§ 340] DISTRUST OF DEMOCRACY 289 whom we might have expected to see in that gathering. Great as the Virginia delegation was, it might have been greater still, had it included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, or Thomas Paine; and it would no doubt have been well had Massachusetts sent Samuel Adams, or New York her great war-governor, George Clinton. Four or five of these democratic leaders would have given a different tone to the debates. As things were, every prominent patriot of Revolutionary fame, on the conservative side, was present, except John Adams and John Jay; but the lonely representatives of democracy were George Mason and the aged and gentle Franklin. And even Mason "admitted that we had been too democratic," though he was fearful the Convention was going to the other extreme.1 340. The Convention had many conflicting interests. It contained Nationalists and State-sovereignty men, "Northerners" and "Southerners," commercial interests and agricultural interests, advocates of extending slavery and friends of restricting slavery. These various lines were so intertangled as to prevent definite "parties." It is convenient to speak of a "large-State party" and "a small-State party "; but the men BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. From the portrait painted by Duplessis, during Franklin's residence in France, a few years before the Convention; now owned by the Boston Athenæum and loaned to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 1 Cf. Mason's letter to his son in Source Book, No. 155. See also Ib., Nos. 157, 162, 163. who divided in this particular way on one great question found themselves in quite different combinations on almost every other problem. No praise is too high for the patience and "sweet reasonable-. ness (failing only with a few individuals and on rare occasions) with which on all these matters the great statesmen of that memorable assembly strove first to convince one another, and, failing that, to find a rational compromise. 341. High praise, too, is due their profound aversion to mere theory, their instinctive preference for that which had been proven good. Mr. Gladstone once said: "As the British constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given moment by the hand and purpose of man." This sentence has helped to spread the idea that the Philadelphia Convention invented a whole set of new institutions. Such an impression is mistaken. Practically every piece of political machinery in the Constitution was taken from the familiar workings of State constitutions. 342. Some months before the meeting, Madison had drawn up several propositions concerning a new government, in letters to Jefferson and Washington. The Virginia delegates were the first to arrive at Philadelphia. While they waited for others, they caucused daily, formulating these suggestions of Madison's into the Virginia Plan. May 29, this plan was presented to the Convention by Randolph in a brilliant speech. The plan provided for a two-House legislature. The lower House was to be chosen by the people and was to be apportioned among the States in proportion to population or wealth (so that Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts each would have sixteen or seventeen delegates to one from Delaware or Rhode Island). The upper House was to be chosen by the lower. There was no provision for equality of the States in either branch of the legislature, and no security that a small State would have any part at all in the upper House. this central legislature was to fix its own limits. power, As to And it § 343] VIRGINIA AND NEW JERSEY PLANS 291 was to have an absolute veto upon any State legislation which it thought inconsistent with its own laws. This plan would have left the States hardly more than convenient administrative districts, and would have created a government more like that of modern France than like that of the present United States.1 [The following section is intended for convenient reference. Students are not expected to remember details.] 343. The further procedure had seven periods. a. For two weeks, in committee of the whole, the Randolph resolutions were debated, clause by clause. Then came an interruption. So far, the large States, in favor of real national union, had had things their own way; but at last the smallState delegates had united upon the New Jersey Plan, which was now presented to the Convention by Patterson. The Virginia Plan substituted a new constitution for the old one. The New Jersey Plan would merely have amended the old Confederation in Jome particulars. It would have given Congress power to impose tariffs and to use force against a delinquent State; and it designed a true executive and an imposing federal judiciary. b. The committee of the whole gave another week to comparing the two plans. Then, by a decisive vote, it set aside the new proposals and returned to the Virginia Plan as the basis for further work. c. From June 19 to July 26 nineteen resolutions based on the Virginia Plan, and adopted in Committee, were considered again, in formal Convention, clause by clause. Midway in 1 This and the New Jersey Plan are given in full in the Source Book. 2 Legislatures and conventions go into "committee of the whole " to secure greater freedom of debate (and sometimes more secrecy in voting) than the usual rules permit in regular session. When the committee votes "to rise," the regular presiding officer resumes the chair, and the chairman of the committee reports. (Usually the votes and debates are not entered in the official record, but only this report of the result.) The assembly then takes up the report, as it would that of any other committee, for discussion and action; but the real fate of legislative measures and the most important amendments and debates come commonly "in committee." this period came the great crisis, when day by day the Convention tottered on the brink of disruption in the contest between large and small States. That calamity was finally averted by the Connecticut Compromise (§ 344). d. The Convention then adjourned for eleven days, while the conclusions so far agreed upon were put into the form of a constitution, in Articles and Sections, by a Committee of Detail. e. From August 6 to September 10, the Convention considered this draft of a constitution, section by section. f. Next, a Committee of Revision (often referred to as the "Committee on Style") redrafted the Constitution according to the latest conclusions of the Convention. To Gouverneur Morris, chairman of this committee, we owe in large degree the admirable arrangement and clear wording of the document. g. Once more the Convention reviewed its work in this new form (September 12-17). This time few changes were made; and September 17 the Constitution in its final form was signed by thirty-nine delegates, representing twelve States. Thirteen of the fifty-five delegates had left; and three of those present (Randolph, Mason, and Gerry) refused to sign. Randolph afterwards urged ratification in Virginia, but Mason and Gerry remained earnest opponents of ratification. In July, Mason had said that it could not be more inconvenient for any gentleman to remain absent from his private affairs than it was for him; but he would " bury his bones in this city rather than expose his country to the consequences of a dissolution without anything being done." On August 31, however, he exclaimed that he would sooner chop off his right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands." (His "Objections" are in the Source Book, Nos. 162, 163.) CHAPTER XXX THE CONSTITUTION [This chapter should be discussed with books open.] 344. EARLY in the debates, the Connecticut delegates (Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, and William Johnson) had proposed a compromise between the Virginia and the New Jersey plans : i.e. that the lower House of the legislature should represent the people, and that the upper House should represent States, each State having there an equal vote. When feeling ran highest between the large-State and small-State parties (§ 343, c), this proposal was renewed with effect. The debate had grown violent. The small-State delegates served notice that they would not submit to the Virginia Plan. A large-State delegate threatened that if not persuasion, then the sword, should unite the States. Small-State men retorted bitterly that they would seek European protection, if needful, against such coercion (Source Book, No. 161). Each State had one vote. Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts were the true "large States"; but with them, on this issue, were ranged North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New Jersey, New York,1 Delaware, Maryland, and Connecticut comprised the "small-State party." Rhode Island never appointed delegates, and the New Hampshire representatives were not on the ground until July 23, after this question had been settled. Had these two States taken part, the "small States" would have controlled the Convention from the first, and no important result could have been secured. 1 New York was then little more than the valley of the Hudson. Hamilton, delegate from that State, was an extreme centralizer; but he was outvoted always by his two colleagues. In the height of this debate, those gentlemen seceded from the Convention. After that, New York had no vote whatever, since the legislature had provided that the State should not be represented by less than two of the three delegates. Partly for this reason, Hamilton had little influence upon the work of the Convention. |