Convention at Annapolis, Sept. 11, 1786.
Hamilton's address; a further step in advance.
The seed dropped by Washington had fallen on fruitful soil. At first it was to be just a little meeting of two or three states to talk about the Potomac River and some projected canals, and already it had come to be a meeting of all the states to discuss some uniform system of legislation on the subject of trade. This looked like progress, yet when the convention was gathered at Annapolis, on the 11th of September, the outlook was most discouraging. Commissioners were there from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Rhode Island and North Carolina, had duly appointed commissioners, but they were not there. It is curious to observe that Maryland, which had been so earnest in the matter, had nevertheless now neglected to appoint commissioners; and no action had been taken by Georgia, South Carolina, or Connecticut. With only five states represented, the commissioners did not think it worth while to go on with their work. But before adjourning they adopted an address, written by Alexander Hamilton, and sent it to all the states. All the commissioners present had been empowered to consider how far a uniform commercial system might be essential to thepermanent harmony of the states. But New Jersey had taken a step in advance, and instructed her delegates "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulationsand other important mattersmight be necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several states."And other important matters,—thus again was the weightiest part of the business relegated to a subordinate clause. So gingerly was the great question—so dreaded, yet so inevitable—approached! This reference to "other matters" was pronounced by the commissioners to be a vast improvement on the original plan; and Hamilton's address now urged that commissioners be appointed by all the states, to meet in convention at Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and to report to Congress such an act as, when agreed to by them, and confirmed by the legislatures of every state, would effectually provide for the same." The report of the commissioners was brought before Congress in October, in the hope that Congress would earnestly recommend to the several states the course of action therein suggested. But Nathan Dane and Rufus King of Massachusetts, intent upon technicalities, succeeded in preventing this. According to King, a convention was an irregular body, which had no right to propose changes in the organic law of the land, and the state legislatures could not properlyconfirm the acts of such a body, or take notice of them. Congress was the only source from which such proposals could properly emanate. These arguments were pleasing to the self-love of Congress, and it refused to sanction the plan of the Annapolis commissioners.
New York defeats the impost amendment.
In an ordinary season this would perhaps have ended the matter, but the winter of 1786–87 was not an ordinary season. All the troubles above described seemed to culminate just at this moment. The paper-money craze in so many of the states, the shameful deeds of Rhode Island, the riots in Vermont and New Hampshire, the Shays rebellion in Massachusetts, the dispute with Spain, and the consequent imminent danger of separation between north and south had all come together; and the feeling of thoughtful men and women throughout the country was one of real consternation. The last ounce was now to be put upon the camel's back in the failure of the impost amendment. In 1783, when the cessions of western lands were creating a national domain, a promising plan had been devised for relieving the country of its load of debt, and furnishing Congress with money for its current expenses. All the money coming from sales of the western folkland was to be applied to reducing and wiping out the principal of the public debt. Then the interest of this debt must be provided for; and to that end Congress had recommended an impost, or system of custom-house duties, upon liquors, sugars, teas, coffees, cocoa, molasses, and pepper. This impost was to be kept up for twenty-five years only, andthe collectors were to be appointed by the several states, each for its own ports. Then for the current expenses of the government, supplementary funds were needed; and these were to be assessed upon the several states, each of which might raise its quota as it saw fit. Such was the original plan; but it soon turned out that the only available source of revenue was the national domain, which had thus been nothing less than the principal thread which had held the Union together. As for the impost, it had never been possible to get a sufficient number of states to agree upon it, and of the quotas for current expenses, as we have seen, very little had found its way to the federal treasury. Under these difficulties, it had been proposed that an amendment to the articles of confederation should endow Congress with the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors; and by the summer of 1786, after endless wrangling, twelve states had consented to the amendment. But, in order that an amendment should be adopted, unanimous consent was necessary. The one delinquent state, which thus blocked the wheels of the confederacy, was New York. She had her little system of duties all nicely arranged for what seemed to be her own interests, and she would not surrender this system to Congress. Upon the neighbouring states her tariff system bore hard, and especially upon New Jersey. In 1786 this little state flatly refused to pay her quota until New York should stop discriminating against her trade. Nothing which occurred in that troubled year caused more alarm than this, for it could not bedenied that such a declaration seemed little less than an act of secession on the part of New Jersey. The arguments of a congressional committee at last prevailed upon the state to rescind her declaration. At the same time there came the final struggle in New York over the impost amendment, against which Governor Clinton had firmly set his face. There was a fierce fight, in which Hamilton's most strenuous efforts succeeded in carrying the amendment in part, but not until it had been clogged with a condition that made it useless. Congress, it was declared, might have the revenue, but New York must appoint the collectors; she was not going to have federal officials rummaging about her docks. The legislature well knew that to grant the amendment in such wise was not to grant it at all, but simply to reopen the whole question. Such was the result. Congress expostulated in vain. On the 15th of February, 1787, the matter was reconsidered in the New York legislature, and the impost amendment was defeated.
Sudden changes in popular sentiment.
Thus, only three months before the Federal Convention was to meet, if indeed it was ever to meet, Congress was decisively informed that it would not be allowed to take any effectual measures for raising a revenue. There now seemed nothing left for Congress to do but adopt the recommendation of the Annapolis commissioners, and give its sanction to the proposed convention. Madison, however, had not waited for this, but had prevailed upon the Virginia legislature to go on and appoint its delegates to the convention. The events of the year had worked a change in thepopular sentiment in Virginia; people were more afraid of anarchy, and not quite so much afraid of centralization; and now, under Madison's lead, Virginia played her trump card and chose George Washington as one of her delegates. As soon as this was known, there was an outburst of joy throughout the land. All at once the people began everywhere to feel an interest in the proposed convention, and presently Massachusetts changed her attitude. Up to this time Massachusetts had been as obstinate in her assertion of local independence, and as unwilling to strengthen the hands of Congress, as any of the thirteen states, except New York and Rhode Island. But the Shays rebellion had served as a useful object-lesson. Part of the distress in Massachusetts could be traced to the inability of Congress to pay debts which it owed to her citizens. It was felt that the time had come when the question of a national revenue must be seriously considered. Every week saw fresh converts to the party which called for a stronger government. Then came the news that Virginia had chosen delegates, and that Washington was one of them; then that New Jersey had followed the example; then that Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Delaware, had chosen delegates. It was time for Massachusetts to act, and Rufus King now brought the matter up in Congress. His scruples as to the legality of the proceeding had not changed, and accordingly he moved that Congress should of itself propose a convention at Philadelphia, identical with the one which the Annapolis commissioners had alreadyrecommended. The motion was carried, and in this way Congress formally approved and adopted what was going on. Massachusetts immediately chose delegates, and was followed by New York. In April, Georgia and South Carolina followed suit. Connecticut and Maryland came on in May, and New Hampshire, somewhat tardily, in June. Of the thirteen states, Rhode Island alone refused to take any part in the proceedings.
The Federal Convention meets at Philadelphia, May 14–25, 1787.
The convention held its meetings in that plain brick building in Philadelphia already immortalized as the place from which the Declaration of Independence was published to the world. The work which these men were undertaking was to determine whether that Declaration had been for the blessing or the injury of America and of mankind. That they had succeeded in assembling here at all was somewhat remarkable, when we think of the curious medley of incidents that led to it. At no time in this distressed period would a frank and abrupt proposal for a convention to remodel the government have found favour. Such proposals, indeed, had been made, beginning with that of Pelatiah Webster in 1781, and they had all failed to break through the crust of a truly English conservatism and dread of centralized power. Now, through what some might have called a strange chapter of accidents, before the element of causal sequence in it all had become so manifest as it is to us to-day, this remarkable group of men had been brought together in a single room, while even yet but few of them realized how thoroughly and exhaustivelyreconstructive their work was to be. To most of them it was not clear whether they were going merely to patch up the articles of confederation, or to strike out into a new and very different path. There were a few who entertained far-reaching purposes; the rest were intelligent critics rather than constructive thinkers; the result was surprising to all. It is worth our while to pause for a moment, and observe the character and composition of one of the most memorable assemblies the world has ever seen. Mr. Gladstone says that just "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 time by the brain and purpose of man."[6]Let us now see who the men were who did this wonderful work,—this Iliad, or Parthenon, or Fifth Symphony, of statesmanship. We shall not find that they were all great geniuses. Such is never the case in such an assembly. There are not enough great geniuses to go around; and if there were, it is questionable if the result would be satisfactory. In such discussions the points which impress the more ordinary and less far-sighted members are sure to have great value; especially when we bear in mind that the object of such an assembly is not merely to elaborate a plan, but to get the great mass of people, including the brick-layers and hod-carriers, tounderstand it well enough to vote for it. An ideally perfect assembly of law-makers will therefore contain two or three men of original constructive genius, two or three leading spirits eminent for shrewdness and tact, a dozen or more excellent critics representing various conflicting interests, and a rank and file of thoroughly respectable, commonplace men, unfitted for shining in the work of the meeting, but admirably competent to proclaim its results and get their friends and neighbours to adopt them. And in such an assembly, even if it be such as we call ideally perfect, we must allow something for the presence of a few hot-headed and irreconcilable members,—men of inflexible mind, who cannot adapt themselves to circumstances, and will refuse to play when they see the game going against them.
The men who were assembled.
All these points are well illustrated in the assemblage of men that framed our Federal Constitution. In its composition, this group of men left nothing to be desired. In its strength and in its weakness, it was an ideally perfect assembly. There were fifty-five men, all of them respectable for family and for personal qualities,—men who had been well educated, and had done something whereby to earn recognition in these troubled times. Twenty-nine were university men, graduates of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, William and Mary, Oxford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Twenty-six were not university men, and among these were Washington and Franklin. Of the illustrious citizens who, for their public services, would naturally have beenhere, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in Europe; Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee disapproved of the convention, and remained at home; and the greatest man of Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene, who—one likes to think—might have succeeded in bringing his state into the convention, had lately died of a sun-stroke, at the early age of forty-four.
James Madison.
Of the two most famous men present little need be said. The names of Washington and Franklin stood for supreme intelligence and consummate tact. Franklin had returned to this country two years before, and was now president of Pennsylvania. He was eighty-one years of age, the oldest man in the convention, as Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, aged twenty-six, was the youngest. The two most profound and original thinkers in the company were but little older than Dayton. Alexander Hamilton was thirty, James Madison thirty-six. Among political writers, these two men must be ranked in the same order with Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Locke; and the "Federalist," their joint production, is the greatest treatise on government that has ever been written. John Jay, who contributed a few pages to this immortal volume, had not been sent to the convention, because New York did not wish to have it succeed. Along with Hamilton, New York sent two commonplace men, Robert Yates and John Lansing, who were extreme and obstinate Antifederalists; and the action of Hamilton, who was thus prevented from carrying the vote of his own state for any measure which he might propose, was in this way sadlyembarrassed. For another reason, Hamilton failed to exert as much influence in the convention as one would have expected from his profound thought and his brilliant eloquence. Scarcely any of these men entertained what we should now call extreme democratic views. Scarcely any, perhaps, had that intense faith in the ultimate good sense of the people which was the most powerful characteristic of Jefferson. But Hamilton went to the other extreme, and expressed his distrust of popular government too plainly. His views were too aristocratic and his preference for centralization was too pronounced to carry conviction to his hearers. The leading part in the convention fell, therefore, to James Madison, a young man somewhat less brilliant than Hamilton, but superior to him in sobriety and balance of powers. Madison used to be called the "Father of the Constitution," and it is true that the government under which we live is more his work than that of any other one man. From early youth his life had been devoted to the study of history and the practice of statesmanship. He was a graduate of Princeton College, an earnest student, familiar with all the best literature of political science from Aristotle down to his own time, and he had given especial attention to the history of federal government in ancient Greece, and in Switzerland and Holland. At the age of twenty-five he had taken part in the Virginia convention which instructed the delegates from that state in Congress to bring forward the Declaration of Independence. During the last part of the war he was an active andinfluential member of Congress, where no one equalled or approached him for knowledge of English history and constitutional law. In 1784 he had returned to the Virginia legislature, and been foremost in securing the passage of the great act which gave complete religious freedom to the people of that state. No man understood better than he the causes of the alarming weakness of the federal government, and of the commercial disturbances and popular discontent of the time; nor had any one worked more zealously or more adroitly in bringing about the meeting of this convention. As he stood here now, a leader in the debate, there was nothing grand or imposing in his appearance. He was small of stature and slight in frame, like Hamilton, but he had none of Hamilton's personal magnetism. His manner was shy and prim, and blushes came often to his cheeks. At the same time, he had that rare dignity of unconscious simplicity which characterizes the earnest and disinterested scholar. He was exceedingly sweet-tempered, generous, and kind, but very hard to move from a path which, after long reflection, he had decided to be the right one. He looked at politics judicially, and was so little of a party man that on several occasions he was accused (quite wrongfully, as I hope hereafter to prove) of gross inconsistency. The position of leadership, which he won so early and kept so long, he held by sheer force of giant intelligence, sleepless industry, and an integrity which no man ever doubted. But he was above all things a man of peace. When in after years, as president of the United States, hewas called upon to manage a great war, he was out of place, and his reputation for supreme ability was temporarily lowered. Here in the Federal Convention we are introduced to him at the noblest and most useful moment of his life.
Other leading members.
Of the fifty-five men here assembled, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison were of the first order of ability. Many others in the room were gentlemen of more than ordinary talent and culture. There was John Dickinson, who had moved from Pennsylvania into Delaware, and now came to defend the equal rights of the smaller states. There was James Wilson of Pennsylvania, born and educated in Scotland, one of the most learned jurists this country has ever seen. Beside him sat the financier, Robert Morris, and his namesake Gouverneur Morris of Morrisania, near the city of New York, the originator of our decimal currency, and one of the far-sighted projectors of the Erie Canal. Then there was John Rutledge of South Carolina, who ever since the Stamp Act Congress had been the mainstay of his state; and with him were the two able and gallant Pinckneys. Caleb Strong, afterward ten times governor of Massachusetts, was a typical Puritan, hard-headed and supremely sensible; his colleague, Rufus King, already distinguished for his opposition to negro slavery, was a man of brilliant attainments. And there were George Wythe, the chancellor of Virginia, and Daniel Carroll of Maryland, who had played a prominent part in the events which led to the creation of a national domain. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, afterward chief justice ofthe United States, was one of the ablest lawyers of his time; with him were Roger Sherman and William Johnson, the latter a Fellow of the Royal Society, and afterward president of Columbia College. The New Jersey delegation, consisting of William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, and Jonathan Dayton, was a very strong one; and as to New Hampshire, it is enough to mention the name of John Langdon. Besides all these there were some twenty of less mark, men who said little, but listened and voted. And then there were the irreconcilables, Yates and Lansing, the two Antifederalists from New York; and four men of much greater ability, who took an important part in the proceedings, but could not be induced to accept the result. These four were Luther Martin of Maryland; George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia; and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.
When these men had assembled in Independence Hall, they chose George Washington president of the convention. The doors were locked, and an injunction of strict secrecy was put upon every one. The results of their work were known in the following September, when the draft of the Federal Constitution was published. But just what was said and done in this secret conclave was not revealed until fifty years had passed, and the aged James Madison, the last survivor of those who sat there, had been gathered to his fathers. He kept a journal of the proceedings, which was published after his death, and upon the interesting story told in that journal we have now to enter.
Difficult problem before the convention.
Washington's solemn appeal.
TheFederal Convention did wisely in withholding its debates from the knowledge of the people. It was felt that discussion would be more untrammelled, and that its result ought to go before the country as the collective and unanimous voice of the convention. There was likely to be wrangling enough among themselves; but should their scheme be unfolded, bit by bit, before its parts could be viewed in their mutual relations, popular excitement would become intense, there might be riots, and an end would be put to that attitude of mental repose so necessary for the constructive work that was to be done. It was thought best that the scheme should be put forth as a completed whole, and that for several years, even, until the new system of government should have had a fair trial, the traces of the individual theories and preferences concerned in its formation should not be revealed. For it was generally assumed that a system of government new in some important respects would be proposed by the convention, and while the people awaited the result the wildest speculations and rumours were current. A few hoped, and many feared, that some scheme of monarchy would be established. Such surmisesfound their way across the ocean, and hopes were expressed in England that, should a king be chosen, it might be a younger son of George III. It was even hinted, with alarm, that, through gratitude to our recent allies, we might be persuaded to offer the crown to some member of the royal family of France. No such thoughts were entertained, however, by any person present in the convention. Some of the delegates came with the design of simply amending the articles of confederation by taking away from the states the power of regulating commerce, and intrusting this power to Congress. Others felt that if the work were not done thoroughly now another chance might never be offered; and these men thought it necessary to abolish the confederation, and establish a federal republic, in which the general government should act directly upon the people. The difficult problem was how to frame a plan of this sort which people could be made to understand and adopt. At the very outset some of the delegates began to exhibit symptoms of that peculiar kind of moral cowardice which is wont to afflict free governments, and of which American history furnishes so many instructive examples. It was suggested that palliatives and half measures would be far more likely to find favour with the people than any thorough-going reform, when Washington suddenly interposed with a brief but immortal speech, which ought to be blazoned in letters of gold, and posted on the wall of every American assembly that shall meet to nominate a candidate, or declare a policy, or pass a law, so long as the weakness of human natureshall endure. Rising from his president's chair, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, he exclaimed in tones unwontedly solemn with suppressed emotion, "It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God."
This outburst of noble eloquence carried conviction to every one, and henceforth we do not hear that any attempt was avowedly made to avoid the issues as they came up. It was a most wholesome tonic. It braced up the convention to high resolves, and impressed upon all the delegates that they were in a situation where faltering or trifling was both wicked and dangerous. From that moment the mood in which they worked caught something from the glorious spirit of Washington. There was need of such high purpose, for two plans were presently laid before the meeting, which, for a moment, brought out one of the chief elements of antagonism existing between the states, and which at first seemed irreconcilable. It was the happy compromise which united and harmonised these two plans that smoothed the further work of the convention, and made it possible for a stable and powerful government to be constructed.
The root of all the difficulties.
The first of these plans was known as the Virginia plan. It was agreed upon in a committee of the delegates of that state, and was broughtforward by Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, in the name of the state, but its chief author was Madison. It struck instantly at the root of the difficulties under which the country had been staggering ever since the Declaration of Independence. The federal government had possessed no means of enforcing obedience to its laws. Its edicts were without a sanction; and this was because they operated upon states, and not upon individuals. When an individual defies the law, you can lock him up in jail, or levy an execution upon his property. The immense force of the community is arrayed against him, and he is as helpless as a straw on the billows of the ocean. He cannot raise a militia to protect himself. But when the law is defied by a state, it is quite otherwise. You cannot put a state into jail, nor seize its goods; you can only make war on it, and if you try that expedient you find that the state is not helpless. Its local pride and prejudices are aroused against you, and its militia will turn out in full force to uphold the infraction of law. Against this obstinate and exasperated military force what superior force can you bring? Under some rare combination of circumstances you might get the military force of several of the other states; but ordinarily, when what you are trying to do is simply to enforce every-day laws, and when you simply represent a distrusted general government in conflict with a local government, you cannot do this. The other states will sympathize with the delinquent state; they will feel that the very same condition of things which leads you to attack that stateto-day will lead you to attack some other state to-morrow. Hence you cannot get any military help, and you are powerless.
Such was the case with the Continental Congress. A novel and distrusted institution, it was called upon to enforce its laws upon long-established communities, full of sturdy independence and obstinate local prejudices. It was able to act, though with clumsy slowness, as long as there was an enemy in the field who was even more dreaded. But as soon as this enemy had been beaten out of sight it could not act at all. This had been because it did not represent the American people, but only the American states. The vital force which moved it was not the resistless force of a whole people, but only a shadowy semblance of force, derived from a theoretical consent of thirteen corporate bodies, which in their corporate capacity could never be compelled to agree about anything under the sun; and unless compelled they would not agree. Four years of disturbance in every part of the country, in the course of which troops had been called out in several states, and civil war had been narrowly averted at least half a dozen times, had proved this beyond all cavil. With almost any other people than the Americans civil war would have come already. With all the vast future interests that were involved in these quarrels looming up before their keen, sagacious minds, it was a wonder that they had been kept from coming to blows. Such self-restraint had been greatly to their credit. It was the blessed fruit of more than a century of government by free discussion, while yet these states werecolonies, peopled by the very cream of English freemen who had fought the decisive battle of civil and religious freedom for mankind in that long crisis when the Invincible Armada was overwhelmed and the Long Parliament won its triumphs. Such self-restraint had this people shown in days of trial, under a vicious government adopted in a time of hurry and sore distress. But late events had gone far to show that it could not endure.
The words of Randolph's opening speech are worth quoting in this connection. "The confederation," he said, "was made in the infancy of the science of constitutions, when the inefficiency of requisitions was unknown; when no commercial discord had arisen among states; when no rebellion like that in Massachusetts had broken out; when foreign debts were not urgent; when the havoc of paper money had not been foreseen; when treaties had not been violated; and when nothing better could have been conceded by states jealous of their sovereignty. But it offered no security against foreign invasion, for Congress could neither prevent nor conduct a war, nor punish infractions of treaties or of the law of nations, nor control particular states from provoking war. The federal government has no constitutional power to check a quarrel between separate states; nor to suppress a rebellion in any one of them; nor to establish a productive impost; nor to counteract the commercial regulations of other nations; nor to defend itself against the encroachments of the states. From the manner in which it has been ratified in many of the states, it cannot be claimedto be paramount to the state constitutions; so that there is a prospect of anarchy from the inherent laxity of the government. As the remedy, the government to be established must have for its basis the republican principle."
The Virginia plan; a radical cure.
Having thus tersely stated the whole problem, Randolph went on to present the Virginia plan. To make the federal government operate directly upon individuals, one provision was absolutely necessary. It did not solve the whole problem, but it was an indispensable beginning. This was the proposal that there should be a national legislature, in which the Americanpeopleinstead of the American states should be represented. For the purposes of federal legislation, there must be an assembly elected directly by the people, and with its members apportioned according to population. There must be such an assembly as our present House of Representatives, standing in the same immediate relation to the people of the whole country as was sustained by the assembly of each separate state to the people of that state. Without such direct representation of the whole people in the Federal Congress, it would be impossible to achieve one secure step toward the radical reform of the weaknesses and vices of the confederation. It was the only way in which the vexed question of one nation or thirteen could be made to yield a satisfactory answer. At the same time it could not be denied that such a proposal was revolutionary in character. It paved the way for a national consolidation which might go further than any one could foresee, and muchfurther than was desirable. The moribund Congress of the Confederation, with its delegates chosen by the state assemblies, and casting its vote simply by states, had utterly failed to serve as a national legislature. There was a good deal of truth in what John Adams once said of it, that it was more a diplomatic than a legislative body. It was, indeed, because of this consciously felt diplomatic character that it was called a Congress, and not a Parliament. In its lack of coercive power it resembled the international congresses of Europe rather than the supreme legislature of any country. To substitute abruptly for such a body a truly national legislature, based not upon states but upon population, was quietly to inaugurate a revolution of no less magnitude than that which had lately severed us from Great Britain. So bold a step, while all-essential in order to complete that revolution, and make its victorious issue fortunate instead of disastrous to the American people, was sufficiently revolutionary to awaken the fears of many members of the Federal Convention. To the familiar state governments which had so long possessed their love and allegiance, it was super-adding a new and untried government, which it was feared would swallow up the states and everywhere extinguish local independence. Nor can it be said that such fears were unreasonable. Our federal government has indeed shown a strong tendency to encroach upon the province of the state governments, especially since our late Civil War. Too much centralization is our danger to-day, as the weakness of the federal tie was our danger acentury ago. The rule of the Federalist party was needed in 1789 as the rule of the Republican party was needed in 1861, to put a curb upon the centrifugal tendencies. But after Federalism had fairly done its great work, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was well that the administration of our national affairs should pass into the hands of the party to which Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams belonged, and which Madison, in his calm statesmanlike wisdom, had come to join. And now that, in our own day, the disruptive forces have been even more thoroughly and effectually overcome, it is time for the principles of that party to be reasserted with fresh emphasis. If the day should ever arrive (which God forbid!) when the people of the different parts of our country shall allow their local affairs to be administered by prefects sent from Washington, and when the self-government of the states shall have been so far lost as that of the departments of France, or even so far as that of the counties of England,—on that day the progressive political career of the American people will have come to an end, and the hopes that have been built upon it for the future happiness and prosperity of mankind will be wrecked forever.
I do not think that the historian writing at the present day need fear any such direful calamity, for the past century has shown most instructively how, in such a society as ours, the sense of political dangers slowly makes its way through the whole mass of the people, until movements at length are made to avert them, and the pendulum swings inthe opposite direction. The history of political parties in the United States is especially rich in lessons of this sort. Compared with the statesmen of the Federal Convention, we are at a great advantage in studying this question of national consolidation; and we have no excuse for failing to comprehend the attitude of the men who dreaded the creation of a national legislature as the entering wedge which would by and by rend asunder the structure of our liberties. The great mind of Madison was one of the first to entertain distinctly the noble conception of two kinds of government operating at one and the same time upon the same individuals, harmonious with each other, but each supreme in its own sphere. Such is the fundamental conception of our partly federal, partly national, government, which appears throughout the Virginia plan as well as in the Constitution which grew out of it. It was a political conception of a higher order than had ever before been entertained; it took a great deal of discussion to make it clear to the minds of the delegates generally; and the struggle over this initial measure of a national legislature was so bitter as to come near breaking up the convention.
In its original shape the Virginia plan went much further toward national consolidation than the Constitution as adopted. The reaction against the evils of the loose-jointed confederation, which Randolph so ably summed up, was extreme. According to the Virginia plan, the national legislature was to be composed of two houses, like the legislatures of the several states. The members ofthe lower house should be chosen directly by the people; members of the upper house, or Senate, should be elected by the lower house out of persons nominated by the state legislatures. In both the lower and the upper branches of this national legislature the votes were to be the votes of individuals, and no longer the votes of states, as in the Continental Congress. Under the articles of confederation each state had an equal vote, and two thirds were required for every important measure. Under the proposed Constitution each state was to have a number of representatives proportionate either to its wealth or to the number of its free inhabitants, and a bare majority of votes was to suffice to pass all measures in the ordinary course of business; and these rules were to apply both to the lower house and to the Senate. To adopt such a plan would overthrow the equality of the states altogether. It would give Virginia, the greatest state, sixteen representatives, where Georgia, the smallest state, had but one; and besides, as the votes were no longer to be taken by states, individual members could combine in any way they pleased, quite irrespective of state lines. It was not strange that to many delegates in the convention such a beginning should have seemed revolutionary. This impression was deepened when it was further proposed not only to clothe this national legislature with original powers of legislation in all cases to which the several states are incompetent, but also to allow it to set aside at discretion such state laws as it might deem unconstitutional. It is interesting to find Madison, whose Federalismafterward came to be so moderate, now appearing as the earnest defender of this extreme provision, so incompatible with state rights. But in Madison's mind at this moment, in the actual presence of the anarchy of the confederation, the only alternative which seemed to present itself was that of armed coercion. "A negative on state laws," he said, "is the mildest expedient that can be devised for enforcing a national decree. Should no such precaution be engrafted, the only remedy would be coercion. The negative would render the use of force unnecessary. This prerogative of the general government is the great pervading principle that must control the centrifugal tendency of the states, which, without it, will continually fly out of their proper orbits, and destroy the order and harmony of the political system." But these views were not destined to find favour with the convention, which finally left the matter to be much more satisfactorily adjusted through the medium of the federal judiciary.
Such were the fundamental provisions of the Virginia plan with regard to the national legislature. To carry out the laws, it was proposed that there should be a national executive, to be chosen by the national legislature for a short term, and ineligible a second time. Whether the executive power should be invested in a single person or in several was not specified. As will be seen hereafter, this was regarded as an extremely delicate point, with which it was thought best not to embarrass the Virginia plan at the outset. Passing lightly over this, it was urged that, in order tocomplete the action of the government upon individuals, there must be a national judiciary to determine cases arising under the Constitution, cases in admiralty, and cases in which different states or their citizens appear as parties. The judges were to be chosen by the national legislature, to hold office during good behaviour.
First reception of the Virginia plan.
Such, in its main outlines, was the plan which Randolph laid before the convention, in the name of the Virginia delegation. An audacious scheme! exclaimed some of the delegates; it was enough to take your breath away. If they were going to begin like this, they might as well go home, for all discussion would be time wasted. They were not sent there to set on foot a revolution, but to amend and strengthen the articles of confederation. But this audacious plan simply abolished the Confederation in order to substitute for it a consolidated national government. Foremost in urging this objection were Yates and Lansing of New York, with Luther Martin of Maryland. Dickinson said it was pushing things altogether too far, and his colleague, George Read, hinted that the delegation from Delaware might feel obliged to withdraw from the convention if the election of representatives according to population should be adopted. By the tact of Madison and Gouverneur Morris this question was postponed for a few days. After some animated discussion, the issues became so narrowed and defined that they could be taken up one by one. It was first decided that the national legislature should consist of two branches. Then came a warm discussion as towhether the members of the lower house should be elected directly by the people. Curiously enough, in a country where the principle of popular election had long since taken such deep root, where the assemblies of the several states had been chosen by the people from the very beginning, there was some doubt as to whether the same principle could safely be applied to the national House of Representatives. Gerry, with his head full of the Shays rebellion and the "Know Ye" measures of the neighbouring state, thought the people could not be trusted. "The people do not want virtue," said he, "but are the dupes of pretended patriots." Roger Sherman took a similar view, and was supported by Martin, Rutledge, and both the Pinckneys; but the sounder opinion prevailed. On this point Hamilton was at one with Mason, Wilson, and Dickinson. The proposed assembly, said Mason, was to be, so to speak, our House of Commons, and ought to know and sympathize with every part of the community. It ought to have at heart the rights and interests of every class of the people, and in no other way could this end be so completely attained as by popular election. "Yes," added Wilson, "without the confidence of the people no government, least of all a republican government, can long subsist.... The election of the first branch by the people is not the corner-stone only, but the foundation of the fabric." "It is essential to the democratic rights of the community," said Hamilton, "that the first branch be directly elected by the people." Madison argued powerfully on the same side, and the question was finally decided in favour of popular election.
Antagonism between large states and small states.
The New Jersey plan; a feeble palliative.
It was now the 4th of June, when the great question came up which nearly wrecked the convention before it was settled, after a whole month of stormy debate. This was the question as to how the states should be represented in the new Congress. On the Virginia plan, the smaller states would be virtually swamped. Unless they could have equal votes, without regard to wealth or population, they would be at the mercy of the great states. In the division which ensued, the four most populous states—Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina—favoured the Virginia plan; and they succeeded in carrying South Carolina with them. Georgia, too, which, though weak at that moment, possessed considerable room for expansion, voted upon the same side. On the other hand, the states of Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland—which were not only small in area, but were cut off from further expansion by their geographical situation—were not inclined to give up their equal vote in either branch of the national legislature. At this stage of the proceedings the delegation from New Hampshire had not yet arrived upon the scene. On several occasions the majority of the Maryland delegation went with the larger states, but Luther Martin, always opposed to the Virginia plan, usually succeeded in dividing the vote of the delegation. Of the New York members, Yates and Lansing, here as always, thwarted Hamilton by voting with the smaller states. Their policy throughout was one of obstruction. The members from Connecticutwere disposed to be conciliatory; but New Jersey was obstinate and implacable. She knew what it was to be tyrannized over by powerful neighbours. The wrongs she had suffered from New York and Pennsylvania rankled in the minds of her delegates. Accordingly, in the name of the smaller states, William Paterson laid before the convention the so-called "New Jersey plan" for the amendment of the articles of confederation. This scheme admitted a federal legislature, consisting of a single house, an executive in the form of a council to be chosen by Congress, and likewise a federal judiciary, with powers less extensive than those contemplated by the Virginia plan. It gave to Congress the power to regulate foreign and domestic commerce, to levy duties on imports, and even to raise internal revenue by means of a Stamp Act. But with all this apparent liberality on the surface, the New Jersey plan was vicious at bottom. It did not really give Congress the power to act immediately upon individuals. The federal legislature which it proposed was to represent states, and not individuals, and the states were to vote equally, without regard to wealth or population. If things were to be left in this shape, there was no security that the powers granted to Congress could ever be really exercised. Nay, it was almost certain that they could not be put into operation. It was easy enough on paper to give Congress the permission to levy duties and regulate commerce, but such a permission would amount to nothing unless Congress were armed with the power of enforcing its decrees uponindividuals. And it could in no wise acquire such power unless as the creature of the people, and not of the states. The New Jersey plan, therefore, furnished no real remedy for the evils which afflicted the country. It was vigorously opposed by Hamilton, Madison, Wilson, and King. Hamilton, indeed, took this occasion to offer a plan of his own, which, in addition to Madison's scheme of a purely national legislature, contained the features of a tenure for life or good behaviour, for the executive and the members of the upper house. But to most of the delegates this scheme seemed too little removed from a monarchy, and Hamilton's brilliant speech in its favour, while applauded by many, was supported by none. The weighty arguments of Wilson, King, and Madison prevailed, and the New Jersey plan lost its original shape when it was decided that Congress should consist of two houses. The principle of equal state representation, however, remained as a stumbling-block. Paterson, supported by his able colleague Brearley, as well as by Martin and the two irreconcilables from New York, stoutly maintained that to depart from this principle would be to exceed the powers of the convention, which assuredly was not intended to remodel the government from beginning to end. But Randolph answered, "When the salvation of the republic is at stake, it would be treason to our trust not to propose what we find necessary;" and Hamilton pithily reminded the delegates that as they were there only for the purpose of recommending a scheme which would have to be submitted to the states for acceptance,they need not be deterred by any false scruples from using their wits to the best possible advantage. The debate on the merits of the question was an angry one. According to the Virginia plan, said Brearly, the three states of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania will carry everything before them. "It was known to him, from facts within New Jersey, that where large and small counties were united into a district for electing representatives for the district, the large counties always carried their point, and consequently the large states would do so.... Was it fair, on the other hand, that Georgia should have an equal vote with Virginia? He would not say it was. What remedy, then? One only: that a map of the United States be spread out, that all the existing boundaries be erased, and that a new partition of the whole be made into thirteen equal parts." "Yes," said Paterson, "a confederacy supposes sovereignty in the members composing it, and sovereignty supposes equality. If we are to be considered as a nation, all state distinctions must be abolished, the whole must be thrown into hotchpot, and when an equal division is made then there may be fairly an equality of representation." This argument was repeated with a triumphant air, as seeming to reduce the Virginia plan to absurdity. Paterson went on to say that "there was no more reason that a great individual state, contributing much, should have more votes than a small one, contributing little, than that a rich individual citizen should have more votes than an indigent one. If the ratable property of A was tothat of B as forty to one, ought A, for that reason, to have forty times as many votes as B?... Give the large states an influence in proportion to their magnitude, and what will be the consequence? Their ambition will be proportionally increased, and the small states will have everything to fear. It was once proposed by Galloway [in the first Continental Congress] that America should be represented in the British Parliament, and then be bound by its laws. America could not have been entitled to more than one third of the representatives which would fall to the share of Great Britain: would American rights and interests have been safe under an authority thus constituted?" Then, warming with the subject, he exclaimed, If the great states wish to unite on such a plan, "let them unite if they please, but let them remember that they have no authority to compel the others to unite.... Shall I submit the welfare of New Jersey with five votes in a council where Virginia has sixteen?... I will never consent to the proposed plan. I will not only oppose it here, but on my return home will do everything in my power to defeat it there. Neither my state nor myself will ever submit to tyranny."
Paterson was ably answered by James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, who pointed out the absurdity of giving 180,000 men in one part of the country as much weight in the national legislature as 750,000 in another part. It is unjust, he said. "The gentleman from New Jersey is candid. He declares his opinions boldly. I commend him for it. I will be equally candid.... I never willconfederate on his principles." The convention grew nervous and excited over this seemingly irreconcilable antagonism. The discussion was kept up with much learning and acuteness by Madison, Ellsworth, and Martin, and history was ransacked for testimony from the Amphiktyonic Council to Old Sarum, and back again to the Lykian League. Madison, rightly reading the future, declared that if once the proposed union should be formed, the real danger would come not from the rivalry between large and small states, but from the antagonistic interests of the slave-holding and non-slaveholding states. Hamilton pointed out that in the state of New York five counties had a majority of the representatives, and yet the citizens of the other counties were in no danger of tyranny, as the laws have an equal operation upon all. Rufus King called attention to the fact that the rights of Scotland were secure from encroachments, although her representation in Parliament was necessarily smaller than that of England. But New Jersey and Delaware, mindful of recent grievances, were not to be argued down or soothed. Gunning Bedford of Delaware was especially violent. "Pretences to support ambition," said he, "are never wanting. The cry is, Where is the danger? and it is insisted that although the powers of the general government will be increased, yet it will be for the good of the whole; and although the three great states form nearly a majority of the people of America, they never will injure the lesser states.Gentlemen, I do not trust you.If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked; and what thenwould prevent you from exercising it to our destruction?... Sooner than be ruined,there are foreign powers who will take us by the hand. I say this not to threaten or intimidate, but that we should reflect seriously before we act." This language called forth a rebuke from Rufus King. "I am concerned," said he, "for what fell from the gentleman from Delaware,—take a foreign power by the hand!I am sorry he mentioned it, and I hope he is able to excuse it to himself on the score of passion."