Journal of the Federal Convention June 9th 1787

Governors Elect National Executive. Senate Suffrage. William Patterson Speech. Small State Revolt.

Mr. GERRY, according to previous notice given by him, moved "that the National Executive should be elected by the Executives of the States whose proportion of votes should be the same with that allowed to the States in the election of the Senate." If the appointmt. should be made by the Natl. Legislature, it would lessen that independence of the Executive which ought to prevail, would give birth to intrigue and corruption between the Executive & Legislature previous to the election, and to partiality in the Executive afterwards to the friends who promoted him. Some other mode therefore appeared to him necessary. He proposed that of appointing by the State Executives as most analogous to the principle observed in electing the other branches of the Natl. Govt.; the first branch being chosen by the people of the States, & the 2d. by the Legislatures of the States; he did not see any objection agst. letting the Executive be appointed by the Executives of the States. He supposed the Executives would be most likely to select the fittest men, and that it would be their interest to support the man of their own choice.

Mr. RANDOLPH, urged strongly the inexpediency of Mr. Gerry's mode of appointing the Natl. Executive. The confidence of the people would not be secured by it to the Natl. magistrate. The small States would lose all chance of an appointmt. from within themselves. Bad appointments would be made; the Executives of the States being little conversant with characters not within their own small spheres. The State Executives too notwithstanding their constitutional independence, being in fact dependent on the State Legislatures will generally be guided by the views of the latter, and prefer either favorites within the States, or such as it may be expected will be most partial to the interests of the State. A Natl. Executive thus chosen will not be likely to defend with becoming vigilance & firmness the National rights agst. State encroachments. Vacancies also must happen. How can these be filled? He could not suppose either that the Executives would feel the interest in supporting the Natl. Executive which had been imagined. They will not cherish the great Oak which is to reduce them to paltry shrubs.

On the question for referring the appointment of the Natl. Executive to the State Executives as propd. by Mr. Gerry Massts. no. Cont. no. N. Y. no. N. J. no. Pa. no. Del. divd. Md. no. Va. no. S. C. no. Geo. no. [FN1]

Mr. PATTERSON moves that the Committee resume the clause relating to the rule of suffrage in the Natl. Legislature.

Mr. BREARLY seconds him. He was sorry he said that any question on this point was brought into view. It had been much agitated in Congs. at the time of forming the Confederation, and was then rightly settled by allowing to each sovereign State an equal vote. Otherwise the smaller States must have been destroyed instead of being saved. The substitution of a ratio, he admitted carried fairness on the face of it; but on a deeper examination was unfair and unjust. Judging of the disparity of the States by the quota of Congs. Virga. would have 16 votes, and Georgia but one. A like proportion to the others will make the whole number ninity. There will be 3. large states, and 10 small ones. The large States by which he meant Massts. Pena. & Virga. will carry every thing before them.

It had been admitted, and was known to him from facts within N. Jersey that where large & small counties were united into a district for electing representatives for the district, the large counties always carried their point, and Consequently that [FN2] the large States would do so. Virga. with her sixteen votes will be a solid column indeed, a formidable phalanx. While Georgie with her Solitary vote, and the other little States will be obliged to throw themselves constantly into the scale of some large one, in order to have any weight at all. He had come to the convention with a view of being as useful as he could in giving energy and stability to the federal Government. When the proposition for destroying the equality of votes came forward, he was astonished, he was alarmed. Is it fair then it will be asked that Georgia should have an equal vote with Virga.? He would not say it was. What remedy then? One only, that a map of the U. S. be spread out, that all the existing boundaries be erased, and that a new partition of the whole be made into 13 equal parts.

Mr. PATTERSON considered the proposition for a proportional representation as striking at the existence of the lesser States. He wd. premise however to an investigation of this question some remarks on the nature structure and powers of the Convention. The Convention he said was formed in pursuance of an Act of Congs. that this act was recited in several of the Commissions, particularly that of Massts. which he required to be read: that the amendment of the confederacy was the object of all the laws and commissions on the subject; that the articles of the Confederation were therefore the proper basis of all the proceedings of the Convention. [FN3] We ought to keep within its limits, or we should be charged by our Constituents with usurpation, that the people of America were sharpsighted and not to be deceived. But the Commissions under which we acted were not only the measure of our power, they denoted also the sentiments of the States on the subject of our deliberation. The idea of a national Govt. as contradistinguished from a federal one, never entered into the mind of any of them, and to the public mind we must accomodate ourselves.

We have no power to go beyond the federal scheme, and if we had the people are not ripe for any other. We must follow the people; the people will not follow us. -The proposition could not be maintained whether considered in reference to us as a nation, or as a confederacy. A confederacy supposes sovereignty in the members composing it & 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. He held up Virga. Massts. & Pa. as the three large States, and the other ten as small ones; repeating the calculations of Mr. Brearly as to the disparity of votes which wd. take place, and affirming that the small States would never agree to it. He said 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 rateable property of A was to that of B as 40 to 1, ought A for that reason to have 40 times as many votes as B. Such a principle would never be admitted, and if it were admitted would put B entirely at the mercy of A. As A. has more to be protected than B so he ought to contribute more for the common protection. The same may be said of a large State wch. has more to be protected than a small one.

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 every thing to fear. It was once proposed by Galloway & some others that America should be represented in the British Parlt. and then be bound by its laws. America could not have been entitled to more than 1/3 of the no. of [FN4] Representatives which would fall to the share of G. B. Would American rights & interests have been safe under an authority thus constituted? It has been said that if a Natl. Govt. is to be formed so as to operate on the people and not on the States, the representatives ought to be drawn from the people. But why so? May not a Legislature filled by the State Legislatures operate on the people who chuse the State Legislatures? or may not a practicable coercion be found. He admitted that there was none such in the existing System. -He was attached strongly to the plan of the existing confederacy, in which the people chuse their Legislative representatives; and the Legislatures their federal representatives.

No other amendments were wanting than to mark the orbits of the States with due precision, and provide for the use of coercion, which was the great point. He alluded to the hint thrown out heretofore by Mr. Wilson of the necessity to which the large States might be reduced of confederating among themselves, by a refusal of the others to concur. Let them unite if they please, but let them remember that they have no authority to compel the others to unite. N. Jersey will never confederate on the plan before the Committee. She would be swallowed up. He had rather submit to a monarch, to a despot, than to such a fate. He would not only oppose the plan here but on his return home do every thing in his power to defeat it there.

Mr. WILSON hoped if the Confederacy should be dissolved, that a majority, that a minority of the States would unite for their safety. He entered elaborately into the defence of a proportional representation, stating for his first position that as all authority was derived from the people, equal numbers of people ought to have an equal no. of representatives, and different numbers of people different numbers of representatives. This principle had been improperly violated in the Confederation, owing to the urgent circumstances of the time. As to the case of A. & B, stated by Mr. Patterson, he observed that in districts as large as the States, the number of people was the best measure of their comparative wealth. Whether therefore wealth or numbers were [FN5] to form the ratio it would be the same. Mr. P. admitted persons, not property to be the measure of suffrage. Are not the Citizens of Pena. equal to those of N. Jersey? does it require 150 of the former to balance 50 of the latter? Representatives of different districts ought clearly to hold the same proportion to each other, as their respective Constituents hold to each other. If the small States will not confederate on this plan, Pena. & he presumed some other States, would not confederate on any other. We have been told that each State being sovereign, all are equal. So each man is naturally a sovereign over himself, and all men are therefore naturally equal. Can he retain this equality when he becomes a member of Civil Government? He can not. As little can a Sovereign State, when it becomes a member of a federal Governt. If N. J. will not part with her Sovereignty it is in vain to talk of Govt. A new partition of the States is desireable, but evidently & totally impracticable.

Mr. WILLIAMSON, illustrated the cases by a comparison of the different States, to Counties of different sizes within the same State; observing that proportional representation was admitted to be just in the latter case, and could not therefore be fairly contested in the former.

The Question being about to be put Mr. PATTERSON hoped that as so much depended on it, it might be thought best to postpone the decision till tomorrow, which was done nem. con.

FN1 In the transcript the vote reads: "Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, no; Delaware divided."

I am posting the minutes to the Convention each day this Spring and Summer, along with my observations and some bios on our Framers.

We have every reason to be proud of our heritage. Never before nor since did men sit down to form a government to secure the Natural Rights of its citizens.

The Convention got down to business on May 29, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2726699/posts.

You have only missed a few days. You can read in their own words why a new government was necessary.

Why rely on what others have to say about our Constitution when you can see for yourself?

My post of 28 May explained the Secrecy Rule in the words of the Framers. It was not for the reason you state.

On 29 May the Randolph/Virginia Plan was submitted, which itemized the deficiencies of the Articles the Convention needed to correct.

I didn’t think you could explain why, if the Constitution is so flawed, it has taken 200 years to stand at the edge of tyranny. I was right.

The Framers will get to the issues of proportional representation soon. But, it is good to see you support government acting on the individual, right?

Before spouting off, try educating yourself.

Jacquerie,
I appreciate your Herculean efforts at producing this series of articles on FR. I try to read them all, but sometimes, other obligations will not allow it.

Huck,
I have always enjoyed reading your posts whenever I come across them, and I am a huge Robert Yates fan.

I guess my view is that I think the founders “did the best they could with what they had”. The constitution, though inspired, is imperfect; it was written by men, who are imperfect in their very nature.

I do believe these men were wrong when they set out to replace The Articles instead of amend them, as was their original purpose.

I hope to see and read both of you when you post here because both of your commentaries are enlightening to me.
I am awe inspired by the history of these men and those times.

My Georgia roots go back to colonial times when most of the area was frontier. Brought here as indentured servants, paupers, and convicts from England, when they had served their time and become free men, they did not want or need or tolerate anybody, anywhere, anytime who would lord over them or tell them what to do. They recognized no man nor government as having any authority over them. Their blood runs in my veins, so I guess I am a rabid-super-radical-anti-federalist.

I think Georgia was “too new” to have even been included in all of these discussions. Georgia was then more like a territory than a colony. The colony had only created the parishes along the coast in 1758 and the rest of the colony remained as Indian frontier, much of it even into the 1840’s.

Georgia did not send a delegate to the First Continental Congress; and technically, Georgia did not send a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Lyman Hall arrived at the Second Congress as a delegate from St. John’s Parish of the Colony of Georgia, but not as a delegate from Georgia.

Button Gwinnett; Lyman Hall; George Walton; William Pierce; and those like them were the wealthy city-folk aristocrats who most Georgians would turn their heads slightly to the side and spit when their names were spoken. Now imagine someone telling those guys that “somebody” was going to Philadelphia and write some words down on a piece of paper that would dictate rules for them all to live by...

I do believe these men were wrong when they set out to replace The Articles instead of amend them, as was their original purpose.

The various state credentials given to their delegates dictated their duties and latitude of decision making.

Amendments to the Articles regarding its main deficiencies as to commerce, taxes were proposed and defeated soon after the war. Despite several attempts, the Articles were never amended. In contrast, our Constitution was amended ten times shortly after it was put into practice.

As you said, you haven't had time to read all of the previous posts. I ask you to remember the Convention imposed nothing, but only recommended a new government. State conventions composed of representatives of the people ratified the Constitution. As for legitimacy, the Articles of Confederation, as far as I know, with the exception of NH, were ratified by State Legislatures.

No Herculean efforts here. I started reading the debates some months ago, took a few notes, the notes grew . . .

Hey, just rereading your charming post. I admit I've been prejudiced against Georgia in the past. I lump them in with South Carolina as "hotheads." It was, IIRC, SC and GA who were the real holdouts for what became known as the 3/5ths compromise. Again IIRC, those same two states were the primary instigators of the War Between the States.

That's a funny case too. See, here's where it gets frustrating to me. The fact that I am antifederalist in my thinking allows me to see the Constitution for what it is, which, rather than making me side with the Confederates, makes me side with the Union. The states were bound into the new, consolidated system. The secessionists, imo, were dead wrong. (Nevermind that their Constitution was not a confederacy).

That doesn't mean I admire the Constitution. I know it's radical to say, but I don't. I see it as a proven failure. Too liberal. But, it is what it is.

That's why I scoff at the 10th amendment people. The 10th amendment is a worthless statement. It changes absolutely nothing. It clarifies nothing. It states a general principle, without answering any particulars.

Did you know earlier drafts of the 10th said "expressly delegated" powers? It got shot down. The antifeds were trying to get that through, but it would have radically altered the intent of the Constitution , which was to EXPAND national power at the expense of state power.

Had it passed, McCulloch v Maryland comes out differently. Maybe Washington sides with Jefferson over Hamilton re: the first bank of the US.But it was not to be, and that was on purpose. It was no accident.

I understand your reverence for these men and times, but I say embrace iconoclasm. It's liberating to take them down from their pedestals and critique them in cold, hard light, based solely on the results.

Anyway, my mom's side is from AL and MS. I lived in Bama for a while, but I'm pretty much a Yankee. I don't hassle anyone. I love liberty above all else politically speaking. Everything else is apple sauce. I enjoyed your post with the details regarding family and history, and it's good to hear from someone else who is swayed by antifederalist thinking.

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