just authority. As a representative of the largest and most populous state in the Union, the members from the small states sometimes thought him unfair; but in a quiet and sagacious way he often suggested a middle course, and few things against which he argued were adopted.

166. Sources

stitution

For materials with which to put together a new constitution, the delegates simply took the experience of mankind, SO far as they knew it. Therefore they based their constitution on the principles of free government as developed of the Conin England; yet in its form the new federal government owed little to Parliament, or to the crown, or to the English judiciary; for the Convention took English institutions as they had been modified and expanded in the colonial governments, in the states, in the Continental Congress, and in the Congress of the Confederation. For instance, the two houses of Congress were suggested by the two houses of the colonial legislatures, and also by experience of the clumsy working of a single house in the Confederation. The great merit of the members of the Federal Convention was that they had the sanctified common sense to discard old forms of government that worked ill, and to substitute forms which from their experience they thought would work well.

167. Blocking out the

document

The Convention was slow in starting, but chose Washington to be its president and settled down to work May 29, when Edmund Randolph, in behalf of the Virginia delegation, submitted a set of resolutions, commonly known as the Virginia Plan. This plan in broad outlines provided for a government of three departments; and next day in its first formal resolution the Convention agreed "That a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislature, executive, and judiciary."

(May-June,

To avoid the radical step proposed in the resolution, two other plans were suggested in the course of the Convention: (1) the Connecticut Plan, which proposed to enlarge the powers of

1787)

Congress under the Confederation, but to leave the execution of the national laws to state governments; (2) the New Jersey Plan, which stood for the views of the small states; it included three departments, but preserved the equal representation of the states in Congress. Hamilton's Plan, a highly centralized scheme, included a life senate and life president; the state governors to be appointed by the general government. The so-called Pinckney Plan, of which we have no contemporary copy, was much like the constitution as finally adopted. After about two weeks' debate, however, the Convention adopted a set of provisional votes, embodying most of the features of the Virginia Plan, as the foundation of the new constitution. The most serious question at this stage was how to divide members of Congress among the states. The South wanted an assignment in proportion to population, including slaves; the North wanted to leave the slaves out of account. As a midway course, it was provisionally voted to count slaves, but only at three fifths of their actual numbers.

168. The

A second debate, from June 19 to July 26, brought out the most serious differences of opinion on four subjects, and set in motion forces which eventually brought about four compromises, the adoption of which made something like (June-July, agreement possible.

great constitutional compromises

1787)

(1) The so-called "Connecticut Compromise" settled the question of representation in Congress. The small states insisted on one house with equal vote of the states; the large states stood out for the Virginia Plan of two houses, with proportional representation in both. So obstinate and bitter were both sides that Franklin feared lest "our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shail become a reproach and by-word down to future ages." He therefore moved that the Convention be opened every day with prayer. A Connecticut member threw out the suggestion that in one branch the

people ought to be represented, in the other the states; and this idea was carried out by the first compromise (July 5), providing that there should be an equal vote of states in the Senate and a proportional representation in the House.

(2) A few days later came up the question of assessing federal direct taxes corresponding to the old requisitions: the North proposed that in fixing the proportion of each state, negroes should be counted at their full numbers, whereupon a North Carolina member declared that his state would not go into a union on that basis. The matter was compromised (July 12) by a vote that representatives and direct taxes should both be apportioned according to the three-fifths rule.

(3) It had been agreed that Congress should regulate foreign commerce, but the southern members feared that this power would lead to navigation acts for the protection of American shipping, which might raise the freights on southern exports. Hence Madison introduced a motion to require a two-thirds vote for such an act. On the other hand, the northern states, as well as Maryland and Virginia, were in general strongly opposed to reopening the slave trade. A compromise was arranged (August 25) under which Congress was left free to pass acts in aid of American shipping by the usual majority, but was not to prohibit the slave trade for twenty years. The slaveholding states also secured a clause against export taxes.

(4) A fourth compromise, not so distinctly expressed, fixed the relation of the states to the federal government. The Convention at first voted that Congress should have the right to veto state laws. Later it adopted a substitute clause (July 17) providing for appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States, in case a state infringed on the national Constitution.

A third stage of the Convention began July 26, when the work done by the Convention to that point was summed up in a series of resolutions, which were sent to a Committee of

169. Perfection of de

Detail. The report of that committee grouped the principles adopted into articles and sections, made many verbal changes, and included a few new features, such as the choice of President by electors. After debating this report from August 7 to September 8, the Convention sent it to a Committee of Style, which reported September 13. Gouverneur Morris was the leading spirit in this revision, and to him are due the lucidity of phrase and clearness and exactness of language which distinguish the Constitution.

tails (Aug. Sept., 1787)

On September 17 the engrossed draft was presented for signature. Some delegates had gone home in disgust, and three members present - George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts-refused absolutely to sign the completed work because it seemed too strong. Thirty-nine of the original fifty-five members, however, representing twelve states, affixed their signatures to the Constitution. Madison records that, at this solemn moment, Franklin called the attention of the members to the sun painted behind the president's chair: "I have," said he, "often and often, in the course of the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the president, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but, now at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun."

The completed Constitution was founded on a different 170. Analy- set of principles from those of the old Confederation in form, in powers, in enforcement, and in the status of the

sis of the Constitu

(1) In its form, the Constitution broke up the old concentrated power of Congress, and created three equal and coördinate departments: Congress, the President and his subordinates, and the federal courts.

(2) The powers of the federal government included all those given to the Confederation, and many others, such as the

full power to tax individuals, to borrow money, and to expend money. Control over territories was at last expressly given, as well as complete power over foreign and interstate commerce, including expressly weights and measures, coinage, post offices, copyrights, and patents. To the federal government was given unlimited powers to make war on land and sea, by regular forces or militia, to make peace, and to make treaties on all subjects.

(3) Proper means of enforcing these powers were given to the federal government: it makes laws for individuals and can punish them through the courts if they are disobedient; while the Supreme Court has jurisdiction in cases where states are parties, and can hear appeals from the state courts on cases involving the federal Constitution.

(4) The relations between the states and the Union were made much more definite than under the Confederation; and the states deliberately gave up to Congress, the President, and the federal courts, great fields of power - such as foreign commerce and unrestricted taxation. To be sure, several large areas of important powers were not distinctly conferred on Congress there was no clause authorizing, in so many words, the annexation of territory, or the chartering of corporations, or the creation of a cabinet for the President, or federal control of slavery in the territories, or opposition to secession of a state. Many such unenumerated powers have since been assumed by the federal government because "implied" in the specific articles of the Constitution (§ 197).

171. The Constitution before

To avoid the requirement of unanimous consent for alterations of the constitution, which wrecked the Confederation, the Constitution was to go into effect, as to the states ratifying, when nine state conventions should have ratified it. Though the Convention, as a matter of form, sent the document to the Congress of the Confederation, that body (1787-1788) simply transmitted the instrument to the states. The friends

the people