an unequal representation in the second branch, may not a check be found in the appointment of one executive, by electing him by an equality of state votes? He must have the right of interposing between the two branches, and this might give a reasonable security to the smaller states. Not one of the lesser states

can exist by itself; and a dissolution of the Confederation, I confess, would produce contentions as well in the larger as in the smaller states. The principle of self-preservation induces me to seek for a government that will be stable and

secure.

Mr. STRONG moved to refer the 7th resolve to the same committee.

Mr. WILSON. I do not approve of the motion for a committee. I also object to the mode of its appointmenta small committee is the best.

Mr. LANSING. I shall not oppose the appointment, but I expect no good from it.

Mr. MADISON. I have observed that committees only delay business; and if you appoint one from each state, we shall have in it the whole force of state prejudices. The great difficulty is to conquer former opinions. The motion of the gentleman from South Carolina can be as well decided here as in committee.

Mr. GERRY. The world at large expect something from us. If we do nothing, it appears to me we must have war and confusion; for the old Confederation would be at an end. Let us see if no concession can be made. Accommodation is absolutely necessary, and defects may be amended by a future convention.

The motion was then put to appoint a committee on the 8th resolve, and so much of the 7th as was not agreed to. Carried 9 states against 2.

And, by ballot, the following members were appointed:

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The Convention then adjourned to Thursday, the 5th of

July.

TUESDAY, July 3, 1787.

The grand committee met. Mr. Gerry was chosen chair

man.

The committee proceeded to consider in what manner they should discharge the business with which they were intrusted. By the proceedings in the Convention, they were

so equally divided on the important question of representation in the two branches, that the idea of a conciliatory adjustment must have been in contemplation of the house in the appointment of this committee. But still, how to effect this salutary purpose was the question. Many of the members, impressed with the utility of a general government, connected with it the indispensable necessity of a representation from the states according to their numbers and wealth; while others, equally tenacious of the rights of the states, would admit of no other representation but such as was strictly federal, or, in other words, equality of suffrage. This brought on a discussion of the principles on which the house had divided, and a lengthy recapitulation of the arguments advanced in the house in support of these opposite propositions. As I had not openly explained my sentiments on any former occasion on this question, but constantly, in giving my vote, showed my attachment to the national attachment to the national government on federal principles, I took this occasion to explain my motives.

These remarks gave rise to a motion of Dr. Franklin, which, after some modification, was agreed to, and made the basis of the following report of the committee:—

"The committee to whom was referred the 8th resolution reported from the committee of the whole house, and so much of the 7th as had not been decided on, submit the following report:

"That the subsequent propositions be recommended to the Convention, on condition that both shall be generally adopted.

"That, in the first branch of the legislature, each of the states now in the Union be allowed one member for every 40,000 inhabitants of the description reported in the 7th resolution of the committee of the whole house. That each state, not containing that number, shall be allowed one member.

"That bills for raising or apportioning money, and for fixing salaries of the officers of government of the United States, shall originate in the first branch of the legislature, and shall not be altered or amended by the second branch; and that no money shall be drawn from the public treasury but in pursuance of appropriations to be originated in the first branch. That, in the second branch of the legislature, each state shall have an equal vote."

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THURSDAY, July 5, 1787.

Met pursuant to adjournment. The report of the committee was read.

Mr. GORHAM. I call for an explanation of the principles on which it is grounded.

Mr. GERRY, the chairman, explained the principles.

Mr. MARTIN. The one representation is proposed as an expedient for the adoption of the other.

Mr. WILSON. The committee have exceeded their

powers.

Mr. MARTIN proposed to take the question on the whole of the report.

Mr. WILSON. I do not choose to take a leap in the dark. I have a right to call for a division of the question on each distinct proposition.

Mr. MADISON. I restrain myself from animadverting on the report, from the respect I bear to the members of the committee. I must confess I see nothing of concession in it.

The originating money bills is no concession on the part of the smaller states; for, if seven states in the second branch should want such a bill, their interest in the first branch will prevail to bring it forward. It is nothing more than a nominal privilege.

The second branch, small in number, and well connected, will ever prevail. The power of regulating trade, imposts, treaties, &c., are more essential to the community than raising money, and no provision is made for those in the report. We are driven to an unhappy dilemma. Two thirds of the inhabitants of the Union are to please the remaining one third by sacrificing their essential rights.

When we satisfy the majority of the people in securing their rights, we have nothing to fear; in any other way, every thing. The smaller states, I hope, will at last see their true and real interest; and I hope that the warmth of the gentleman from Delaware will never induce him to yield to his own suggestion of seeking for foreign aid.

[At this period (July 5, 1787) Messrs. Yates and Lansing left the Convention, and the remainder of the session was employed to complete the Constitution, on the principles already adopted.]

LETTER FROM THE HON. ROBERT YATES AND THE HON. JOHN LANSING, JUN., ESQUIRES,

TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK;

CONTAINING THEIR REASONS FOR NOT SUBSCRIBING
TO THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

SIR: We do ourselves the honor to advise your excellency that, in pursuance to concurrent resolutions of the honorable Senate and Assembly, we have, together with Mr. Hamilton, attended the Convention ap pointed for revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting amendments to the same.

It is with the sincerest concern we observe that, in the prosecution of the important objects of our mission, we have been reduced to the disagreeable alternative of either exceeding the powers delegated to us, and giving assent to measures which we conceive destructive to the political happiness of the citizens of the United States, or opposing our opinions to that of a body of respectable men, to whom those citizens had given the most unequivocal proofs of confidence. Thus circumstanced, under these impressions, to have hesitated would have been to be culpable. We therefore gave the principles of the Constitution, which has received the sanction of a majority of the Convention, our decided and unreserved dissent; but we must candidly confess that we should have been equally opposed to any system, however modified, which had in object the consolidation of the United States into one government.

We beg leave, briefly, to state some cogent reasons, which, among others, influenced us to decide against a consolidation of the states. These are reducible into two heads:

1st. The limited and well-defined powers under which we acted, and which could not, on any possible construction, embrace an idea of such magnitude as to assent to a general Constitution, in subversion of that of the state.

2d. A conviction of the impracticability of establishing a general government, pervading every part of the United States, and extending essential benefits to all.

Our powers were explicit, and confined to the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting such alterations and provisions therein as should render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union. From these expressions, we were led to believe that a system of consolidated government could not, in the remotest degree, have been in contemplation of the legislature of this state; for that so important a trust as the adopting measures which tended to deprive the state government of its most essential rights of sovereignty, and to place it in a dependent situation, could not have been confided by implication; and the circumstance, that the acts of the Convention were to receive a state approbation in the last resort, forcibly corroborated the opinion that our powers could not involve the subversion of a Constitution which, being immediately derived from the people, could only be abolished by their express

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