BRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 

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The Chautauqua Litei'ai'il and ^ciBntific GiM^. 
 
 STTJIDIES FOR 1891-93. 
 
 Leading Facts of American History. Montgomery, - . - $i oo 
 Social Institutions of the United States. Bryce, - - - i oo 
 
 Initial Studies in American Letters. Beers, - . . . i oo 
 
 Story of the Constitution of the United States. Thorpe,* - - 60 
 Classic German Course in English. AA/ilkinson, - - - - i 00 
 Two Old Faiths. Mitchell and Muir, ...... 40 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF 
 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE 
 
 School of American History, University of Pennsylvaiiia 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 The Governnie7it of the People of the United States 
 
 f (^ 
 
 1 
 
 NE\A^ YORK 
 
 CHAUTAUQUA PRESS 
 
 C. L. S. C. Department, ISO Fifth Avenue 
 
 1891 
 

 The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council 
 of Six. It must, however, be understood that recommendation does not 
 involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every 
 principle or doctrine contained in the book recommended. 
 
 Copyright, 1891, by Hunt & Eaton, New York. 
 
®o ittj] iilcrtl)cr 
 
The Constitution is intended to endure for ages to come, 
 and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human 
 affairs. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope 
 of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which 
 are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but 
 consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are con- 
 stitutional. — Chief -Justice Alarshall. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 How THE Struggle Over the Taxing Power in America Led to 
 THE Formation of Constitutions of Government in the States. 
 1 606-1 77G : 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 % 
 
 How the States Formed a Confederation which Fell to Pieces 
 Because it Had no Taxing Power. Hte-ltSQ 60 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 How the National Constitution was Made, Conferring all nec- 
 essary Powers on the National Government. 1187 Ill 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 How THE National Constitution Became the Suprejie Law of 
 the Land. 1787-1870 148 
 
 The Constitution of the United States 178 
 
 Map of the United States in 1790.. ... facing title 
 
 Index 207 
 
THE STORY OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 OP THE 
 
 UNITED STATES* 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW TFIE STRUGGLE OVER THE TAXING POWER IN AMERICA 
 LED TO THE FORMATION OF CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERN- 
 MENT IN THE STATES. 
 
 1606-1776. 
 
 After more than a hundred years of general prosperity 
 under the Constitution of the United States it is difficult to 
 realize that our country ever suffered for lack of a cen- 
 tral government or for want of a supreme law. The national 
 Constitution and the laws and treaties made in accord- 
 ance with it are now accepted as the most solemn expres- 
 sion of the sovereign will of the people; the "more perfect 
 union" is historical, not sentimental; "the general welfare " 
 is a national policy, not a proj)Osition in a plan of govern- 
 ment. By the national Constitution are tried the constitu- 
 
 * Authorities Consulted: Elliot's Debates in the Federal Convention of 
 1781, 5 vols. ; Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1881. ^Yates's and Lansing's iVbfes, 
 1 vol.; Albany Edition, 1821. Luther Martin's Genuine Information, in 
 Elliot. History of the Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the 
 Prormdgation of the Constitution of the United Slates, edited by Hampton L. 
 Carson; Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1889. Journal of Virginia Convention of 
 
10 SUPREME AUTHORITY OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 tions of States, the acts of legislatures, the laws of Congress, 
 and the decisions of courts of justice. To the national Con- 
 stitution may every inhabitant of the land appeal for the 
 protection of his civil rights. In conformity with the na- 
 tional Constitution civil authority is administered throughout 
 the land and the vast macliinery of government performs its 
 prescribed work. By the terms of this venerable instrument 
 do Congresses have succession; President follows President; 
 the body of learned men who constitute the federal courts 
 has perpetuity; elections bring into passing eras of popular- 
 ity and power the fateful administrations of political parties; 
 domain is added to domain westward to that mysterious 
 South Sea whose pacific waters were first vexed by a Euro- 
 pean keel scarcely three centuries ago; the land of the first 
 republic of modern times becomes a land far greater in extent 
 than the land of all the republics of antiquity; America be- 
 
 1788; Richmond, 1827. Robertson's DeSafes; Richmond, 1805. The Min- 
 utes of the New Jersey Convention, 1787 ; Trenton, Traver Reprint. Mas- 
 sachusetts Convention; Boston, 1788. North Carolina Convention; Hillsboro', 
 1788. Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention; Boston, 1779; Edition 
 of 1832. Constitution of Massachusetts; Worcester, Isaiah Thomas, 1780. 
 Pennsylvania State Constitutional Convention, 1776-1790; Harrisburg, 1825. 
 Maryland Conventions, IIIA:, 1775, 1776; Baltimore, 18.36. Vermont Stale 
 Papers; Slade, Middlebury, 1823. Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution; 
 edited by McMaster and Stone ; Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadel- 
 phia, 1888. Poore's Charters and Constitutions; Government Print, Wash- 
 ington, 1876. Jameson's Constitutional Convention, 4th edition; Callaghan 
 & Co., Chicago, 1888. Bancroft's History of the Constitution, Vol. I; Apple- 
 ton, New York, 1882. McMaster's History of the People of the United States; 
 Appleton, New York, 1887. Bowen's Inauguration of Washington, The 
 Century Magazine, April, 1889; F. D. Stotie's Ordinance of 1787; Pennsyl- 
 vania Historical Society, Philadelphia, 1889. Volume on Population in the 
 Tenth Census; Washington, Government Printing Office, 1883. Tlie map 
 was re-drawn for this book by C. S. Melntire, of the University. 
 
S 7MB OLS OF GO VERNMENT. 1 1 
 
 comes the home of all peoples, races, creeds, and languages; 
 liberty, intelligence, and industry transform an untouched 
 continent into a garden yielding almost every product needed 
 by man for his comfort and civilization; and when war has 
 shaken the pillars of the State, when the ideas of nationality 
 and representative government have been subjected to tlie 
 crucial wager of battle, these ideas, as it were serene in diffi- 
 culties, have come forth from the terrible trial of practical 
 affairs as the type and figure of republican government; the 
 national Constitution itself responding to the touch of hu- 
 manity, as if the supreme quality of its life were its powei's 
 of perpetual adaptation to the wants of man. In the popular 
 mind the Constitution seems almost a sentient instrument, as 
 were the emblems of government, the palladium of Minerva, 
 or the Sibylline books to the citizens of Athens and of Rome. 
 The veneration of Americans for the Constitution, a venera- 
 tion founded upon their conservatism, is not a veneration for 
 a sheet of parchment yellowed by age or preserving the auto- 
 graphs of the most eminent men in this country a century 
 ago. The veneration for the national Constitution is rather 
 like that veneration which all Englishmen feel for the Great 
 Charter, an ancient state paper setting forth in most solemn 
 form the principles of sound government. Thus the Consti- 
 tution is more than a legal document; it is the exj^ression of/ 
 the civil life of the American people. As we love our institu- 
 tions, as we cherish the memory of our patriotic dead, as we 
 triumph in peace, as we strive for better things, as we hope 
 to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our pos- 
 terity, we interpret that plan of government which finds 
 g'eneral expression in the Constitution of the United States. 
 
12 OPINIONS FAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 The stoiy of the Constitution is of truth stranger than fic- 
 tion. It is natural to attribute to an institution throughout 
 its history that reputation which it bears in our own day. 
 Many men are yet living who remember with startling dis- 
 tinctness a time when the Constitution seemed merely a piece 
 of parchment; when the fate of the nation was as uncertain as 
 the course of battle; when stern necessity compelled so liberal 
 an interpretation of the supreme law of tlie land that states- 
 men refrained from forming conclusions on the tendency of 
 national administration, and, looking hopefully forward, 
 sought new meanings in events where before they had sought 
 interpretation by a construction of words. Then, and not 
 till then, in our history was the Constitution of the United 
 States understood in its spirit as being the expression of the 
 nation's mind, whatever that mind might be. But no man 
 now living can remember the angry days when the Constitu- 
 tion was yet a hope or a proposition debated between jealous 
 States and still more jealous political leaders. ISTo one can re- 
 member the living opinions which, at the close of the eight- 
 eenth century, so nearly triumphed, and whose triumph would 
 have dissolved a feeble union of States and encouraged the 
 horrors of an anarchy only possible in a democracy. When 
 the opinions on national government in America to-day and 
 opinions of a century ago are contrasted, it is difficult to be- 
 lieve that we are the children of our fathers. 
 
 It is my purpose to tell the story of the Constitution of the 
 United States. I shall briefly relate how the people of 
 the colonies became self-governing communities; how they 
 struggled for more than a century and a half with king and 
 with Parliament for the control of the taxing power; how 
 
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. 13 
 
 they continued a struggle in America wbicli, during a portion 
 of our colonial history, had raged in England, and in the 
 course of which struggle Parliament had sent one king to the 
 block and another, his son, into exile; how in America the 
 struggle became a struggle between the power of an English 
 Parliament and the power of a colonial assembly; how in 
 that struggle every element of discord gathered about the 
 taxing power and the power to control trade; how the 
 assemblies of thirteen colonies became the legislatures of 
 thirteen States, and civil government, based upon American 
 exj^erience, was assumed in each of these independent com- 
 munities; how the necessities of war compelled the forma- 
 tion of a union of the States; how this confederation of 
 States yielded speedy proof of its insufficiency for national 
 purposes; how the whole people suffered for the want of a 
 more perfect union ; how that union was brought about by 
 a few men who jjerhaps builded better than they knew; how 
 the supreme law of the land was framed in a convention of 
 unequaled legislators; how their work was constructed, and 
 by what process they brought it to a harmonious conclusion; 
 how the Constitution framed in secret was submitted to the 
 people for their approval, and how that approval was given 
 unhesitatingly or doubtfully, or with many suggestions, or 
 with serious conditions, or was flatly refused; how at last the 
 Constitution received, technically, the consent of the people, 
 and the plan of government which it outlined was carried 
 into effect; and how, during a century, this Constitution 
 has been changed by amendments adapting it to the civil 
 necessities of the people of the United States. In telling this 
 story so briefly, more merit is due for what is left out than 
 
U THE PEOPLE LEGISLATE. 
 
 for what is told, for the full story is long and changing and 
 complicated. But the essentials of the whole story may be 
 presented in a few words. 
 
 The people of the colonies at the time of the separation 
 from England were not unskilled in the science of govern- 
 ment. In each colony from its origin civil affairs were ad- 
 ministered according to principles fundamental in the Anglo- 
 Saxon idea of government. The threefold division of gov- 
 ernment into executive, legislative, and judicial was familiar 
 to the intelligent men of all the colonies at the time of their 
 planting, and this division, which in the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century was not definite and discriminating, be- 
 came more clearly marked in the colonial governments dur- 
 ing the first half of the eighteenth century. That the king 
 should not make laws for the people, but that the represent- 
 atives of the people should legislate, is an epitome of Amer- 
 ican political history down to 1776. In every colony, before 
 the time of the Revolution, the control of civil affairs was 
 directed by a governor, by a colonial assembly, and by a sys- 
 tem of courts. The governor was a2)pointed by the crown, 
 except in Pennsylvania, in Maryland, and in Connecticut, and, 
 during a portion of its early history, in Massachusetts. The 
 Penns and the Calverts governed as lord proprietors under a 
 charter from the crown, and the people of Connecticut elected 
 their governors by privilege of their charter from Charles II. 
 In all the colonies the king was represented, and by a fiction 
 of law he was the fountain of civil authority. The judges 
 in the colonies were appointed by the governors and com- 
 missioned in the name of the king. By a legal fiction, also, 
 the king was ever present in his courts; all oaths and affirraa- 
 
THE LAW OF THE LAND. lb 
 
 tions had reference to royal authority, and all commissions 
 and writs ran in the king's name. Thus the governors and 
 the judges in colonial America were in a peculiar sense the 
 representatives of the monarchical idea. As in ancient times 
 Rome sent governors to her provinces, so England, in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sent governors to her 
 American colonies. But the parallel is not complete ; it was 
 the senate of Rome that made laws for her provinces and 
 that sent governors to execute her laws and decrees accord- 
 ing to the policy of the party or faction in power at the capi- 
 tal. No Roman province had its own elected legislature; no 
 American colony was without its own popular assembly. ''J'he 
 colonial legislatures are an anomaly in history; they existed 
 under royal grants, and they exercised an authority repre- 
 senting ideas incompatible with that of the divine right of 
 kings. Thus it came about in America that there developed 
 in the civil organization an idea which was practicable and 
 pleasing to the masses and at the same time wholly at variance 
 with another idea — the monarchical idea — wliich constituted 
 an essential part in the general civil organization. The vari- 
 ance was intensified by the existence and vigorous activity of 
 an old and pow^erful legislative body for the whole kingdom 
 — the English Parliament. Between king and Parliament 
 has for centuries raged a contest which constitutes the civil 
 and political history of Great Britain. It is an epitome of 
 English political history to say that the king must rule ac- 
 cording to the law of the land and that Parliament makes that 
 law. It may be said further that the law is determined by 
 the House of Commons in a last struggle between the two 
 houses of Parliament, the balance of power being in the 
 
16 THE ASSEMBLIES. 
 
 Commons, the elected representatives of the people of En- 
 gland. By 1733, Avhen the tlnrteenth American colony had 
 been founded, the civil affairs of the colonies had taken on 
 tolerably definite civil proj^ortions. Fifty years later, on the 
 3d of September, was signed in Paris, by the representatives 
 of the United States, of Great Britain, and of France, the 
 definitive treaty of peace by which the boundaries and the in- 
 dependence of the United States were acknowledged. But in 
 1733 at least two of the colonies, Virginia and New York, 
 had passed into the second quarter of their second century, 
 and civil affairs in all of them had passed into an organization 
 well understood and peculiar to America. The seeds of a new 
 sovereignty had been sown, and now the plant coukl not be 
 rooted out. To the royal governors, to the king, to Parlia- 
 ment, the colonial assemblies were offensive. Formed on a 
 common experience, and closely after the model of Parlia- 
 ment itself, these assemblies, except in New Hampshire, in 
 Pennsylvania, and in Georgia, consisted of two houses, known 
 generally as the upper house, or the Council, and the lower 
 house, or the Assembly. The upper house usually consisted 
 of from six to twenty men, summoned by the colonial gov- 
 ernor, to serve for an indefinite time as advisers to the execu- 
 tive, just as many years ago was summoned the first body of 
 nobles in England as advisers to the king. The Assembly 
 consisted of men elected by the qualified voters in the colony. 
 This arrangement is characteristic of New Jersey, of New 
 York, and of the Southern colonies. The four New England 
 colonies elected the delegates to both houses. In these 
 colonial legislatures the assemblies, like the Commons in En- 
 gland, possessed the balance of power. The Assembly voted 
 
THE TAXING rOWER. 17 
 
 the taxes and made appropriations of money. Seldom did 
 the two houses of a colonial legislature meet under the same 
 roof at one time; there were occasionally, and for specific pur- 
 poses, joint sessions of the houses. It would be an error, 
 however, to compare the colonial to the later State legisla- 
 tures. While in theory they are similar bodies they are too 
 unlike in their methods of civil procedure in their respective 
 fields of free legislation to permit a true parallel. To the 
 colonial legislatures, and to the lower house in each of 
 those legislatures must we turn if we would understand the 
 current and the subsequent constitutional history of th^ 
 country and the real causes of the separation from England 
 in 1776. In England Parliament alone could lay taxes. As 
 a part of the British Empire the American colonies were sub- 
 ject to taxation by Parliament. It is an axiom in government 
 that the tax-levying body possesses supreme power in the 
 State. There are reasons for this. The power to levy a tax 
 implies the power of controlling the labor of men — in other 
 words, the power of controlling men themselves. The poAver 
 of levying taxes in the colonies was exercised by the assem- 
 blies, and that power came to reside in them by a course of 
 events not anticipated by the kings who granted charters to 
 the founders of the colonies, nor by the Parliaments which 
 witnessed the origin and growth of infant States under these 
 charters. The story of government in America is never 
 plainer than when that story tells how the struggle for the 
 taxing power and the later struggle about the exercise of that 
 power at last resulted in the formation of the " more perfect 
 union " under the present national Constitution. The first 
 phase of that struggle was to determine where the power lay; 
 
18 THE TWO COMPANIES. 
 
 the second phase is how tliat power shall be exercised. The 
 first phase is a part of a larger sentiment, the idea of govern- 
 ment itself and on what principles government shall be organ- 
 ized; the second phase is a part of that larger and still dis- 
 puted problem, how government shall be administered. The 
 first phase characterizes the colonial period of American his- 
 tory; the second phase the national period. 
 
 The entire colonial period, during which the principles on 
 which representative government in America were deter- 
 mined, is illustrated by the growth of govermnent in Vir- 
 ginia. In 1606 King James I. granted a charter to " Sir 
 Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, knights, Richard 
 Hackluit, clerk. Prebendary of Westminster, and Edward 
 Maria Wingfield, Thomas Hanham and Ralegh Gilbeit, 
 Esqrs., William Parker and George Popham, gentlemen, and 
 divers others of our loving subjects, ... to make habitation, 
 plantation, and to deduce a colony of sundr}^ our people into 
 that part of America commonly called Virginia." At that 
 time nearly all of North America was " commonly called 
 Virginia." To these incorporators and others named in the 
 charter the king gave a region of country as definite in 
 boundary as his geographical knowledge of Virginia permit- 
 ted. The charter was a grant to two companies : to Gates 
 and his associates, describing them as the London Company, 
 and to a second company, to be known as the Plymouth, 
 consisting of Gilbert, Parker, Popham, and others, of the 
 town of Plymouth, in England. By the charter each colony 
 was to " have a Council which shall govern and order all 
 matters and causes which shall arise, grow, or happ'en to or 
 within the same several Colonies, according to such Laws, 
 
THE FIRST CHARTER. • 19 
 
 Ordinances & Instructions as shall be in that behalf, given 
 and signed with Our Hand or Sign Manual, and pass under 
 the Privy Seal of Our realm of England; Each of which 
 Councils shall consist of thirteen Persons to be ordained, 
 oade, and removed from time to time according as shall be 
 clirected and comprised in the same Instructions; And shall 
 have a several Seal, for all Matters that shall pass or concern 
 the same several Councils; Each of which Seals shall have 
 the King's Arms engraven on the one Side thereof, and His 
 Portraiture on the other; And that the Seal for the Council 
 of tlie said first Colony shall have engraven round about, oi^ 
 the one Side these "Words : Sigillmn Regis MagucB Britan- 
 -nlcB, FranclcB S Hlbernke / * and on the other Side this 
 Inscription round about : Pro Concillo Primm GolonlcB Vir- 
 glnice.'''' f In this commercial grant originated representa- 
 tive government in the United States. Tlie charter gave 
 authority from the crown to pursue specified activities in 
 Virginia. These activities were comuiercial and industrial 
 rather than political in their nature; but not wholly com- 
 mercial or industrial, for political interests are implied in all 
 economic affairs. The council of thirteen in England was a 
 body of directors empowered to act by their charter, and 
 limited only by the charter. Civil matters were provided 
 for in the assurance that all persons taking up residence in 
 Virginia and all persons born there were to enjoy all liber- 
 ties and franchises and immunities as if living in England. 
 By this first charter the trading company was empowered to 
 make laws and ordinances for the direction of its affairs, 
 
 * Seal of the king of Grreat Britain, France, and Ireland. 
 f For the council of the first colony of Virginia. 
 
20 TEE SECOND CHARTER. 
 
 subject to the king's revision and approval, and to grant 
 land to colonists at a rent to be fixed by tlie company. But 
 thus far there is no provision for a colonial legislative body. 
 The ordinances of the company made in England were to be 
 the laws for the settlers in Virginia. This plan failed on 
 trial, and principally because it was a money-making scheme 
 under the control of a chartered monopoly, a monopoly rep- 
 resented by two companies, the London Company and the 
 Plymouth Companj''. It failed because no homes in Vii'ginia 
 were set up under its provisions. It literally concerned " a 
 body of adventurers." The few persons who came to Vir- 
 ginia had no intention of remaining there ; they were not 
 Americans; they were not colonists. They Avere Londoners 
 in search of wealth. 
 
 In 1609 the king granted a second charter. A more 
 definite domain was named. The commercial purpose of 
 the adventure was more sj^ecitically set forth. It had been 
 found " not convenient " that all the adventurers should be 
 drawn to meet and assemble so often as should be necessary 
 for them to have meetings and conferences about the affairs 
 of the colony ; therefore one council was to reside by per- 
 petual succession in England, and it was empowered " to 
 make, ordain, and establish all Manner of Orders, Laws, Di- 
 rections, Instructions, Forms & Ceremonies of Government 
 and Magistracy, fit and necessary for & concerning the 
 Government of the said Colony and Plantation." The laws 
 made by this council fi3r the colony were to be "as conven- 
 iently as may be " " agreeable to the Laws, Statutes, Gov- 
 ernment and Policy of the . . . Realm of England." A brief 
 experience had demonstrated the meaning of the phrase " as 
 
THE THIRD CHARTER. 21 
 
 conveniently as may be;" the great distance from England 
 and the new conditions -of life in Virginia making neces- 
 sary this permission of a use of legislative discretion in the 
 council of the company in England. 
 
 But the colony did not prosper. The inconvenience was 
 still too great that affairs in Virginia should be wholly di- 
 rected to minutest details by a council of directors living in 
 England. The whole adventure was reorganized, and the 
 king granted a third Virginia charter in 1G12. 
 
 By this charter the treasurer and company of adventurers 
 in Virginia were empowered once every week or oftener, ^ 
 their pleasure, to hold and keep a court and assembly for 
 the better order and government of the j^lantation and such 
 things as might concern it. But this frequent court was to 
 consider only ordinary matters. " Matters and Affairs of 
 Greater Weight and Importance and such as in any Sort 
 (should) concern the Weal, Publick and General Good of the 
 said Company and Plantation, as namely the Manner of 
 Government from Time to Time to be used, the Ordering 
 and Dispensing of the Lands and Possessions and the Set- 
 tling and Establishing of a Trade there, or Such like," were 
 to be considered every year, iipon the last Wednesday save 
 one of Hillary Term,* Easter, f Trinit}^ J and Michaelmas, § 
 in " a Great, General and Solemn Assembl}^," the four as- 
 semblies being " Stiled & Called The four Great & General 
 Courts of the Council and Company of Adventurers for Vir- 
 ginia." These four courts were magisterial in character 
 
 * January 11-31. f Movable. 
 
 j^ Formerly mov.able, now occurring from May 22 to June 12. 
 
 § Formerly movable, now November 2-25. 
 
22 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ratliei' than legislative, but convenience and necessity com- 
 pelled a modification or adaptation of the " solemn Assem- 
 bly" to the conditions of colonial life. From the language 
 of the third charter it is evident that the treasurer and other 
 members of the company elected membei-s of this Assembly', 
 and their successors were to enact their laws in conformity 
 with the laws of England. The charter further provided 
 that " in all Questions and Doubts that (should) arise upon 
 any Difficulty of Construction or Interpretation of any thiug 
 contained in these or any other (our) former Letters-patent, 
 the same should be taken and interpreted in tiie most ample 
 and beneficial Manner for the said Treasurer and Company 
 and their Successors." The power of so liberal a construc- 
 tion of the charter was soon exercised. The colonists who 
 were members of the company were empowered by the 
 charter to assemble by rej^resentation. A formal and 
 special oath was to be administered hy the treasurer, his 
 deputy, or by any two of the council, to all persons in the 
 service of the colony; the earliest instance of the adminis- 
 tering of an oath of office in this country. Thus the gov- 
 ernment introduced into Virginia under the third charter 
 was essentially republican in character, if not so in strict 
 form; for legislative power was taken from the exclusive 
 control of the body of colonial directors and given to a 
 General Assembly of the qualified electors of Virginia who 
 acquired the right to exercise those political poAvers hitherto 
 limited to the qualified electors of England. The Virginia 
 colonist became an elector by joining the Virginia body of 
 colonists and subscribing to the oath required by the com- 
 pany. His electoral qualifications were the oath and the 
 
PROPERTY QUALIFICATIONS. 23 
 
 ownership of land to an amount specified from time to time 
 by the Assembly. He was also required to belong to the 
 Established Church of England. Similar qualifications for 
 electors were requii'ed in England ; but the limitations on 
 land-holding in England made the number of electors there 
 far less in j^roportion to population than was the number in 
 the colony-. Frequently it will be necessary to refer to the 
 qualifications of the elector in America; nor until the eight- 
 eenth century is nearly past will the abolition of property 
 qualifications find expression in the liberal provisions for 
 citizenship under the Constitution of the United State|L 
 That ownership of land was a prerequisite in Virginia at 
 the time of the third charter for the possession of the fran- 
 chise is explicable, not alone from the fact of most ancient 
 precedent in England, but because a man, not capable of 
 seci^ring and cultivating land in Virginia, or in the later 
 colonies, as they successively were founded and their elec- 
 tion laws were established, was thought to be unworthy of 
 possessing and exercising political power. The ownership of 
 real estate indicated plainly the amount of a man's responsi- 
 bility in the community. It should not be forgotten, in fol- 
 lowdng the story of government in England or in America, 
 that the modern democratic idea of the franchise, " A man 
 should vote because he is a man," was unknown until the 
 nineteenth century had entered ujDon its fourth decade. Gov- 
 ernment is founded upon persons and jDroperty, and until quite 
 recent times this property has been real estate rather than per- 
 sonal property, it being thought that the estimate of property 
 values could be made in no simpler way than by an estimate of 
 the value of real estate. Personal property is now a large pro- 
 
24 THE BASTS FOR REPRESENTATION: 
 
 jjortion of the whole amount of the works's wealth. At the 
 time when the foundations of government were laid in Amer- 
 ica personal jDroperty bore only a trifling proportion to the 
 whole amount of wealth in a community. Stocks, certificates, 
 bonds, shares, negotiable paper, now comprising perhaps 
 two fifths of the wealth of society, were unknown to the 
 men who founded States in America. Then the basis for 
 property representation was real estate, now the basis is 
 both on real estate and on personal property, though with 
 the enormous increase of personal property no corresponding 
 increase of tax burden has been laid upon it,* the land still 
 remaining the foundation of our taxing systems. Had per- 
 sonal property been as abundant or as valuable in the seven- 
 teenth as in the nineteenth century doubtless the property 
 qualification required of an elector would have included a 
 qualification based on personal property. As personal j^rop- 
 erty gained in value in America the State legislatures, as in 
 Rhode Island, m&de the privilege of the franchise obtainable 
 according to an income fixed by the legislature; and many 
 States, before the property qualification was abandoned in 
 this country, had begun to admit as electors all men, other- 
 wise qualified, who paid taxes on an income derived from 
 personal joroperty thought to be sufficient to equal the 
 former values set on real estate. In Pennsylvania and in 
 Mississippi the payment of certain taxes is still required 
 before a man can vote. But in no State of the Union does 
 a property qualification for electors now exist. 
 
 I have quoted from the Virginia charters in order to make a 
 beginning of the story of the Constitution. Remote as this 
 beginning may at first seem from the time of the framing of 
 
THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 25 
 
 our national Constitution, it is plain that as soon as tlie 
 third charter of Virginia was put into ojieration in the colony 
 the idea of a republican form of government had taken root 
 in America. The right to vote was conferred on the mem- 
 bers of the company, which was enlarged to include English- 
 men, strangers, and aliens. Apprentices, servants, slaves, 
 and persons not admitted to the company could not vote. 
 But the beginning of representative government was made. 
 
 In April, 1619, Sir George Yeardley became governor of 
 Virginia. He abrogated the military code which had grown 
 up under successive governors and jiroclairaed the " fre^ 
 laws " — that is, the common law of England. And " that the 
 planters might haA'e a hand in the governing of tliemselves," 
 it was granted that "a General Assembly should be held 
 yearly once ; whereat were to be present the governor and 
 council and two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be 
 elected by the inhabitants thereof; this Assembly to have 
 power to makti and ordain whatsoever laws and orders should 
 by them be thought good and profitable for their subsist- 
 ence." The number of burgesses from each plantation was 
 suggested by the two burgesses which from time immemorial 
 had represented the old English shires in the House of Com- 
 mons or in the earlier jDopular assemblies of the kingdom. 
 
 Of the proceedings and acts of this first General Assembly 
 in America little is known. The governor and his council 
 sat with the burgesses and participated in the proceedings. 
 The speaker chosen was not a burgess, although he Avas a 
 councilor, and the secretary of the colony. Observing the 
 forms of parliamentary procedure, the Assembly opened with 
 prayer. It examined the qualifications of its elected mem- 
 
26 THE FIRST AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 
 
 bers; it passed laws concerning drunkenness, idleness, and 
 card-playing; it fixed llie price of tobacco, the staple of the 
 colony; it formally accepted the charter of 1612 on behalf 
 of the colony, and further declared that the laws of the 
 Assembly should be the supreme laws of Virginia without 
 submitting them to the council of the company in England. 
 This historic Assembly assembled at James City, on Friday, 
 the 30th of JuW, 1619, and eleven plaiitations, or, as may be 
 said, parishes or counties, were represented. The division 
 of government was not exact, for this Assembly sat as a 
 court as well as a legislative body. But the people of the 
 colony were pleased. In their own midst civil government 
 was set up ; familiar institutions were about them, and 
 thenceforth Virginia was their country and their home. 
 Two years later, on the 24th of July, the council of the 
 company in England apjjroved the course of the Assembly 
 by passing an ordinance establisliing a written constitution for 
 Virginia. Tliis earliest written constitution for an American 
 commonwealth was modeled after the unwritten constitution 
 of England, and it is the historical foundation for all later 
 constitutions of government in this country, " The greatest 
 comfort and benefit to the people, and the prevention of 
 injustice, grievances, and oppression," is the language of the 
 ordinance declaring the purpose of the new constitution, and 
 it suggests not only the language of familiar provisions in the 
 declarations of rights in the subsequent State constitutions, 
 but also the comprehensive 2:)reambJe of the Constitution of 
 the United States, Avritten one hundred and sixty years later 
 — that Constitution due perhaps more than to any oilier indi- 
 vidual to a distinguished Virginian, James Madison. 
 
CHECKS AND BALANCES. 27 
 
 Between tlie General Assembly in Virginia and the council 
 of the company in England was a mutual agreement that 
 the acts and laws passed by either body should not take ef- 
 fect unless ratified by the otlier— -the first instance in this 
 country of the introduction of a system of " checks and bal- 
 ances " in government. The provision may be described as 
 the first introduction of the veto power in America. With 
 the entrance of the burgess into civil power by the choice of 
 the qualified citizens began popular government on this con- 
 tinent, and not popular government alone, but also the 
 struggle between king and people — between the monarchicaL 
 idea and the republican idea; a struggle which terminated 
 at last in the independence of the United States and the 
 definitive treaty of 1783. But between 1G19 and 1783 popu- 
 lar assemblies had sprung up in all tlie American colonies, 
 had assumed specific functions, and had come to exercise im- 
 portant powers. Of import second to no other exercise of 
 power was the right claimed and exercised by the lower 
 house of the colonial legislatures to levy taxes and to appi'o- 
 priate public moneys. This peculiar right claimed by the 
 assemblies found its precedent in the House of Commons. 
 The delegates to the colonial assembly represented the 
 electors, the people — the sovereignty newly enthroned in 
 America. Custom made stronger year by year the powers 
 exercised at first with shyness b}^ the delegates in the as- 
 semblies. But custom and the acquiescence of the British 
 government rajjidly strengthened the confidejice of the as- 
 semblies in their right to levy taxes. By the time Georgia 
 was founded all the colonies were familiar with the- idea tliat 
 taxes and appropriations of public money should be con- 
 
,28 COLONIAL ASSEMBLY VERSUS KmO. 
 
 trolled by the delegates in the lower house. The roy:d gov- 
 ernors constantly objected to this assumption of jDOwer by 
 the assemblies, but the royal governors had read English 
 history. The kings had lost in their contest with Parlia- 
 ment for the power to lay taxes. From King John 'had 
 been wrested the Great Charter in 1215, and thenceforth it 
 was declared that the king must rule according to the law 
 of the land. In 1649 Charles I. had lost his life in 
 his attempt to govern without a Parliainent and to levy 
 taxes in his own name. George III. did not renew the 
 struggle with the colonial assemblies, nor did any English 
 monarch from the first Charles to the third George attempt 
 to renew it. Perhaps the king dimly foresaw that counter- 
 revolution in America which was to wrest from an " omnipo- 
 tent Parliament " a taxing power claimed by the rej^resent- 
 atives of the people in the colonial houses of assembly. 
 Perhaps the royal mind dimly caught the significance of the 
 mortal blow against that Parliament Mdiich kings in England 
 had not been able to Avield when kings in England would 
 have wielded that blow against the welfare of the jDcople, 
 but which popular assemblies in America were able to wield 
 against that parliamentary body which had succeeded to the 
 triumphs won by Parliaments over kings. The revolution of 
 iVYe was unlike the revolution of 1648. In England King- 
 Charles would levy shi2>money; in America it was Parlia- 
 ment that would levy ship-money. England was willing in 
 1648 that Parliament should levy ship-money, and America 
 in 17*76 that a Parliament should levy ship-money; but the 
 Parliament in 1776 must be a General Assembly, a lower 
 house of the colonial legislature, the true American Parlia- 
 
TAXES AND HOME RULE. 29 
 
 raent. Therefore the War of the Revolution was not a war 
 against King George III,; it was a war for a principle 
 wliicli in our clay is called local self-government, or home 
 rule. That the British Parliament had the lawful right to 
 levy taxes in the American colonies is true. That the colo- 
 nies cared to be represented in Parliament by delegates 
 chosen by the qualified electors in America is not wholly 
 true. Such a representation was desired by some Americans, 
 and such a representation w^as theoretically possible ; but it 
 was practically impossible. The inconvenience of such a 
 system was too great to make it practicable. It became 
 necessary that legislative powers should be exercised in the 
 colonies, by the colonies, and for the colonies It has been 
 customary now for many years to consider the American 
 Revolution as a political revolution chiefly, as a struggle 
 by the colonists to obtain the right to vote and to have 
 representation. It was a political revolution and a mighty 
 change in the politics of the world, but it was even more 
 mighty as a social and an industrial revolution, and in a last 
 analysis it must appear that the political significance of the 
 whole war depended upon and followed and took meaning 
 from the industrial, the economic conditions of America and 
 the Americans during the first half of the eighteenth cent- 
 ury — conditions which had been in process of identification 
 ever since the organization of government in the oldest 
 colony. The whole dispute was a dispute about taxes; not 
 a dispute that taxes be laid or not laid, but a disunite as 
 to who should levy them; nor was it denied that a legislative 
 body should levy them. The question was, which legislative 
 body, the English Parliament, or the American Assembly? 
 
80 THE FIRST AMERICAN CONVENTION. 
 
 But the Americans were not guilty of undue haste in 
 their journey from the house of dependence to the " new 
 I'oof" of nationality. On October 7, 1765, twenty-eight 
 delegates from all the colonies except Virginia, New Hamp- 
 shire, Georgia, and North Carolina, summoned at the sug- 
 gestion of the legislature of Massachusetts, met in the City 
 Hall in New York to take into consideration the state of 
 public affairs. This first American Convention, after a long 
 debate, decided to declare that the liberties of America were 
 founded, not on royal charters, but- on natural rights; and 
 they issued what Judge Story has called "perhaps the best 
 general summary of the rights and liberties asserted by all 
 the colonies." This declai-ation of October 19 sets forth 
 ideas repeated subsequently at length in the declaration of 
 1774, and again, more comprehensively, in the declaration of 
 1776, "That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a 
 people . . . that no tuxes be imposed on them but with 
 their own consent, given personally or by their representa- 
 tives;" and "that the people of these colonies are not and 
 from their local circumstances cannot be represented in the 
 House of Commons in Great Britain." The whole question 
 of taxation was comprised in the resolution, "That the only 
 representatives of the people of these colonies are persons 
 chosen therein by themselves; and that no taxes ever have 
 been or can be constitutionally imposed on them but by their 
 respective legislatures." 
 
 Meantime Parliament had laid an indirect tax on the 
 Americans. The tax on tea affected, it was thought by its 
 English originators, only those who consumed tea ; the tax 
 on legal papers only the litigious people who had business 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESS. 31 
 
 in the courts. The Stamp Act of 1765 brought face to face 
 the two contending powers — tlie power in Parliament and 
 the power in the colonial assemblies to tax the Americans. 
 The Revolution had begun. It began not with fife and 
 drum and battles between armed men. It began in the as- 
 semblies and among their constituents, the people. On the 
 5th of September, 1774, an assembly of delegates met at 
 Philadelphia, consisting of men appointed by the lower house 
 of the colonial legislatures or specially chosen by popular 
 conventions. This assembly was the first Continental Con- 
 gress. It organized a revolutionary government and forbade ^ 
 further commerce with England. On the 10th of May of 
 the following year the second Congress assembled in the 
 same historic city. Nearly all of its members were chosen 
 by conventions specially called by the people. This Congress 
 organized an army and a navy; created a treasury depart- 
 ment; established a postal service, and issued the Declara- 
 tion of Indejiendence. 
 
 The people in their colonial assemblies had seized the 
 citadel of government many years before, and it was only a 
 matter of time when independence would be claimed and 
 acknowledged. From 1619 to 1775 every colony became 
 familiar with the forms, the pi'ocedureSj and the legislation 
 of organized governments based ujDon the idea of popular 
 representation. It was not disputed that the assemblies 
 should control taxation. Retrogression was impossible. To 
 king and to Parliament the assemblies had become not 
 merely offensive, but menacing. The " injuries and usurpa- 
 tions all having in direct object the establishment of an ab- 
 solute tyranny over these States," as set forth in the Decla- 
 
S2 KING AND PRESIDENT. 
 
 ration of Independence, ai-e nearly all concerning the laws or 
 the legislative jjowers of the colonial assemblies. The acts 
 of these assemblies Avere described as " wholesome and nec- 
 essary for the i:)ablic good," and the accusation against the king 
 was his refusal to give his assent to these laws. A parallel 
 would not be wholly wanting if, in case a President of the 
 United States should veto some piece of popular legislation 
 in Congress, the leaders in that legislation should remonstrate 
 to the President and comi:)lain that he had refused his assent 
 to laws " wh'olesome and necessary to the public good." But 
 the parallel fails badly Avhcn it is pursued to any length. 
 The time may come when the American historian may find 
 a parallel between the accusations against George III. 
 and the accusations against President Johnson, the accusa- 
 tions in either case being grounded on a dispute concernhig 
 legislative and executive functions. In the case of the Presi- 
 dent the accusations Avere drawn by a committee of Con- 
 gress; in the case of the king they were drawn by a com- 
 mittee of the people of the colonies constituting a Congress. 
 But the conclusion of the whole matter in these two cases 
 was unlike: the king lost; the President won. The king 
 lost because, with Parliament, he was hindering the progress 
 of representative government among the colonies, where that 
 government, already long established, must necessarily de- 
 velop national independence. The President won because, 
 in a struggle between the executive and a party in Congress, 
 the independence of the executive was endangered, and Con- 
 gress was unwilling to establish a precedent which might 
 work untold mischief in the country. The impeachment of 
 President Johnson was not an impeachment because he 
 
CHARGES A GAINST THE KING. 38 
 
 sought to levy taxes without the consent of Congress, be- 
 cause he could not levy taxes with the consent of Congress. 
 The impeachment of the President was on grounds that he 
 had refused to execute certain laws passed by Congress, 
 or had executed tiiese laws in a manner not intended by 
 Congress. The accusation against King George III. was 
 liis refusal to assent to laws made for the public good after 
 the colonial assemblies had passed them. In each instance 
 the accusation touches on the assemblies; nor should any 
 person who seeks to understand the story of government in 
 the United States hope to understand it without reading and 
 re-reading these solemn charges in the Declaration of 1776, 
 which bring into just prominence the central idea of the 
 Avhole struggle — the taxing power in the colonial assem- 
 blies. In foimulating their charges against the king, Avho 
 stands for both king and Parliament, the framers of the 
 Declaration affirm: 
 
 " He has forbidden his governors to pass Laws of imme- 
 diate and pressing importance unless suspended in their 
 operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so 
 suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 
 
 " He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommoda- 
 tion of large districts of people, unless those people would 
 relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a 
 right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
 
 " He has called together legislative bodies at places un- 
 usual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depositor}'^ of 
 their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them 
 into compliance with his measures. 
 
 " He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for 
 3 
 
S4 THE A ecus A TWN. 
 
 opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of 
 the people. 
 
 " He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, 
 to cause others to bo elected ; whereby the Legislative 
 Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the 
 People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in 
 the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from 
 without and convulsions within. 
 
 " He has endeavored to prevent the population of these 
 States ; for that jjurpose obstructing the Laws for Naturali- 
 zation of Foreigners ; refusing to pass others to encourage 
 their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new 
 Appropriations of Lands. 
 
 " He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by 
 refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary 
 Powers. 
 
 "He has made Judges dependent on his AVill alone, for 
 the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of 
 their salaries. 
 
 " He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent 
 hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out 
 their substance. 
 
 " He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing 
 Armies without the Consent of our legislature. 
 
 " He has affected to render the Military independent of 
 and superior to the Civil Power. 
 
 " He has combined with others to subject us to a juris- 
 diction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by 
 our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended 
 Legislation : 
 
CHARGES AGAINST THE KING. 35 
 
 " Fur quartering large bodies of armed men among us: 
 
 " For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment 
 for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhab- 
 itants of these States: 
 
 " For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 
 
 "For imposing taxes on us without our Consent: 
 
 " For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial 
 by Jury: 
 
 " For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pre- 
 tended ofrenses: 
 
 " For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a^ 
 neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary gov- 
 ernment, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at 
 once an example and fit instrumetit for introducing the same 
 absolute rule into these Colonies: 
 
 " For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most val- 
 uable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our 
 Governments: 
 
 '• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring 
 themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all 
 cases whatsoever. 
 
 " He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out 
 of his Protection and waging War against us." 
 
 Much might be Avritten in exposition of these charges, but 
 the substance of all exposition is the evidence that the essen- 
 tial difference between the colonists and the English govern- 
 ment was concerning legislation in the colonial assemblies. 
 King and Parliament wished to get rid of the assemblies, 
 and the assemblies wished to get rid of king and Parliament. 
 The legal right of Parliament to tax the Americans is indis- 
 
36 ENGLAND'S WANTS. ■ 
 
 putable, but the Americans had outgrown their willingness 
 to submit to that legal right. They thought that to tax 
 themselves was their natural right ; and to tax themselves 
 was essentially to govern themselves. Parliament and king, 
 like Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon, had the law technic- 
 ally on their side; but the Americans believed that the law 
 was wrong. For a brief time in the historj^ of the four 
 Georges king and Parliament united in a common cause 
 against the rebellious Americans ; but events, complex in 
 their nature and international in importance, dictated strange 
 results. The lack of great soldiers in England cut the king- 
 dom off from services in America such as earlier in the cent- 
 ury had been done by Marlborough in the Low Countries, or 
 a generation later in the early years of the nineteenth century 
 were done by Wellington in Spain and in Belgium. The 
 possible service of Lord Clive in America was prevented l>y 
 his siidden and terrible death, or perhaps Washington and 
 Greene would have met a leader worthy of their powers. The 
 distance of the field of operations from England ; the bitter- 
 ness of political factions in Parliament when the cause of 
 America had broken the ti-ansient solidarity of opposing sen- 
 timent ; the French alliance; the unflinching perseverance 
 of the Americans and their patriotism almost unparalleled; 
 and the paradoxical course of affairs in the United States — 
 military success and conservatism and unprecedented and 
 acknowledged feebleness of the civil authority at the same 
 time — are some of the elements and factors which at last 
 wrought 'out American nationality. 
 
 The Congress which issued the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence was destined to experience strange vicissitudes. By a 
 
GOVERNMENT TAKEN UP. 37 
 
 succession of delegates, irregularly kept up by the colonies, 
 now become States, this Congress kept in session throughout 
 the Revolutionary War, exjjiring at last, for want of a 
 quorum, a few days before the inauguration, in 1789, of the 
 national government under which we now live. 
 
 The second Continental Congress had been in session just 
 one year when it passed a resolution recommending each 
 colony to form a State government. The critical change 
 thus suggested was an easy one. Connecticut and Rhode 
 Island were the only colonies Avhicli made no change in their 
 civil organization, but continued under their liberal charters. 
 These two colonies had long enjoyed the republican form ot 
 government. Connecticut, under her old charter of 1662, 
 had organized her civil life upon so popular a basis that she 
 continued her "frame of government until 1818 almost un- 
 changed. Rhode Island, similarly situated, imder her charter 
 of 1663, continued her plan of civil organization x;nchanged 
 until 1842. But in eleven of the colonies the recommendation 
 of Congress " to take up civil government " was followed with 
 alacrity. Conventions to form new State constitutions soon 
 Avere called, and during the next two years written consti- 
 tutions were proclaimed in these eleven States. Massachu- 
 setts submitted the work of her convention of 1778 to the 
 people, and it was rejected. A second convention was called 
 in that State, which was in session from September 1, 1779, 
 to January 16, 1780. The constitution made by this con- 
 vention was submitted to popular vote, was adopted, and 
 remains to this day, with a few unimportant modifications 
 adapting it to changed conditions, the fundamental law of 
 that State. It is the only constitution of those first made by 
 
38 STATE CONSTITUTION MAKING THEN AND NOW. 
 
 the States which has survived, and is the oldest written con- 
 stitution in America. Nine States did not submit their con- 
 stitutions to popular vote. The times were times of war, and 
 the conventions which framed the first constitutions inter- 
 preted the wants of their States so closely that, without 
 doubt, each constitution would have been approved, although 
 not with lieavy majorities in some of the States, because the 
 revolutionary feeling was not equally strong in all parts of 
 America. It is now customary to submit a new constitution 
 to the people for ratification. In each of the six new States 
 of 1889-1890 tlie constitution Avas submitted to the electors 
 and adopted ; in three of the States a sj)ecial clause being 
 submitted separately from the body of the constitution. In 
 Mississippi the new constitution of 1890 was promulgated as 
 iiT force by the convention which framed it. ■ The custom in 
 America is submission for ratification. Between 1776 and 
 1789 nearly all the States framed new constitutions. But 
 only Massachusetts and New Jersey submitted their consti- 
 tutions to the test of a popular vote. It was many years in 
 some States before a constitution which had received popular 
 approval at the polls became the supreme law. The consti- 
 tution of New York of 1776 continued in force until 1821. 
 Maryland's constitution of 1776 was displaced by her second 
 constitution of 1850. North Carolina continued her consti 
 tution of 1776 till 1865. New Jersey framed a second con- 
 stitution in 18-14. Vermont supplanted lier constitution of 
 1785 by another seven years later. The constitution of 
 South Carolina of 1790 lasted seventy years. Georgia lived 
 under the constitution of 1 788 until it was superseded by 
 the constitution of 1839. Delaware framed a constitution in 
 
EXPEPdENCE DICTATES. 39 
 
 1792 which was in force till ISol. The constitution of 
 Penusylvania of 1776 gave place to that of 1789, which was 
 approved by the people; and the constitution of 1789 was 
 supplanted by a small popular vote by the constitution 
 of 1837.* 
 
 In 1776 there was a substantial unanimity of opinion 
 throughout the country concerning the essentials of State 
 government. Each State put in written form the system of 
 government to which it was accustomed or for which the 
 
 * New State Constitutioxs. — The States have framed consiitutions as 
 follows (the States are named in the order in which they came into the 
 Union) : ^ 
 
 1. Delaware, 1776, 1792. 1831. 
 
 2. Pennsylvania, 1776, 1790, 1838, 1873. 
 
 3. New Jersey, 1776, 1844. 
 
 4. Georgia, 1777, 1789, 1798, 1839, 1868, 1877. 
 
 5. Cnnriecticut, Charter of 1662, Constitnf-on of 1818. 
 
 6. Massacliusetts, 1780. 
 
 7. Maryland, 1776, 1851, 1864, 1867. 
 
 8. Sonth Carolina, 1776. 1778, 1790, 1868. 
 
 9. Now Hampshire, 1776, 1781, 1792, 187G. 
 
 10. Virginia, 1776, 1830, 1850, 1870. 
 
 11. New York, 1777, 1821, 1846. 
 
 12. Nortli Carolina, 1776, 1868, 1876. 
 
 13. Rhode Island, Charter of 1663, Constitution of 1842. 
 
 14. Vermont, admitted March 4, 1791, Free. Constitutions, 1776, 
 
 1786, 1793. 
 
 15. Kentuck)'-, admitted June 1, 1792, Slave. Consiitutions, 1792, 179:"), 
 
 1850, 1891. 
 
 16. Tennessee, June 1, 1796, Slave. 1834, 1805, 1870. 
 
 17. Ohio, November 29, 1802, Free. 1S51. 
 
 18. Louisiana, April 30, 1812, Slave. 1845, 1852, 1868, 1879. 
 
 19. Indiana, December 11, 1816, Free. 1851. 
 
 20. Mississippi, December 10, 1817, Slave.' 1832, 1868, 1890. 
 
 21. Illinois, December 3, 1818, Frre. 1848, 1870. 
 
 22. Alabama, December 14, 1819, Slave. 1867, 1875. 
 2.3. Maine, March 15, 1820, Free. 
 
40 THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 colony liad been striving for many years. No mere experi- 
 ments were made. If the constitution of Massachusetts may 
 be cited for ilhistration — and it differed but slightly from other 
 State constitutions framed in the eighteenth century in Amer- 
 ica — the course of constitution-making in the States from 1776 
 to 1790 is plain. A preamble declares the purpose of gov- 
 ernraent "to secure the existence of the body politic; to 
 protect it; and to furnish the individuals who compose it 
 with the power of enjojdng in safety and tranquillity their 
 natural rights and the blessings of life. And whenever 
 these objects are not obtained the people have a right to 
 alter the government and to take measures necessary for 
 
 24. Missouri, August 10, 1821, Slave. 1865, 1875. 
 
 25. Arkansas, June 15, 1836, Slave. 1868, 1874. 
 
 26. Michigan, January 26, 1837, Free. 1850. 
 
 27. Florida, March 3, 1845, Slave. 1865, 1868, 1886. 
 
 28. Texas, December 29, 1845, Slave. 1866, 1868, 1876. 
 
 29. Iowa, December 28, 1846, Free. 1857. 
 
 30. Wisconsin, May -29, 1848. Free. 
 
 31. California, September 9, 1850, Free. 1879. 
 
 32. Minnesota, May 11, 1858. Free. 
 
 33. Oregon, February 14, 1859. Free. 
 
 34. Kansas, January 29, 1861. Free. (Slave constitution, 1855; free 
 
 constitution in 1857; slave constitution in 1858; a free cousiilu- 
 tion in 1859, on which the State was admitted.) 
 
 35. West Virginia, June 19, 1863, Free. 1872. 
 
 36. Nevada, October 31, 1864. Free. 
 
 37. Nebraska, March 1, 1867. 1375. 
 
 38. Colorado, August 1, 1876. 
 
 39. North Dakota, November 2, ] 889. 
 
 40. South Dakota, November 2, 1889. 
 
 41. Montana, November 8, 1889. 
 
 42. Washington, November 11, 1889. 
 
 43. Idaho, July 3, 1890. 
 
 44. Wyoming, July 10, 1890. See the author's Government of the People 
 
 of the United States, p. 294. 
 
G VERNMENT IN MA SSA CHUSETTS. 4 1 
 
 their safety, prosperity, and happiness. The body jDolitic 
 is formed by a vohmtary association of individuals. It is a 
 social compact by which the whole people covenants witli 
 each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all 
 shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. It 
 is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution 
 of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making 
 laws as well as for an impartial interj^retation and a faithful 
 execution of them; that every man may at all times find his 
 security in them. We, therefore, the people of Massachu- 
 setts, acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of 
 the Great Legislator of the Universe in affording us, in 
 the course of his Providence, an opportunity, deliberately 
 and peaceably, Avithout fraud, violence, or surprise, of enter- 
 ing into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each 
 other, and of forming a new constitution of civil govern- 
 ment, for ourselves and our posterity, and devoutly implor- 
 ing his direction in so interesting a design, Do agree upon, 
 ordain, and establish the following declaration of rights and 
 frame of government." The declaration of rights in this 
 constitution, essentially the same in the other States, sets 
 forth the civil rights of the citizens. Fr&e and equal by 
 birth, all men have certain natural, essential, and unalienable 
 rights: to life and liberty; to property and to happiness; to 
 freedom in the worship of God; to free elections and the 
 impartial administration of the laws; to jury trial and ex- 
 emption from uni'easonable searches and seizures; to liberty 
 of the press; to keep and to bear arms; to peaceable assem- 
 bling and to petition; to freedom of debate in legislatures; 
 to immunity from ex post facto laws — that is, from "laws 
 
42 LAWS, NOT MElSi. 
 
 made to punish for actions done before tlie existence ol such 
 laws and which have not been declared crimes by pi'eceding 
 laws;" to freedom from excessive bail or sureties, from ex- 
 cessive lines, or cruel or unusual punishments; to exemption 
 from the quartering of soldiers in private houses without 
 the owner's consent in time of peace, or in time of war save 
 as the law may prescribe. These fundamental notions in 
 government are set forth in all the State constitutions and 
 are to be traced in enactments by colonial assemblies, to 
 provisions in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, to the 
 Great Charter, or to the unwritten law of England; and 
 many of them to a time in Anglo-Saxon history beyond the 
 memory of man. They represent settled ideas of govern- 
 ment; they are no longer disputed; but they were the prin- 
 cipal subjects of dispute down to the close of the eighteenth 
 century, both in Europe and in America. 
 
 "In the government of this Commonwealth," continues 
 the constitution of Massachusetts, "the legislative depart- 
 ment shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, 
 or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the 
 legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the ju- 
 dicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive 
 powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a govern- 
 ment of laws and not of men." 
 
 The legislative powers were vested in the general court, 
 formed by two branches, a Senate and a House of Repre- 
 sentatives. The legislature assembled aimually and passed 
 all laws adjudged necessary for the welfare of the people of 
 the Commonwealth. There was no limitation on the legisla- 
 ture, as is so commonly found in all State constitutions made 
 
Q UA LIFICA TIONS. 43 
 
 during the last thirty years. The governor revised each law, 
 aud if he approved it he signed it; if he did not approve it 
 he returr.ed it with his objection to the house in which it 
 originated. The two houses could reconsider the bill so re- 
 turned, and by a two-thirds vote pass it, and it became a 
 law as if the governor had signed it. The Senate was com- 
 posed of a smaller number of members than was the House 
 of Representatives. The senators represented districts into 
 which the State was divided, each district consisting of sev- 
 eral towns, or, as they are more commonly known outside of 
 New England, counties. Senators were chosen in 1780 at 
 county meetings by the male inhabitants of the State, 
 of the age of twenty-one years or more, having real 
 estate within the Commonwealth of the annual income 
 of £3, or any estate of the value of £60. The dwelling- 
 place or home of the elector determined his legal residence 
 and place of voting. The senator himself was required to 
 possess a land estate in tlie Commonwealth of the value of 
 £300 at least, or to be possessed of personal estate to the 
 value of £600, or of both, to the amount of the same sum. 
 lie was also required to be an inhabitant of the State for 
 a term of five years immediately preceding his election, and 
 also to be an inhabitant of the district in which he was 
 chosen. The mention of personal property implies that by 
 IVSO there had been a great change in property-holding in 
 America, and that opinions'concerning property had greatly 
 changed. In 1619, in Virginia, it is doubtful if the personal 
 ]iroperty of the entire community amounted in value to 
 £600. By 1780 the value of personal property in Massa- 
 X'liusetts was almost as screat as the value of real estate. 
 
44 THE MEMBER OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 The House of Representatives was composed of members 
 distributed according to the population of the corporate 
 towns. It was a larger body than the Senate. Each town 
 had at least one representative. Massachusetts was the first 
 colony to introduce the written ballot, about 1634, and 
 members of the legislature were chosen by written votes. 
 To be eligible to the House of Representatives a man was 
 required to be for one year an inhabitant of the town in 
 which he was a candidate, and to be owner in his own right 
 of real estate of the value of £100, situated Avithin the town 
 which he would be chosen to represent. Or he was to possess 
 any ratable estate, such as personal property, to the value of 
 £200. If after his election he lost his property so as to be- 
 come disqualified for being a representative, he thereby 
 ceased to represent the town. Tlie member of the House of 
 Representatives was not required to possess so much property 
 as was the member of the Senate, for the reason that he did 
 not represent so much property. The district was represented 
 as a whole by the senator; the town, by the member of the 
 Jlouse. A person qualified to vote for senator was also 
 qualified to vote for a member of the House or for governor. 
 No person was eligible to the office of governor unless at 
 the time of his election he had been an inhabitant of the 
 Commonwealth for seven j^ears preceding, and at the same 
 time owner of a freehold estate within the State of the value 
 of £1,000; and unless he declareVl himself to be of the Chris- 
 tian religion. The lieutenant-governor was required to be 
 qualified like the governor. He was a member of the gov- 
 ernor's council, and succeeded him as governor of the Com- 
 monwealth in case the gubernatorial chair became vacant by 
 
THE COUNCIL. 45 
 
 reason of the death of the governor, or his absence from the 
 State, or his inability to perform the duties of his office. 
 Nine councilors were annually chosen from among the per- 
 sons returned for councilors and senators by the joint ballot 
 of the two houses of the legislature. In case any of the nine 
 persons so chosen declined a seat in the council the deficiency 
 was made up by an election by the two houses from among 
 the people at large. The number of senators left constituted 
 the Senate, but a councilor was required to vacate his seat 
 in the Senate, or the executive and the legislative duties 
 would have been confused. The council, which still exists. 
 in the Massachusetts and Maine system of government, in 
 New Hampshire and Vermont, and till 1886 in Florida, was 
 for the aid and advice of the governor. All judicial officers 
 were appointed by the governor with the consent of the 
 Senate, and held office during good behavior. To this 
 tenure of office minor judicial officers of the rank of magis- 
 trates, and below that rank, were an exception, holding their 
 offices for a term of yeai's. The governor and the legislature, 
 or either of them, could require the opinion of the justices 
 of the Supreme Court upon important questions of law. The 
 delegates to Congress were elected by the joint ballot of the 
 two houses, to serve in Congress for one yeai*. Any of them 
 could be recalled at any time within the year and others be 
 chosen in the same manner in their stead. Whenever two 
 thirds of the electors in the Commonwealth desired a revision 
 of the constitution the legislature was required to cause an 
 election of delegates to assemble in convention for that pur- 
 pose. Under this provision the constitution of 1780 has 
 been amended thirteen times. Provision was made for 
 
46 THE COMMOX PLAN. 
 
 education by incorporating the university at Cambridge 
 under the control of the president and fellows of Harvaid 
 College, and by providing for public schools, grammar 
 schools, and for institutions for the promotion of science, 
 arts, commerce, trade, manufactures, and agriculture, and for 
 the clicouragement of public and private charities, industry, 
 frugality, honesty, and punctuality in business, "and all 
 social affections and generous sentiments among the people." 
 
 The legislature exercised its powers at' its discretion, and 
 the govei'nor was given the pardoning power, to be exercised 
 "by and Avith the advice and consent of the council." lie 
 was commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and of all 
 military forces of the State. He signed all commissions, ap- 
 pointed all judges, and with the consent of the council could 
 remove them ujoon the address so to do of both houses of the 
 legislature. 
 
 On this general plan the State governments in America in 
 1776 were framed. For a few years in Georgia and in Penn- 
 sylvania the legislature consisted of a single house, but the 
 second constitutions of these States provided for two houses. 
 Government was tlierefore organized, distributed, and admin- 
 istered in the thirteen States on a plan which may be de- 
 scribed as common. In the details of State constitutions 
 there were many differences, differences due to situation, to 
 prevailing manners and customs, to the industrial conditions 
 Avhich distinguished the several States from each other. But 
 in this brief story of the Constitution these details cannot be 
 presented. In each State the Assembly or lower house of 
 the legislature, was the central authority, for to that house 
 had the people delegated that sovereign power, the power 
 
TWO GHEAT CHANGES. 47 
 
 to levy taxes and to appropriate moneys. But we would 
 greatly err were we to impute to these first State constitu- 
 tions and governnients that meaning, form, and interpreta- 
 tion which are given to State constitutions now in force. 
 The ideas which reign in a modern State constitiH|tion are not 
 so simple as those which stand forth in the constitutions of 
 the eighteenth century. Two great changes distinguish that 
 period and the j^resent — the industrial change and the polit- 
 ical change. By the industrial change the whole face of tlie 
 country presents a new appearance. Bridle-paths gave place 
 to canals; canals gave place to railroads; railroads divide in^ 
 importance with telegraph and telephone lines. Corpora- 
 tions, not dreamed of in 1780, now are "bodies politic," as 
 any one may see who will read the constitutions of the six 
 new States. Discoveries and inventions and industries have 
 wholly rewritten the State constitutions, and not only re- 
 written them but have compelled new interpretations of 
 phrases found in ancient charters but now employed with 
 modern meanings. The industrial chnnges have compelled 
 constitution-makers to provide for groups of interests which 
 have come into American life since the days of the second 
 war with England. A recent State constitution resembles a 
 code of laws v/hen it is compared with the brief, simple, and 
 comprehensive summary of fundamental civil principles 
 which composed the constitution of a State a century ago. 
 The second change is political, and aflfects the elector. It is, 
 in brief, the abolition of propert}'^ qualifications and religious 
 tests ; it is the liberation of the franchise. The restrictions 
 on the franchise under the Massachusetts constitution of 
 1780 are less onerous than the restrictions which pi-evailed 
 
4B PROPERTY QUALIFICATIONS. 
 
 in some of the States. In New Jersey the elector was re- 
 quired to possess £50; in Maryland, fifty acres of land; in 
 Delaware, a freehold estate; in North Carolina, fifty acres 
 of land ; in Georgia, $10, or to be of any mechanical trade; in 
 New York, £20 in real estate would he vote for a member of 
 Assembly, and £100 would he vote for a member of the State 
 Senate; in South Carolina, fifty acres of land; in Connecticut, 
 an estate in land of the yearly value of $7 ; in Rhode Island, 
 real estate of the value of $134; in Virginia he must own land; 
 in Pennsylvania, fifty acres; and in New Hampshire and Ver- 
 mont he was required to pay a poll-tax. Taxes on property 
 were levied in all the States. Nor were property qualifica- 
 tions limited to the elector; the executive was required to 
 possess real or personal estate of still greater value. In New 
 Jersey he was required to be worth £10,000 ; in North Car- 
 olina, £1,000; in South Carolina, £10,000; in Georgia, £250, 
 or two hundred and fifty acres of land ; in New Hampshire, 
 £500; in Maryland, £5,000, of which £1,000 must be in 
 land; in Delaware he must be a land-owner, and custom 
 fixed the qualification at not less than landed estate of the 
 value of $1,000; in New York, £100 in real property; in 
 Rhode Island, $134; in Massachusel^ts, $1,000 ; in Connect- 
 icut, a property in land of the yearl}^ value of $7. But in 
 Delaware, in New York, in Rhode Island, and in Connect- 
 icut only men of large wealth were ever made candidates for 
 governor, and it may be said, that in all the States it was 
 chiefly from old, wealthy, and influential families that the ex- 
 ecutive, the judges, and the members of the upper house in 
 the legislature were chosen; to the lower house a poor man 
 might hope to come, or at least he would not be debarred 
 
HFLIGIOUS TESTS. 49 
 
 from coming by his poverty. Tliere were more poor men 
 than rich men in America a century ago, as now; but the first 
 State governments and their successors for many yeai'S were 
 not the poor men's governments. 
 
 The electors and the elected were also required to have 
 defined religious opinions. Atheists, infidels, agnostics, and 
 non-churchmen were disqualified from voting or from hold- 
 ing ofiice. In New Hampshire, in Vermont, in Connecticut, 
 in New Jersey, and in South Carolina electors and elected 
 were obliged to subscribe to the Protestant religion. In 
 Massachusetts and in Maryland they were required to be-^ 
 lieve in tlie Christian religion, which meant membership in 
 the Episcopal Church in Maryland, and in the Congrega- 
 tional Church in Massachusetts, In Delaware they sub- 
 scribed to belief in the Trinity and the inspiration of the 
 Scrij^tures; in North Carolina, to the divine authority of the 
 Bible and in the Protestant religion, whicli in that State sig- 
 nified membership in the Episcopal Church. Pennsylvania, 
 with Quaker simplicity, required belief in one God, in the 
 inspiration of the Scriptures, and in the future reward of 
 good and in the punishment of evil. 
 
 New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Georgia made no 
 
 formal requirements, but by force of custom in these States 
 
 the Protestant faith was j^redominant, the Episcopal Church 
 
 in Virginia and in Georgia, the Baptist Church in Rhode 
 
 Island, and in New York the Congregational and the Epis- 
 
 co^^al Churches. But in these last-named States no man was 
 
 excluded from the franchise because he belonged to any 
 
 other Christian denomination. 
 
 Limited by the qualification of proj^ei'ty, of religious opin- 
 4 
 
50 NUMBER OF ELECTORS. 
 
 ion, of sex and of age, tlie number of electors in this country in 
 1776 was far less in proportion to the whole number of inhab- 
 itants than is the number at the present time. Slaves could not 
 vote. Perhaps in some States, as occasionally in Massachu- 
 setts or in New York, a free black might have been seen at 
 the polls. Estimating the entire population, free and slave, 
 in 1776 at two and one half millions, which is a large es- 
 timate, by the ratio of the free franchise to which we are 
 accustomed, one elector to five of the population, there would 
 have been above four hundred and fifty thousand voters in 
 the thirteen States. It is difficult to ascertain the exact 
 number at that time, but careful computations indicate that 
 the number was less than one hundred and twenty-five thou- 
 sand souls. It is perhaps not incorrect to estimate the num- 
 ber at one hundred thousand. In twenty-six States to-day, 
 just twice the number of the original Union, the right of 
 sufi^rage is exercised, at times and for certain j^urposes, by 
 women. Not a woman voted a century ago.* It may sur- 
 prise lis to discover that the franchise was so limited in this 
 country at a time when the fathei's and the sous were 
 struggling for liberty. But to this limitation no strong op- 
 position developed until after the national Constitution had 
 Keen for a quarter of a century the supreme law of the land. 
 Ignorance and poverty marked as their own the majority of 
 the inhabitants of the States when independence was de- 
 clared. Not all States made provision, as did Massachusetts, 
 for the education of the masses at public expense. There 
 
 * Wonien voted in New Jersey imclor tlie constitution of ITTG by later 
 legislation. The right to vote was given to women having a certain amount 
 of real estate in their own right. 
 
EDUCATION. gi 
 
 were no public schools. And we should not for a moment 
 forget that the condition of the masses in Eiiglan,!, in France, 
 in German^r, in Italy, was at that time far less comfortable 
 than in the United States. Democracy has turned the world 
 upside down since the American States made their first con- 
 stitutions of government. Education is no longer a State 
 secret, a wonderfnl talisman in the Latin tongue. When 
 Massachusetts first framed a republican form of government 
 the professors at Harvard were lecturing on Aristotle in 
 Latin to their classes. There were perhaps not above five great 
 schools in America— Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Princeton,^ 
 and King's College, now Columbia. The course of study in 
 any of them was at that time considered far in advance of 
 the age, but it would not now satisfy the requirement for a 
 certificate from a respectable fitting school. Few young 
 men ever went to college. There was usually but one use 
 for a college man, to make a clergyman out of him ; an ap- 
 prentice, a mechanic, a merchant, a lawyer, even the town's 
 doctor, had, as was commonly thought, little use for a col- 
 lege. The mothei-s were the country's teachers, and their 
 busy and burdened lives could find scant time for teaching 
 more than the alphabet and a tolerable pronunciation of the 
 language of Scripture. Except along the fringe of coast- 
 line, newspapers scarcely were to be seen in the country, and 
 not a magazine, as we know the magazine, was in existence. 
 The terrible struggle for daily bread consumed the energies 
 of the masses, and in their rude lives literary amusements, 
 now too common to attract attention, were wholly unknown. 
 In the large towns were clul)S composed of a few enter- 
 prising young men, at which were discussed, largely with- 
 
52 AN AGE OF INQUIRY. — 
 
 out the aid of books, and wholly without the aid of libra- 
 ries, the fundamental problems in government. But no 
 company of young men could now be brought together to 
 discuss in our day the questions Avliich interested them: 
 Are human rights natural or acquired ? Should government 
 be organized for the good of the people ? and other ques- 
 tions involving principles which we accept as forever settled. 
 These political clubs were unknown to the rural districts, 
 except here and there, where, as in some j)arts of Massa- 
 chusetts and Virginia, a solitary genius, like James Otis or 
 Patrick Henry, helpless in the confusion of streaming 
 thoughts, sought relief by conversations and arguments with 
 farmers and planters who had a moment's leisure. The age 
 was an inquiring, not a critical, age, and it builded on its 
 isolated experience quite unconscious of the style of its polit- 
 ical architecture. It is a century after that marks the age 
 of criticism, when analysis outruns principles and imputes 
 to a body of earnest yeomen, as they usually described them- 
 selves in their deeds and wills, a knowledge of political sci- 
 ence which the world does not yet fully possess. Our an- 
 cestors were active, honest, fearless, persevering, pi'actical 
 men; nothing more, for thei*e Avas nothing more. But every 
 American in 177G was not a Franklin or a Jefferson, any 
 more than in 1860 was every American a Field or a Lin- 
 coln. No brief description of the American of 1776 excels 
 that given of him by Emerson: "the embattled farmer." 
 
 The constitutions of the States, while alike in having a 
 bill of rights, an executive department, a legislative de- 
 partment, and a judiciary, differed widely among themselves 
 in the practical administration of affairs. In the Southern 
 
TITLES 53 
 
 States the offices were almost exclusively in the control of 
 the oldest families, possessing ancient names and plantations 
 of thousands of acres. In the central States the offices were 
 held by a similar class, constituting the aristocracy of the 
 land. In New England, more than in any other part of the 
 country, thei"e was a chance for men like Roger Sherman 
 who began life a shoe-maker, acquired at the bench a pro- 
 found knowledge of practical affiiirs, studied law, and rose to 
 most honoi'able fame in civil life. 
 
 Among these various constitutions was a number of titles 
 designating the same office or department of government. 
 In New Hamjjshire, in Pennsylvania, in Delaware, and 
 in South Carolina the executive was called President, in 
 the remaininsf States he was stvled Governoi*. The lesj- 
 islature and its two houses were known by different names, 
 as they are to this day known by different names. The 
 terra legislature itself meant then what it means now, 
 the law-making bodj'- in the State. In New England, in 
 New York, in Maryland, in Virginia, and in the Carolinas 
 the up23er house was called the Senate; in Vermont, in New 
 Jersey, and in Delaware it was known by its colonial name, 
 the Council. The title House of Rej^resentatives described 
 the more popular branch in New England, but it was known 
 as the Assembly in New York, in New Jersey, in Penn- 
 sylvania, in South Carolina, in Georgia, and in Delaware. 
 Virginia and Maryland called the lower house the House of 
 Delegates, and North Carolina used the name the House of 
 Commons. The State governments were uniform in pre- 
 scribing a longer term to members of the upper than to 
 members of the lower house, and also in making a distinc- 
 
54 THE COURTS. 
 
 tion between tlieir functions. In Virginia and in Massa- 
 cliusetts tlie Senate represented large districts or groups of 
 interests in the State, the lower house being more numerous 
 in membership, which was based uj^on j^opulation, each of 
 the smallest constituencies in the State having its representa- 
 tive. The upper house of the State legislatures was, and in 
 general still remains, similar to the national Senate, and 
 the lower house to the national House of Representatives. 
 But it need scarcely be remarked, by way of caution, that 
 at the time when the first State constitutions were made the 
 national Constitution was yet nearly twenty years in the 
 future. 
 
 The lower house had the exclusive right to levy taxes and 
 to appropriate money, but the upper house had the longer 
 term of service and it was consulted by the governor in his 
 appointments. It would be difficult, perhai^s impossible, to 
 bring into one brief statement any just comparison of the 
 various State judicial systems. No part of the story of the 
 Constitution is more difficult. The intricacies of legal prac- 
 tice, the traditions from England, the neAV customs which 
 sprang up in colonial courts, the isolation of the States in 
 legal matters so that the rules of court in one part of the 
 country, and often in one part of a State, were wholly differ- 
 ent from the rules in another part of the country or of the 
 same State forbade a uniform judicial system. In judicial 
 titles, in the jurisdictions of courts, in the tenure of office, in 
 the relation between courts of different jurisdiction in the 
 same State will be found differences altogether too confus- 
 ing to permit a full examination here. A glance at the 
 many judicial systems to be found at the present time in our 
 
THE CIRCUIT. 55 
 
 four and forty States, after a century of union and a con- 
 stant tendency to uniformity in State practice, suggests what 
 curious differences would be found in the judicial systems of 
 a centuiy ago or more, when there was no union and no 
 tendency toward uniformity in practice, but a studied effort 
 for diversity. Then judges above the rank of magistrates 
 were usually appointed by the executive of the State to con- 
 tinue in office during good behavior. Now the judges in 
 the higher courts are elected by the people for short terms, 
 except in Massachusetts and in Rhode Island, where they 
 are appointed for life; and in Delaware and Louisiana, in 
 Mississippi and in New Jersey, where they are appointed 
 for a term of years. Then the judicial acts, proceedings, 
 and decisions in one State had no force or value, of them- 
 selves, in any other State, so that there was no practicable 
 relief in interstate cases. Lawyers were seldom called out 
 of their own State to tiy a case, and both judges and law- 
 yers went on circuit, from court town to court town, till the 
 cases were all tried and the dockets cleared. Curiously 
 enough, the only remnant of the old State court system is 
 now found in the Supreme Court of the United States, whose 
 members at certain seasons of the year hold circuit court 
 in the nine districts into which the country is divided. A 
 century ago probably every judge in the land held circuit 
 court, and the system in the States was not abandoned until 
 about the time of the civil war.* Judicial matters were con- 
 fused in the early State constitutions, and the absence of a 
 central overruling court of last resort caused many dis- 
 tressing evils. 
 
 * New Jersey still has the nisi prius system of circuit courts. 
 
56 THE ASSEMBLY EEMATNS. 
 
 In the administration of government there was a similarity 
 among States of the same section of country. New York 
 was greatly influenced by the system of administration com- 
 mon to New England. Pennsylvania and New Jersey had 
 little in common with New England, but much in common 
 with each other. Maryland and Delaware formed a group. 
 Virginia, the largest and most populous of the States, dif- 
 fered widely from the northern type, and had a marked in- 
 fluence on the system of administration found in each of the 
 States farther south. These similarities and differences 
 pointed out by writers now were not so clearly seen by our 
 ancestors a century ago. It is correct to describe the State 
 constitutions of the eighteenth century as alike in general 
 plan but widely'" differing in details. Each State claimed 
 to be sovereign and independent. But in the struggle 
 between king and people for sovereignty the people had 
 won, not, as it was at one time thought, by the triumph 
 of State sovereignty, but by the triumph of national sov- 
 ereignty. 
 
 Governors appointed by the king gave place to governors 
 elected by the people, and because of their old jealousy to- 
 ward governors the first executives in the States had far less 
 power than have the governors of States in our day. We 
 limit the powers of the legislature and increase the powers 
 of the governor; they gave unlimited powers to the legisla- 
 ture and limited the powers of the executive. 
 
 The difference between the constitution-makers of our day 
 and the constitution-makers of a century ago marks one of 
 the most significant changes in the civil and political history 
 of the United States. The old governor's council gave place 
 
THE POWER OF CUSTOM. §7 
 
 to the upper house in the legislature chosen by the electors. 
 One part of the colonial government most essential and 
 central in authoiity was continued — the Assembly, that still 
 possessed the right to levy taxes and to appro23riate money. 
 This is the only part of our State governments that comes 
 down to us unchanged for two centuries. The new State 
 judiciary, like the old, was appointed by the executive, Avith 
 the consent of the legislature, usually, of the upper house, 
 just as now, when a vacancy occurs in the United States 
 courts, the President appoints a man to the office, with the 
 consent of the Senate of the United States. ^ 
 
 Thus we discover that when the second Continental Con- 
 gress recommended to the colonies to transform themselves 
 into States and " to take up civil government," the change 
 was an easy one, because the machinery for the change had 
 long been in motion, and the people merely put into written 
 constitutions the system of government to Mdiich they had long 
 been accustomed, or to which events had been for many years 
 leading them. When the hour came the new actors that came 
 upon the stage were the old familiar actors who spoke familiar 
 lines, perhaps here and there with new meaning that only 
 made their readings more interesting. The colonial Assem- 
 bly triumphed over the British Parliament, as the British 
 Parliament, a century earlier, had triumphed over a British 
 king. The firm insistance by the people expressed in the 
 thought and action of their leaders in successive declarations 
 of rights, " That it is inseparably essential to the freedom 
 of a people . . . that no taxes be imposed on them but with 
 their own consent, given personally or by their representa- 
 tives," and that no taxes could " be constitutionally imposed 
 
58 THE TAX STRUGGLE CONTINUES. 
 
 on them but by their respective legislatures," brought the 
 whole people at last, of necessity, into a war with the home 
 government, and eventually into national independence. 
 But the supreme test of the triumph had not yet been made. 
 It came after the war had closed, after peace had been 
 declared, after enthusiasm had fallen asleep and the mighty 
 responsibilities of nationality and power were before the 
 people face to face. Then it was, during the dreary and 
 anxious years that followed the peace, that the people real- 
 ized the meaning of the sacrifices, of the labors, of the 
 hitherto unknown forces of independence. Then it was that 
 the national idea grew apace and the State idea betook itself 
 into juster proportions. Then it was that grinding neces- 
 sity compelled the people of the United States to form a 
 more perfect union. 
 
 We have now rapidly traced the growth of constitutional 
 government from the time of the first Virginia charter 
 given by James I. to the London and Plymouth Companies 
 onward, past the meeting of the first American General As- 
 sembly in 1619, past the time of the declarations of rights, 
 past the time of the Continental Congress to the period 
 when the colonics with one accord and almost at the same 
 moment transformed themselves into States. Omitting 
 many incidents of the story, we have considered only one 
 idea, very briefly — the idea of the sovereign taxing power. 
 We discovered that poAvor in the Assembly in Virginia in 
 1619. We discovered that j^ower in the lower house of each 
 colonial legislature, and when the first State constitutions 
 are formed we detect no break or interruption in the main 
 current of civil affairs, for the lower house still possesses the 
 
THE EVILS OF THE DA Y. 59 
 
 taxing power. About that power the battle raged and about 
 that power it will continue to rage. 
 
 In presenting so briefly the story of constitutional gov- 
 ernment in America from 1619 to 1776 we have imparted 
 to the theme an appearance of harmony and unity among 
 men and between the States which did not exist. Not that 
 we have misrepresented the record so sternly made in tliose 
 unquiet times. Difliculties, jealousies, recriminations, con- 
 spiracies, trespassing legislation, conflicting decisions of 
 courts, commercial avarice, and bitter rivalries, dishonorable 
 actions, and gravely alarming conditions in all i^ublic affai^^ 
 have scarcely been hinted at. But they all existed, and 
 many more. We have told the story of the Constitution, 
 which has its first chapter in the story of the individual 
 States. While these States are framing plans of govern- 
 ment there are national interests imperiled, interests of far 
 greater magnitude. 
 
60 THE UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW THE STATES FORMED A CONFEDERATIOK WHICH FELL 
 TO PIECES BECAUSE IT HAD NO TAXING POWER. 
 
 1776-1789. 
 
 The Revolution of 1776 was the uprising of the j)eople of 
 all the colonies against the government of the British Em- 
 pire. Before the war the colonies were on a plane of civil 
 equality, an integral part of the empire. The Revolution 
 knew no jDrecedence among the colonies, and the peojjle of 
 no colony can be said to have priority^jof right of leadershij^ 
 in the war. The people acted as a unit. Separate and in- 
 dependent State revolt f i-om British authority was unknown. 
 Colonial representation in the general assemblies was famil- 
 iar to all the people, and when the time for concerted action 
 came the people followed the familiar course of choosing 
 representatives to a Continental Congress as they had long 
 been accustomed to choose representatives to their local assem- 
 blies. The assemblies had considered only the wants of the 
 individual colonies which they rej^resented; the Congress 
 took into consideration the general welfare of America. To 
 the first Continental Congress which assembled in Philadel- 
 phia on the 5tli of September, 1774, delegates came from 
 the different colonies, chosen in some by the members of 
 Assembly, in others by a convention specially called by the 
 electors in the colony. The delegates so chosen describe 
 
TUK DELEGATES TELL TUE NEWS. Gl 
 
 tlieraselves in their acts as " the Delegates appointed by tlie 
 Good People of the Colonies; " making no reference to the 
 several States as independent or sovereign. This Congress 
 Avas a convention of the whole people, and therefore national 
 in character; but considered as a government it was tempo- 
 rary, revolutionary, experimental, and imperfect in organi- 
 zation. 
 
 The acts of this Congress were of national importance. 
 It forbade, by its non-importation act, the imj^ortation of 
 merchandise from Great Britain or the exportation of mei*- 
 chandise to Great Britain; it issued a declaration of rights an(l 
 framed an address to the king and to the people of England. 
 Returning to tlie body of the people, its delegates con- 
 tinued the national movement by explaining to those who 
 had elected them the situation of affairs and by making 
 common information of the opinions of the j)eople in all 
 parts of America. The essential function of this Congress 
 was to disseminate the political ojjinions of the country. 
 Delearates from New EnQ;land met delesrates from Gcorcfia 
 and the Carolinas, and for the first time in American history 
 the thoughts of any of the people were made known to all 
 the people of America. Popular ap^jroval of the acts of this 
 Congress was shown by the election of delegates to attend a 
 second Congress, which met in Philadelj^hia on the 10th of 
 May, 1775. The majority of the delegates to this second 
 Congress were chosen in conventions called for the purpose; 
 the minority were chosen by the members of the assemblies. 
 This m.anner of choosing delegates deserves more than pass- 
 ing notice. The convention is peculiar to American political 
 history. Here it originated and here it remains, an instru- 
 
62 TRAITORS OR PATRIOTS. 
 
 ment in popular goveniiiicnt used to ascertain the last for- 
 mally exj^ressed will of the j)eople. The convention is repre- 
 sentation applied to politics, as the legislature is representa- 
 tion aj)plied to civil affairs. In our day the convention is the 
 recognized means for nominating party candidates, for ascer- 
 taining the bearing of party ideas, and for uniting all the 
 forces of the party in one purpose at one time. And at 
 critical times in State history a convention is assembled to 
 frame a new constitution of government, or to frame amend- 
 ments to the existing constitution. 
 
 The acts of the second Congress were of wider application, 
 being national in character, than were the acts of the Con- 
 gress of the previous year. The j)eople by their conventions 
 had approved the course of the first Congress and had given 
 themselves over to the Revolutionary cause. Resting on the 
 popular will the second Congress assumed control of affairs 
 by a series of acts which condemned their authors as con- 
 spirators and traitors or exalted them as patriots. They 
 proceeded to regulate commerce; to provide funds for a 
 national government; to create executive departments, as of 
 war, of navy, and of the post-office; and, to crown all their 
 acts, they issued the Declaration of Independence. The 
 validity of all these acts rested thenceforth on the events 
 of the war. If the j^eople would fight for the princijjles 
 of the Declaration of Independence, and if the American 
 armies triumphed, then must Great Britain and other nations 
 recognize the independence of the United States. The 
 standing armies of the nations of the world to-day demon- 
 strate what confidence exists between nations in the notion 
 " that the mission of man is peace." A century Las not 
 
WAR— PEA CE— COMPR OMISE. 63 
 
 changed the essential principles of Jiationality Avhich were so 
 closely examined at the time of the American and the French 
 Revolutions; that the condition of nationality is the condi- 
 tion of armed protection; for no nation will keep its treaties 
 nnless it is compelled to, and no nation will compel the keej)- 
 ing of a treaty which is not to its own interest. Arbitration 
 means compromise, and its methods are as old as disputes 
 among men; but arbitration between nations is improbable, 
 and scarcely possible, unless they are of equal power. It 
 was impossible to arbitrate the diiFerence between the colo- 
 nies and the home government in 1776. No government cai% 
 arbiti'ate Avith rebels, and the Americans in 1776 were rebels. 
 If successful, they became revolutionists and founders of a 
 State, makers of a nation. Arbitration was possible after 
 the definitive treaty of i^eace, not befoi'e. The dispute about 
 the taxing power had gone beyond the stage of declarations 
 of rights, of petitions, of expostulations; the differences be- 
 tween the Americans and the English government touched 
 on the vital principles of that government, the right of that 
 government to tax its citizens. The right was not disputed 
 as an abstract right in government; the dispute suddenly be- 
 came of uncompromising difficulty — which government shall 
 tax the Americans, the English government, or a government 
 instituted by the Americans themselves ? War, and Avar only, 
 could decide this question. 
 
 The delegates to this second Congress were not chosen 
 directly by the people; they were chosen as we now choose 
 the President of the United States, by an indirect vote of 
 the electors. The electors chose the members of the conven- 
 tions or the members of the assemblies, and the conventions 
 
64 MEN OF FAME. 
 
 or the assemblies chose the delegates to Congress, It will 
 never again be possible in America to enter upon the foun- 
 dation of a government in so indirect a manner as was fol- 
 lowed in 1776. It was then thought that such a system 
 resulted in the choice of the best men, the idea jirevalent at 
 the time being that the masses of the people were incapable 
 of deciding for themselves what was best for their own inter- 
 ests, and, therefore, an intermediate body of men, acting as a 
 discriminating committee, would choose the best men. There 
 seems to have been no organized opposition to the appli- 
 cation of this idea in American civil affairs until nearly forty 
 years after the national Constitution Avas made, and nearly 
 fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was issued. 
 
 In the application of this indirect method of obtaining 
 the will of the j)eople it followed that the control of 
 public affairs fell into the hands of a few men best 
 known to the community, to the State, or to the nation. 
 There were no "dark horses" in American politics under 
 the administration of this system. There were few obscure 
 men in the early Congresses. There were delegates more 
 widely known than others, as Franklin and Washington and 
 John Hancock were more widely known than Willing or 
 I-Iall or Bland; but not one member of the Congress was 
 without reputation in his own community, nor wholly un- 
 known throughout his own State. 
 
 The process of selection incident to the indirect choice of 
 delegates doubtless resulted in a more able gathering of 
 men than could have been made by the modern system of 
 party organization and party choice irrespective of the man 
 whom the machinery of party politics may take up. The 
 
THE HEMO OR A TI C RE VOL UTIOK 65 
 
 essential difference between the politics of that day and of 
 this is the difference between individuals and party organiza- 
 tion; then individuals got along Avithout parties; now par- 
 ties get along without individuals; then the man was chosen 
 becatise he Avas known as pre-eminent in civil affairs, or as 
 capable of pre-eminence; now the man is chosen becausG lie 
 stands for the accepted doctrine of an organized party, is 
 the concrete expression of that party, and loses his identity 
 in that party. It Avas a democratic revolution in 1825 Hvhich 
 overthrew the indirect method of electing public officers in 
 this country; it Avas a colonial and English, indeed, a federal^ 
 notion, that the people as a mass were incapable of govern- 
 ment, and therefore the representatives of the people should 
 be indirectly chosen. But the results of the democratic 
 revolution of 1820-30 have not been democratic; it has re- 
 sulted in the creation of a party power Avhich quite as seldom 
 rei^resents the Avishes of the individual electors as did the 
 indirect choice of public officials a century or less ago. The 
 convention, which was devised by Americans as a means to 
 an end, has become the end itself, and scarcely an office of 
 importance in State or nation can now be obtained without 
 the j^revious Avinning of a convention. So complete is the 
 change that no elector to-day thinks of voting against the 
 candidate for the presidency Avho has received the nomina- 
 tion in a convention of the party to Avhich- the elector be- 
 longs, even if the nomination does not fully please the elector. 
 A slight examination of present politics will illustrate how 
 little, after all, is the diffei-ence between the manner of 
 choosing delegates to Congress in 177G and at the present 
 time. The ajiplication of the representative system to poll- 
 
66 A Pew men rule. 
 
 tics, as well as to government, must take from the people 
 the direct control of public affairs. AVhatever system of 
 electing officials in a representative government might be 
 followed, that system itself would ultimately illustrate the 
 representative idea. The most democratic government in 
 ti.e world could not exist without the machinery of this rep- 
 resentative system. The control of government must of 
 necessity fall into the hands of a few men. Let no one imag- 
 ine that "bossism" in politics is a modern American disease. 
 Bossisni is the name of a system of representative govci-n- 
 ment abused. In a republic like our own, in which the peo- 
 ple care more for material welfare than for forms of govern- 
 ment or for politics, bossism as an evil is yet in the infancy 
 of its history. The representative idea in government is 
 good if well applied, but extremely dangerous when ill-ap- 
 plied. The struggle for wealth dulls the caution of the citi- 
 zen so that he delegates his political power carelessly, or 
 even with a feeling of relief. Caring little for government or 
 politics himself, he cannot expect that his deputy and repre- 
 sentative will care more. Bossism becomes a fact when the 
 electors are indifferent to whom they delegate their political 
 powers. The abuse of the representative system springs 
 naturally from indifference and neglect in the electors of 
 their political rights and duties, t- 
 
 The delegates to the first Congress probably represented the 
 people of their day as closely as do our representatives in Con- 
 gress represent the people at the present time. If the whole 
 list of delegates from 17'74 to 1789 be scanned there will be 
 found on the roll the name of almost every distinguislied man 
 in America at that time. Not all members of the Congress 
 
THE GIANTS AND THE PYGMIES. 67 
 
 of the Confederation nor of the Congress before the Confed- 
 eration were " giants in those days." It has become com- 
 mon to si^eak of these early Congresses as wholly composed 
 of such men as Jefferson or John Adams or John Jay. 
 This is a mistake. There were also pygmies among the 
 famous body of giants ; and, as at other times in our national 
 liistory, in the history of these early Congi-esses there has 
 been an exaltation of the giants and an utter oblivion of the 
 pygmies. Of the public men of the Revolutionary period 
 from 1765 to 1789, a period of a quarter of a century, the 
 number perhaps reaches three hundred, if men eminent botP 
 in State and in national politics be included; but of that three 
 hundred or less not above fifty can be named as men who 
 may be classed with the leaders of the time in Europe or 
 with the leaders of subsequent critical periods in our own 
 history; and of these fifty men we have named the greatest 
 when we name Franklin and Washington, Jefferson and 
 Hamilton, Madison and Marshall, Morris and Adams, Rut- 
 ledge and Jay. In the thirteen State legislatures was a 
 body of men in training; in Congress the majority of delegates 
 were men who may be described in the language of poli- 
 tics as safe men. But the great leaders soon left both State 
 legislature and Congress and became actively engaged with 
 Washington in military affairs or with Franklin in the dip- 
 lomatic service. The daily civil tasks of the Revolution were 
 performed, as they are always performed in government, by 
 industrious men quite unknown to fame. As the character 
 of the American Revolution, by comparison Avith the various 
 political history of the country since that time, is mure per- 
 fectly understood, the work of the American patriots is seen 
 
68 THEORY VERSUS PRACTICE. 
 
 in no diminution of luster. They did what they did in con- 
 formity with the course of their own experience as colonists, 
 and perhaps with some illumination from such political writers 
 as Montesquieu and Rousseau, as John Locke and John Mil- 
 ton. They laid down the principles of government with a 
 precision almost axiomatic; this was their work in the M'orld. 
 But they failed in the administration of government as 
 remarkably as they succeeded in fixing its political prin- 
 cijjles. Our age is the age of administration, not of the 
 foundation of governments. Nor have our legislators yet 
 succeeded in determining the axioms of governmental admin- 
 istration. The Amoi'ican Revolution j^robably settled for- 
 ever in this country the principles on which government is 
 founded, but it settled nothing in the administration of gov- 
 ernment. We shall soon discover, in our brief examination 
 of the conduct of public affairs by the Continental Congress 
 and by the Congress of the Confederation, that never in the 
 world's history, in a government of intelligent men, was 
 there a Avorse administration of public affairs than in America 
 from 1776 to 1789. Administration, as "\ve now understand 
 that term in government, was to the American legislators and 
 their colleagues in office a word of unknown meaning. There 
 Avere men, few indeed in number, who understood the mean- 
 ing of the term, but they were men who, like Hamilton, 
 were admired rather than followed. The whole effort of 
 administration in the Confederation broke down at last ; nor 
 was it till Hamilton, a master of administration, liad become 
 secretary of the treasury under the national Constitution 
 that the transition was made from the Revolutionary j^eriod 
 of the formation and framing of governmental principles to 
 
FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA. 6y 
 
 the national period of aj)plication of those principles to the 
 welfare of the nation. 
 
 I have digressed from the broad highway of the story of 
 the Constitution in oi'der to present some characteristics of 
 the Revolutionary period not frequently discussed. It is no 
 wrong to the memory of our fathers that we discover in their 
 woi'k an incompleteness that must be necessary to it from its 
 nature. They could, and they did, found a government, but 
 they could not, as they did not, succeed in administering it. 
 Nor was their failure conspicuous or solitary in that age of the 
 world. Neither England nor France succeeded so well eithe^ 
 in the founding of governments or in the applications of polit- 
 ical principles as did the members of the American Congresses 
 from 1774 to 1789. The efforts of England in administration 
 is told by one of her most eminent public servants and his- 
 torians, Sir Thomas Erskine May, and the struggles of France, 
 both in founding governments and in attempting to admin- 
 ister them, may be traced in the confessional memoirs of 
 Talleyrand, who participated, as did no other Frenchman, in 
 the governments so founded and so administered. The 
 period of the American Revolution was the age of constitu- 
 tion-making, of the founding of States, of the determination 
 in ))ractice of the principles of government. The course of 
 events on this continent was only one part of that large 
 event going on throughout the western world, the establish- 
 ment of representative government. But the chief charac- 
 teristic of the whole age is the determination of the principles 
 of government and not the detei'mination of the best admin- 
 istration of government. The administration of government 
 is the chief problem of the age iu which we live. 
 
70 THE NATIONAL IDEA. 
 
 The second Congress, like its successors to this day, was a 
 national body of delegates from the people. The Declaration 
 of Independence was "of these united colonies." The States 
 were free and independent in their unity. No individual 
 colony claimed a separate act of independence from Great 
 Britain, The instrument of formal separation uses the 
 expression, " the good people of these colonies," as descrip- 
 tive of one sovereign, political body or society — the people 
 of the United States. We have seen in the story of the 
 State constitutions that three States, South Carolina, New 
 Jersey, and New Hampshire, adopted their first constitutions 
 before the Declaration of Independence was issued. The 
 first Congress, on the 3d of November, 1775, had recom- 
 mended that the colonies, pending the dispute with Parlia- 
 ment, "should organize such governments" as would "best 
 promote the happiness of the people ; " but the governments 
 so formed were, as in the case of New Jersey, provisional in 
 their character. New Jersey, in convention, or congress, as 
 the Assembly was called, on the 3d of July, 1776, issued a 
 constitution of government with this clause: "Provided 
 always and it is the true intent of this Congress, that if a 
 reconciliation between Great Britain and these colonies should 
 take place, and the latter be taken again under the protection 
 and government of the crown of Great Britain, this charter" 
 (that is, the New Jersey constitution of 1776-1844) "shall 
 be null and void, otherwise to remain firm and inviolable." 
 From the language of this clause it is plain that New Jersey 
 did not claim separate independence, but that the action of 
 the State depended finally upon the " reconciliation between 
 Great Britain and these colonies." The Declaration of Indc- 
 
THE NA TIONA L IDEA. 77 
 
 pendence itself is a corapend and resiane of various earlier 
 declarations and resolutions made either by the first Congress 
 or by conventions and assemblies in various colonies. It 
 presents in a simple, brief, and orderly manner the common 
 opinion of the people, and its provisions, now somewhat 
 obscure, were evidently illustrated and explained by inci- 
 dents familiar to the public mind. Perhaps no state paper 
 in American history is more famous, and no state paper of 
 the Revolutionary period is more obscure. 
 
 Virginia, on the 29th of June, of the year of the Declara- 
 tion, had issued a declaration affirming that "the government 
 of this country, as formerly exercised by the crown of Great 
 Britain, is totally dissolved." The phrase "government of 
 this country " referred to the colonics as a unit, and not to the 
 State of Virginia alone. It is just to conclude, tlierefore, 
 that the separation from Great Britain was not a separation 
 by individual States, but the separation of the united colonies. 
 The people as a political unit, as a nation, formed the sepa- 
 rating mass, elected delegates to a national Congress, and in- 
 augurated a national government. The s-truggle between peo- 
 ple and king and people and Parliament, which we have told 
 in the story of the States, won a vaster triumph than that of 
 mere popular representation in a colonial assembly. The vic- 
 tory Avas nearly won in the several colonial legislatures, but 
 the victory was incomplete until the national government wiis 
 established. At the time when the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence was issued neither the people nor the leaders saw 
 clearly the ultimate consequences of their act, and but few of 
 the greatest minds saw the consequences near at hand. Tliere 
 existed a strong anti-revolutionary feeling in the colonies, a 
 
72 FRANKLIN. 
 
 feeling which the British government failed to nourish into 
 a political party, but which, unorganized, was still strong 
 enough, had a full vote been polled on the question of separa- 
 tion from Great Britain, to have held the balance of power. 
 But the friends of king and Parliament were at the negative 
 pole of events; the friends of independence were radical in 
 their ideas and aggressive in their acts. 
 
 An examination of the ages of the men of the Revolution 
 discloses, what all revolutions disclose, that few old men 
 took an initiative and active part in the movement. Franklin 
 will at once come to mind as an exception, but Franklin 
 was a peculiar jnan, and not a type of the men of his gen- 
 eration. At the time when the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence was issued Franklin was a little past seventy years 
 of age, at a time of life when the few who reach it are 
 only too willing to retire irom active pursuits, when the 
 body is feeble and the mind is in sympathy with the 
 body. But Franklin at seventy was still a young man. He 
 had never been an old man, for throughout his life he had 
 assiduously cultivated the society of the choicest youth whom 
 he could gather about him by the pleasing attractions of a 
 winning manner, an inexhaustible information, and an incom- 
 parable wit. He represented every generation that had come 
 upon the stage during his time. He lived in the present, 
 and, unlike other men of his years, he looked into the future. 
 He was fond of new things, yet never a radical; he was So- 
 cratic in his wisdom, yet never a pedant. He had differed 
 from the Society of Friends in opinion, he had opposed them 
 in the management of affairs in Pennsylvania; he had argued 
 against the treatment of the colonies by Parliament at the bar 
 
FRANKLIX 7-3 
 
 of the House of Commons, and with members of Parliament 
 at their iiomes; yet lie had intimate and devoted friends among 
 the Quakers and among the leaders of both houses of Parlia- 
 ment. He had long been known to the world as a philoso- 
 |»her, yet his whole philosophy is the present-day wisdom of 
 common sense which every body delights in and few possess. 
 He assiduously applied himself to the solution of the imme- 
 diate questions of the day and to the exposition and satisfac- 
 tion of the immediate wants of man. His keen, practical 
 mind detected the signs of the times, and, identifying him- 
 self with youngei- men, he easily directed them by his counsel, 
 while they imagined that they were using his name in fur- 
 thering their political schemes or their individual ambition. 
 When the hour of the Revolution struck, Franklin was alert, 
 calm, confident, discerning, counseling, surrounded by the 
 choicest youth of the city of his adoption, and by the ardent 
 spirits of all the colonies, who doubtless would have acted 
 without him, but who harmoniously acted with him. His 
 whole career as a leader in the Revolution was in perfect 
 keeping Avith his course of life as a citizen of Philadelphia 
 for three and fifty years before the Revolution came. Of all 
 the men who bore a part in the great events of that age in 
 America, Franklin, more than any other man, was the em- 
 bodiment of the highest type of colonial America. He stood 
 for colonial experience, and colonial experience was the find- 
 ing of the principles of representative government. A cent- 
 ury of stiaiggle for popular rights had preceded the calling of 
 the second Congress. As the struggle passed from a colonial 
 into a national arena one by one those who had enlisted in the 
 popular cause fell away. It was reserved for FrankliUj the 
 
74 THE LEADERS YOUNG MEN. 
 
 son of an obscure candle-maker of Boston, to come at the last, 
 when the forensic battle had become a battle at arms, to aid 
 the youth and the middle-aged patriots of 177G in the organ- 
 ization of a government on the liberal principles for which 
 the colonists had so long contended. And when peace came 
 Franklin, still spared for greater service to his country, 
 gave the full strength of a life culminating in benefits to his 
 countrymen to the establishment of the more perfect Union 
 and the making of the Constitution of the United States. In 
 Franklin met the old and the new: the experience and the as- 
 pirations of colonial days and the j^ossibilities of the new 
 nation, founded on the firm basis of representative govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Of Franklin's colleagues in the second Congress Wash- 
 ington was at the age of forty-four, Jefferson ten years 
 younger; John Adams was forty-one, Robert Moi-ris a year 
 his senior; Roger Sherman fifty-five. But among his con- 
 temporaries were men and youths who were destined to lofty 
 services to their country both in military and in civil life. 
 Wlien Franklin and Sherman and Adams and Jefferson af- 
 fixed their names to the Declaration of Independence, Madi- 
 son was but twenty-six, Rufus King twenty-one, James 
 Wilson thirty-four, and Alexander Hamilton scarcely nine- 
 teen. These younger men, and others perhaps less famed, 
 were soon to be associated with Franklin and Washington 
 and Sherman in Congress, and, later, in that unrival-ed gather- 
 ing of statesmen who gave to the world the Constitution of 
 the United States. Much of the vigor of thought and of 
 language in the political literature of the Revolutionary period 
 is explicable when are considered the significance of the 
 
THE PEOPLE NOT ENTHUSIASTIC. 75 
 
 principles involved and the age and temperament, the ed- 
 ucation and surroundings of the orators, the writers, the 
 pamphleteers, and the chroniclers of that day. The glory of 
 nationality appealed to such different minds as that of Adams, 
 of Sherman, and of Jefferson. To Franklin independence 
 and nationality came as the fruit of a tree long since planted 
 in America, the ripening of events steadily moving forward 
 to this consummation. To the ardent mind of Hamilton 
 nationality was the new-found opportunity of civilization and 
 the fair blossoming of ideals more pleasing than even philoso- 
 phers had dimly seen in their visions of a perfect government 
 To the people at large nationality was only a name for a de- 
 flection of the taxes for local purposes as their chosen repre- 
 sentatives might choose. Less wrought up than their leaders, 
 the people followed Congress, but as times darkened into days 
 of defeat, of annihilation of credit, and into days of civil confu- 
 sion, the people followed Congress at an ever-increasing 
 distance. If the people suffered, they blamed Congress. If 
 victory was won, they forgot Congress and remembered only 
 the soldiery. 
 
 The States, having quickly reorganized their civil af- 
 fairs on the colonial model, made clearer distinctions be- 
 tween the divisions of government than had before pre- 
 vailed. Each State had its own precedent, but the threefuld 
 division of the powers of government was followed in them 
 all. With this precedent before them it is, at first thought, 
 strange that Congress erred so seriously when it organized 
 the basis of the Confederation, But the Confederation was 
 an experiment. On the 11th of June, 1776, Congress ap- 
 pointed two committees, one to frame a Declaration of Inde- 
 
76 THE DECLARATION AND SLAVERY. 
 
 pendence, the other to draw up a plan for a general govern- 
 ment. The report of the first committee was favorably, al- 
 most unanimously, received, and after slight modifications of 
 Jefferson's draft, which was the report of the committee, it 
 was adopted and published on the 4th of July following as 
 the unanimous declaration of the delegates. On the 8th of 
 the month the committee on the Articles of Confederation 
 brought in its report, but nearly five years passed before the 
 articles proposed were adopted. As the States, when they 
 took up civil government, had organized under State consti- 
 tutions closely following colonial precedents long familiar, so 
 the committee on the Declaration found a common stock of 
 grievances and expostulatory resolutions from town political 
 clubs, from conventions in remote corners of the States, from 
 legislatures and assemblies, from congresses of States, and 
 from the first Congress of the United States. These com- 
 plaints were so well known to the committee that it seems to 
 have turned over to Jefferson the consideration and expression 
 of a matter of such common report, the other members of the 
 committee practically withdrawing their several sketches of a 
 Declaration. When the committee brought in its report all 
 the delegates knew what to expect, were familia." witli the 
 grievances from their own several States, and were satisfied to 
 find those grievances mentioned in the report. But on one 
 subject the delegates from Georgia went into opposition: slav- 
 ery and the reference to its abolition must be left out, and it 
 was left out. It is to be noted that the Declaration is a general 
 statement of principles of representative government on which 
 the members had a vague unity of sentiment. This formula- 
 tion of the abstract principles of government provoked little 
 
THE DECLARATION AND THE ARTICLES. 77 
 
 debate in the Congress. There was a debate, not concerning 
 the principles of the Declaration, but concerning the expedi- 
 ency of issuing the Declaration at that time. That the united 
 colonies should be free and independent every man in the Con- 
 gress believed; and in the prevailing atmosphere of liberal 
 principles no delegate seriously disputed that all men are born 
 free and equal, however diverse might be the latent sentiments 
 in the Congress on the meaning of the words. The Declara- 
 tion created no offices, laid no taxes, appropriated no moneys, 
 and advocated no party's political ideas. It was a grand, 
 perhaps a philosophical, statement of fundamental principle% 
 assumed to be self-evident and axiomatic; and there was little 
 more of opposition to it than would arise at present were the 
 delegates to a convention of men interested in the advance- 
 ment of science to draw up in committee a statement affirm- 
 ing the doctrine of universal gravitation. To reject the 
 Declaration would have been to deny the common opinions, 
 not alone of the people of the United States, but the opinions 
 of the foremost thinkers of the eighteenth century, avIio were 
 rapidly concluding that the principles advocated by the Dec- 
 laration must be considered at last as settled. The report of 
 Jefferson and his committee passed Congress, was issued to 
 the world as the fundamental notions of representative gov- 
 ernment, was received by the people with approval, and by 
 the world at large as an intelligible summary of fundamental 
 principles for a free government. 
 
 But no such harmony prevailed when the Articles of Con- 
 federation were bi'ought in. These Articles touched on the 
 administration of government, and on the administration of 
 government no two delegates agreed. The committee had 
 
78 HISTORY AND PRECEDENT ARE IGNORED. 
 
 found no precedent or model in any of the colonial or State 
 governments. It was perhaps thought that to confeilerate 
 on the basis of any particular State would be practically to 
 antagonize the remaining twelve States. The articles, there- 
 fore, exhibit the original powers of the delegates in con- 
 structing a government without a precedent. Even the 
 most fundamental notion of English experience for a thou- 
 sand years and of American experience for a century and a 
 half — the division of government into three departments 
 —was ignored. A form of government Avas devised which 
 found none to admire it when first proposed, which won no 
 friends during its troubled existence, which was accepted 
 by the States without enthusiasm and ignored by them 
 with impunity, which passed through every phase of neglect 
 and contempt, and which at last exj)ired Avithout a sufficient 
 representation of its adherents to send forth to the woidd a 
 mortuary notice. On 15th of November, \111, the Articles 
 of Confederation, which for more than a year had at irregu- 
 lar intervals been debated by Congress, were passed by that 
 body and sent to the State legislatures for adoption. Before 
 the end of July, 1778, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con- 
 necticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nortli Carolina, 
 Soulh Carolina, and Georgia adopted them; New Jersey 
 followed in November, Delaware in 1779, and Maryland in 
 1781. New Hampshire never adopted them. 
 
 The plan of government outlined by the articles Avas Avith- 
 out i^recedent, and it is still Avithout simditude in the gov- 
 ernments of the Avorld; yet it is necessary to understand this 
 scheme of government in order to understand the causes 
 Avhich led to the formation of the Constitution of the United 
 
EVIL COXSEQUENCES. 79 
 
 States. The Confederation was suggested by Greek models 
 wliich liad existed for brief periods among the Greek cities; 
 but it lacked that significance which occasional Greek con- 
 servatism imparted to those feeble unions. No government 
 Avas ever modeled upon the Confederation, the nearest ap- 
 proach to similitude being the Confederation of 1861. 
 
 The Congress, having submitted the Articles of Confed- 
 ei-ation and perpetual Union between the States as a basis for 
 a national government, seemed little awai-e of the feeble gov- 
 ernment which they were attempting to set up. There were 
 men in Congress who knew, as all the world now knows,% 
 that such a government was an anomaly and a bold, fiction, 
 and they have left on record their doubts of its efficienc}'' 
 formed at the time of its inception. During the five years 
 of its journey through State legislatui'es the plan was a con- 
 stant confession of impotence and inadaptability 4:o the needs 
 of the country ; but when first proposed it was quite con- 
 iulently supposed by the majority of tlie delegates to Con- 
 gress to be adapted to the welfare of the States. It is not 
 my purpose to make of the Articles a man of straw; I on\y 
 wish to emphasize a principle in government, that it is not 
 safe, in organizing a new frame of government, to break with 
 the past and to experiment with the principles of govern- 
 ment. The Articles were a compact between the States, and 
 the Confederation was styled "The United States of Amer- 
 ica." Each State retained, its sovereignt}^, freedom, and in- 
 dependence, and every power not expressly delegated to the 
 United States in Congress assembled. The States entered 
 into a firm league of friendship with each other for their 
 common defense and areneral welfare. The free inhnbitnnts 
 
80 EXAJimA TION OF THE ARTICLES. 
 
 of each State were entitled to all the privileges and immu- 
 nities of free citizens in the different States. No State was 
 to impose discriminating restrictions on the trade or com- 
 merce of another State which were not imposed on its own 
 citizens. No State was to tax the property of the United 
 States. Fugitives from justice, meaning by that phrase ci'im- 
 inals and fugitive slaves, were to be given up, wherever 
 found, by the authorities of the State in which they were 
 found, and full faith was to be given to the records, acts, 
 and judicial proceedings of any State by every State. The 
 Congress of the United States was to be composed of dele- 
 gates, at least two and not more than seven from each State, 
 appointed in whatever manner the legislature of the State 
 might determine. The Congress was to meet yearly, and 
 each State was to have one vote. No person could serve as 
 a delegate for more than three years in any term of six 
 years. No State, without the consent of the United States 
 in Congress assembled, could send or receive any embassy; 
 nor make a treaty with any power; nor lay any duty or im- 
 post which would interfere witii any stipulations in any 
 treaty entered into by the United States ; nor could any 
 State keep bodies of troops or vessels of w^ir in time of 
 peace, except its own State militia; nor fit out privateers, nor 
 engage in war, without the consent of the United States. 
 When land forces were raised by a State fur the common 
 defense all officers of or under the rank of colonel were to 
 be appointed by the State legislature. All common expenses 
 Avere to be defrayed out of a common treasury, which was to 
 be supplied by the legislatures of the States in proportion 
 to the value of private hinds in each State; but the State 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE ARTICLES. 81 
 
 legislatures had the exclusive right of laying and collecting 
 the taxes and the proportional amounts to be paid to the 
 United States. It should be observed that the Confederation 
 thus far was chiefly an arrangement between the State legis- 
 latures and the Congress composed of delegates elected by 
 these State legislatures, and that the taxing power was care- 
 fully kept in the conti'ol of the lower house of the State 
 legislatures. 
 
 The Congress had the sole and exclusive power to declare 
 war and to make peace; to send and to receive embassadors; 
 to make treaties of peace; but no treaty could destroy thg^ 
 right of a State to lay duties and' imj^osts ; to establish rules 
 for the disposition of cajitures and prizes made in war ; to 
 appoint final courts of appeal in cases of captures; to be the 
 last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences between 
 two or more States in certain cases; to regulate the value of 
 ail coin struck by the United States or by the States; to 
 regulate the standards of weights and measures; to establish 
 and regulate post-oftices; to ajDpoint all officers in the land 
 forces of the United States excepting regimental officers, 
 and all naval officers; to make rules for the government of 
 all these forces ; to appoint a " committee of the States " to 
 sit in the recess of Congress; to appoint a President of Con- 
 gress; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised 
 for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and 
 to apply these sums for defraying the public expenses ; to bor- 
 row money; to build and equip a navy ; to agree ujion the 
 number of land forces required, and to make requisitions 
 from each State for its quota, to be binding upon the State. 
 
 The consent of nine States in Congress assembled was 
 
S2 THE CONFEDERATION AXD THE STATES. 
 
 necessary to enable the United States to engage in war; to 
 grant letters of mai'k or reprisal; to make treaties; to coin 
 or regulate tlie value of money ; to ascertain the sums neces- 
 sary for public expense; to emit bills of credit; to borrow 
 money; to approj^riate money; to create or equip a navy; to 
 raise land forces, or to ajDpoint a commander-in-chief. On 
 all other measures, except a question of adjournment, a ma- 
 jority vote of the States was required. Every State was to 
 abide by the determination of the United States on all ques- 
 tions which by the terms of the Articles of Confederation 
 were submitted to them; and the Articles themselves were to 
 be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union was to 
 be perpetual. Nor could any alteration at any time be made 
 in any of the Articles unless such alterations were agreed to 
 in Congress and afterward confirmed by the legislature of 
 every State. As there were but thirteen votes in the Con- 
 gress when every State was represented, and the vote of 
 nine States was necessary on every essentially important 
 measure of government, it followed in the administration of 
 affairs that the vote of a fcAV men, of one delegate in each of 
 five States, could determine the fate of a proposed bill. For 
 the number of delegates from each State was not large, on 
 account of the expense to the State of maintaining them, 
 and it often hapjDened that for months a State would have 
 but two delegates in Congress. A few men, either absenting 
 themselves or co-opei-ating as obstructionists, could success- 
 fully oppose the 'most important measures at the most crit- 
 ical times. 
 
 The Confederation, as an effort toward a national govern- 
 ment, set all precedents at defiance. Executive, legislative. 
 
INHERENT WEAKNESSES. 88 
 
 and judicial powers were confused, or, more correctly 
 sjjeakiiig, were wanting. The power which had given force 
 to the general assemblies of the colonies — the power to lay- 
 taxes and to appropriate moneys — did not exist in the Con- 
 federation. It could not levy a tax, and the right to levy a 
 tax and the exercise of that riffht is a distinsfnishinac mark of 
 sovereign power: it may be said in political relations to dis- 
 tinguish a govei'nment from an individual. 
 
 The president of Congress was the speaker of that body, 
 chosen from its own number, but no executive authority was 
 put into his hands. The feeble effort to provide a judicial^ 
 system was Avholly ineffective. Compared with any of the 
 thirteen governments which were asked to adopt the Articles, 
 the Confederation was only a committee of the States which 
 either of them might ignore with safety. Had the Articles 
 empowered the Congress to levy and to collect taxes and to 
 pass and to execute all laws necessary and proper for the pub- 
 lic welfare the Confederation would be classed among the im- 
 perfect governments of the past. Constituted as it was it 
 cannot be called a government. It lacked the essential 
 elements of government. No supreme power had created it, 
 nor had the supreme j^ower of the people put it into opera- 
 tion. It might request the States, as it did request them, to 
 furnish their quotas of men and money, but it could not com- 
 pel the weakest of the Thirteen to furnish a penny or to send 
 a man into the field. It could not compel obedience, for it 
 lacked that sanction Avhich makes government a reality in the 
 world. It may be said that the Confederation was only a 
 league or treaty, agreed to by the contracting parties, the 
 States, a compact or contract to which they, or any of them, 
 
84 INHERENT WEAKNESSES. 
 
 were amenable only to that degree and for that time whicli 
 they, or any of them, might determine. There was no refer- 
 ence whatever in the Articles to the idea of nationality ; 
 there was no reference whatever to the people of the United 
 States as a national unit, a political entity, as the source of 
 authority; there was no j^rovision for national citizenship. 
 Every American w is first a citizen of his own State. He knew 
 nothing of a distinct national citizenship ; it had not yet been 
 created. Of the States as parties the Articles spoke repeat- 
 edly; of the individuals who composed the States the Arti- 
 cles said nothing. The States alone were addressed in it ; to 
 them it turned for all supplies. It had no power- to compel 
 individuals to minister to its wants. Nor had it power to 
 punish offenses against its own authority expressed in its re- 
 quests. If the commander-in-chief of the army should com- 
 mit treason and should fall into the hands of the Confedera- 
 tion the Congress had no ]30wer to try him, much less to 
 punish him. It knew nothing of the people, and the people 
 knew nothing and cared nothing for the Confederation. Its 
 delegates were not chosen by the j^eople, but were appointed 
 by the State legislatures, usually in joint ballot of both 
 houses. They were paid by the States, if paid at all. The 
 whole range of the Confederation in political or civil fields 
 was merely speculative and on sufferance from the States. 
 The Congress of the Confederation cannot be called a commit- 
 tee of the States without qualifying the description. If it 
 was authorized to borrow money it had no ability to pay the 
 debt ; if it could emit bills of credit it could not be compelled, 
 nor could it compel any one, to redeem them. Its attempts 
 to perform the work of a real government were futile. If it 
 
THE CONFEDERA TION A BR OA D. 85 
 
 sought to legislate it ha'] no authority to execute its laws ; 
 if it sought to adjudicate a dispute it had no power to en- 
 force its decrees. 
 
 Thus the States, possessing all the powers of government, 
 wholly ignored the Confederation, their executives, their 
 legislatures, their courts soon discovering its weaknesses 
 and defects. It was conceived wholly in that time of 
 the conduct of the war when patriotism and popular en- 
 thusiasm would support, as they often haA'e supported, a 
 voluntary committee of citizens acting on behalf of the peo- 
 ple for the success of fundamental principles of government. 
 But as enthusiasm died away and bitter daily experiences 
 made patriotism a costly sacrifice, it was found that the ad- 
 ministration, rather than the principles, of the government 
 would decide its fate. Yet this anomalous body, " the United 
 States in Congress assembled," was the first eff^ort toward an 
 administration of the principles of the Declaration of 1776. 
 As it discarded all history and all precedent in its formation, 
 so it met with the ill, but the necessary, consequences of so 
 serious a neglect. The feeblest State of the Thirteen pos- 
 sessed civil authority ; " the United States in Congress as- 
 sembled" possessed none. Yet this shadow of a national 
 government was not so impalpable, so visionary, so insignifi- 
 cant as a hasty analysis of it at this distance of time might 
 tempt us to believe. With all its functional contradictions 
 it was to foreign powers a representative of the new nation. 
 It sent Franklin and Adams and Jefferson to foreign courts, 
 and there borrowed large sums of money for carrying on the 
 war. It made alliances, offensive and defensive, with the 
 proudest nations of Europe, and it persuaded his most Chris- 
 
86 JEALOUSY OF THE STATES. 
 
 tian majesty to send both, money and soldiers to aid tlie 
 American cause. Nor was tliis j^ersuasion made without tlie 
 ojjposition of influential ministers wlio had the royal car. 
 Talleyrand tells us tliat he thought the French alliance with 
 t]ie United States a mistake. This Congress of the Confed- 
 eration was despised at home by States that were not known 
 diplomatically abroad. To Europe, and perhaps to Europe 
 only, did this feeble Congress represent the latent nationality 
 of the people of America. 
 
 The war had continued five years before the Articles were 
 adopted by the States, and two years after their adoption 
 the ti"eaty of peace was made. In order to understand the 
 critical condition of affairs during this period of seven years 
 it is necessary to glance at the administration of public af- 
 fairs in America, both by the Congress and by the legisla- 
 tures of the States. 
 
 If the theory of the Confederation seems defective upon a 
 cursory examination of the Articles, that defect and its con- 
 sequences become more serious wlien tlie Articles are exam- 
 ined by the crucial test of practical administration. To the 
 several States, as to the courts of Europe, the Confederation 
 was a foreign government. Members of State legislatures 
 repeatedly described it as a foreign government, and every 
 legislatui'e viewed with grave suspicion every act passed by 
 " the United States in Congress assembled." No living soul 
 was responsible to Congress save that small body of men 
 whom it had sent to foreign courts. Suspicion in State legis- 
 latures soon changed to contempt. A system of representation 
 which ignored population gave as much authority in the Con- 
 gress to Rhode Island as to Virginia, and Virginia at that 
 
DOUBLE TAXATION UNPOPULAR. 87 
 
 time was as large as the New England States, New York, 
 New Jersey, and Delaware. But this inequality in represen- 
 tation was not the chief defect in the Articles. Congress 
 could not by its own authority raise a revenue. It was less 
 powerful than the State Assembly, for whose rights the war 
 was raginof. If the State assemblies chose not to send a 
 quota to the Congress, the Congress must do without money 
 or obtain it by borrowing. In 1776, buoyed up by popular 
 entlmsiasm for the Revolutionary cause, the Congress boldly 
 "voted supplies" which the States were to furnish. But the 
 States did not furnish these supplies promptly, and two yeai% 
 later Congress "urged supplies," which the State legislatures 
 failed to send. Excuses were more numerous than the 
 houses of assembly or the membership in those houses, but 
 the chief excuse was the expense necessary to be met by the 
 States for their own defense. A deeper reason may be found. 
 The people were burdened by war taxes, which were far 
 higher than any taxes known under the colonial regime. 
 Business of all kinds was interrupted, and business of many 
 kinds wholly destroyed. To be doubly taxed, by State and 
 by Congress, was an administration of affairs highly unpopu- 
 lar. When the year of grace 1780 had come both Congress 
 and the States had passed beyond any dependence on direct 
 taxes and had begun to use their credit. No problem in 
 the practical administration of public affairs is a more deli- 
 cate or a more important problem than the use of public 
 credit. Gold and silver had disappeared from general 
 circulation, and State legislatures and Congress began to 
 issue a paper currency. 
 
 On the 11th of November of this year the four New En- 
 
88 THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. 
 
 gland States and New York sent delegates to a Convention 
 at Hartford. Financial and commercial dangers thickening 
 on every side were admonishing thonghtfnl men that the 
 welfare of the nation depended upon the laying of some 
 foundation for a safe system of finance, by providing taxes 
 or duties which should produce a fixed and inalienable reve- 
 nue to pay the interest on the funded public debt and make 
 possible future loans. The attempt to determine the value 
 of private lands had failed. It seemed therefore necessary 
 that Congress should be empowered to appoi'tion taxes 
 among the States on the basis, not of land, but according 
 to their number of inhabitants, both black and white. 
 The Hartford Convention made a brief discussion on these 
 grave propositions before it, and issued a circular letter to 
 all the States: "Our embarrassments arise from a defect in 
 the present government of the United States. All govern- 
 ment supposes the power of coercion; this power, however, 
 never did exist in the general government of the continent, 
 or has never been exercised. Under these circumstances the 
 resources and force of the government can never be properly 
 united and drawn forth. The States individually considered, 
 while they endeavor to retain too much of their independ- 
 ence, may finally lose the whole. By the expulsion of the 
 enemy we may be emancipated from the tyranny of Great 
 Britain; we shall, however, be without a solid hope of peace 
 and freedom, imless we are properly cemented among our- 
 selves." But the wise opinions of the Hartford Convention, 
 although sent to Congress, to Washington, and to every State 
 legislature, although tending to aid the sentiment toward a 
 more perfect union, scarcely colored the prevailing opinions 
 
STATE OF THE FINANCES IN 1776. 89 
 
 of the day. Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey sub- 
 stantially approved the proceedings of the Convention, but 
 neither of these States alone, nor all of them together, at 
 this time, could have so changed public opinion throughout 
 the countiy that Congress would be clothed with adequate 
 powers. Few people at the time knew any thing about the 
 Hartford Convention. Little concerning it can be found in 
 the newspapers of the time, nor in the records of the old 
 Congress or in those of the State legislatures. But the 
 princi^jles of government, administrative in their natures, 
 which the Hartford circular advocated indicates conclusively% 
 that thoughtful men in America had detected the essential 
 and fatal weaknesses of the Confederation before it had been 
 adopted by the States. 
 
 At the beginning of the war there were in circulation 
 eight million dollars in specie and twenty-two millions of 
 paper money. A committee of Congress in 1775 estimated 
 that the expenses of tlie impending war would be two million 
 dollars, and continental bills to that amount were ordered to 
 be struck off by Congress. Later in the same year another 
 issue of three millions was made. The bills issued by Con- 
 gress were called continentals, to distinguish them from the 
 bills issued by the States. Li February, 1776, five millions 
 more were printed, a portion of which was in fractional parts 
 of a dollar. The paper in circulation at the opening of the 
 war was the issues of the several colonies, and usually stood 
 at par. The issues by Congress in 1775 and 1776 exhausted 
 continental credit at home, and the continental bills began 
 to depreciate. Li July, 1777, Congress issued five millions 
 and authorized the issue of fifteen millions more. Meantime 
 
90 THE CONGRESSIONAL LOTTERY. 
 
 the States had begun issuing; colonial scrip fell below par, 
 and State currency was thebettei- paper money in the market. 
 Continental and State issues began to compete for credit, and 
 State issues bore the better price, because " the IJnited States 
 in Congress assembled " possessed not one foot of land in all 
 America, nor personal pi-operty of any kind winch might be 
 made security for its continental issues. The States, on the 
 contrai-y, possessed both real and personal property; and all 
 of them, excej^t Rhode Island, N^ew Jersey, New Hampshire, 
 and Maryland, laid claim to vast areas toward the Mississippi 
 River known for many years to come, as they were then 
 known, as the "western lands." When, therefore, Congress 
 in 17*77 proposed a loan at four per cent., "the faith of the 
 United States " being pledged for five millions to be bor- 
 rowed immediately, no capitalists would respond; the risk 
 was too uncertain. Money was M^orth from six to ten per 
 cent, in the market on ample security, and the United 
 States could oifer no security whatever. Congress then of- 
 fered six per cent, and tried a lottery, that delusive scheme 
 which for more than three quarters of a century was the 
 familiar and favorite device by which — both in Europe and 
 in America^to raise money at the expense of the unluckyi 
 for the support of States; for the building and mainte- 
 nance of churches; for colleges and for bridges; for corpo- 
 ration debts and for ministers' salaries. In our day, though 
 outlawed by nearly all the States in their constitutional 
 provisions and by the; lav\'S of Congress, lotteries continue 
 to Avin the confidence and the support of millions of credu- 
 lous people in all parts of the land. But the congressional 
 lottery did not prosper, and the States were again urged to 
 
PAPEn MONET AND PPJCES. 91 
 
 remit their quotas of supplies. The States, however, were 
 more negligent than befo e, and Congress sought relief by 
 trying a financial scheme considered by its promoters as 
 both novel and sagacious. It was to raise the amounts due 
 from the several States by anticipation and place the amounts 
 received to the credit of the States. This amounted practi- 
 cally to a loan by the States to Congress, and it was famil- 
 iarly described as "the same goose with a change of sauce." 
 In 1777 Congress made another pa[)er issue of thirteen 
 millions, and the entire amount of issues made at tlie 
 close of that year since 1775 was fifty-five and a half million^ 
 In 1778 Congress made fourteen issues of paper, amounting 
 to sixty-three and a half millions, and during the first quarter 
 of 1779 it issued sixty-five millions more and attempted to 
 negotiate an additional loan of twenty millions. The Sta.tes 
 meantime eontinuefl their issues, and paper money had 
 scarcely any value. Prices rose to a fabuloiis degree. A 
 barrel of flour cost $1,575; a pair of boots, $400; four hand- 
 kerchiefs are quoted at |100 apiece, and calico, at $85 a yard. 
 Complaints rained upon State legislatures and Congress, 
 but legislatures and Congress replied by another issue, Con- 
 gress ordering forty-five millions. By the 1st of December, 
 1779, the total emission of continental paper amounted to 
 two hundred millions, of which more than one hundred and 
 forty millions had been issued in that year alone. The 
 credit of the Confederation had long since disappeared, and 
 after 1779 Congress made no more issues. For four years 
 the Articles of Confederation had been before the State 
 legislatures seekino- ratification. The States and the Con- 
 gress had during this time been bidding against each other 
 
92 CON'GliESS MIGRATES. 
 
 for public credit, and both had lost. There was no public 
 credit when on the 1st of March, 1781, the requisite number 
 of States were known to have adoj^ted the Articles. On the 
 following day the first Congress under the Articles assem- 
 bled, and it at once proposed that the States surrender to it 
 the right to issue bills of credit. This proposition signified 
 that Congress should thenceforth legislate on the credit of 
 the State, and the proposition was promptly rejected by 
 the State legislatures. During the two years of war that 
 followed Congress w\as almost forgotten by the people; it 
 was ignored by the legislatures, and it was reviled by the 
 press and by the pamphleteers. It was forced by the acci- 
 dents of war to wander about. It was at Philadelphia; a 
 mob of plowboys drove it from the State House there to 
 take refuge in Princeton. At Nassau Hall it resumed its 
 endless debates by inconsequential members on inconsequen- 
 tial subjects, and from Princeton it adjourned to assemble at 
 Aimapolis. It was at Trenton; it was at New York; it had 
 been in Lancaster; it might convene without notice, at the 
 slightest sign of danger to its members, in the most obscure 
 village in the land. Wits were not slow to make merry over 
 its misfortunes, and public contempt soon robbed it of every 
 suggestion of authority. It was said that Congress could do 
 two things — ^it could give bad advice and it could run. 
 
 Happily, by the fictions of international law, or by reason 
 of the selfish designs of some Euroj)ean nations now more 
 clearly understood than then. Congress stood in the policy of 
 these nations for a nation of free j^eople with whom treaties 
 could be made and to whom moneys could be loaned. No 
 swift steam-ship nor incredibly swifter cablegram laid daily 
 
RUNNING EXPENSES NOT MET. 93 
 
 before the minister of foreign affairs at Versailles or at 
 Vienna the exact condition of American affairs, or the treaties 
 perhaps woukl not liave been made or the mone3^s loaned. 
 Tlie States, while profiting by these treaties and these loans, 
 continued deliberately to violate the articles in the treaties 
 aiid to ignore the obligations of the loans. Instead of costing 
 two and a half millions the war had cost one hundred and 
 forty millions — a sum of money representing but little m.ore 
 than the annual interest paid by the United States at the 
 present time on its bonded debt. By an energy almost mi- 
 raculous about one hundred millions of this war expense ha(^ 
 been paid by the Americans, but the amount still due seemed 
 of such magnitude that it overwhelmed our fathers with 
 fear. Yet this debt is less than one third of the county debt 
 of the United States, is but one fifth of the debt of the city 
 of New York, and but a few millions less than the debt of 
 the city of Philadelphia at the j^resent time. The adminis- 
 tration of public finance in this country, whether that admin- 
 istration be judged as wise or foolish, according to the theory 
 which may be adopted in basing a judgment, has made no 
 form of public securities more valuable than State bonds, 
 county bonds, and city bonds, based on the credit of our 
 counties, and on that of such cities as New York or Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 It was far different in 1784. To meet the expenses of the 
 United States for that year about five and a half millions of 
 dollars were required ; for running expenses, four hundred 
 and fifty-eight thousand dollars ; for outstanding deficiencies 
 for the previous year, about one million dollars; and for 
 interest, already overdue, on the public debt, about tlu'ce 
 
94 AN APPEAL FOR LIFE. 
 
 million dollars. To raise this revenue Congress proposed to 
 the States that they cede their western lands and grant Con- 
 gress the power to pass a tariff bill and to collect customs. 
 1 1 was plainly stated hy Congress that the impost should be 
 exclusively applied to pay tlie interest on the public debt ; 
 that it should continue no longer than twenty-five years, 
 and that each State should appoint the revenue collectors for 
 its own ports. This request of Congress has been concisely 
 described as " an appeal for life." The consent of nine 
 States would have made the request a law. Only two 
 States, Virginia and North Carolina, yielded assent; and the 
 proposition was lost. Congress was helpless; ruin and na- 
 tional degradation were impending; tlie 23i"oposition to cede 
 the western lands, proposed by Maryland, which had none, 
 was languidly taken up by the legislatures ; but their action 
 had slight effect in improving public credit. And this neg- 
 lect of the States was at a most critical time, for Amei-ican 
 credit abi'oad was overdrawn and the foreign loan was ex- 
 hausted. American securities were scarcely quoted on ex- 
 change; the bankers were getting restless. By almost super- 
 human efforts John Adams raised a small additional loan in 
 Holland; but no more money could be obtained save at such 
 ruinous rates of interest that even Congress dared not prom- 
 ise to pay them. 
 
 Then began in our country an agitation over the affairs of 
 the nation, the powers of Congress to lay taxes and to regu- 
 late commerce, which continued with increasing fervor till 
 the old Confederation was supplanted by the more perfect 
 Union under which we live. 
 
 With national credit gone ; with State credit vanishing ; 
 
FINANCIAL CONSTITUTIONS. 95 
 
 with, a craze for printing paper issues to pass current for 
 money on whose rudely pi'inted face could be read "to coun- 
 terfeit is death ; " with cunningly made counterfeits almost 
 as abundant as original issues ; with utter refusal in some 
 parts of the country to receive these issues in exchange for 
 the necessaries of life, and with the prostration of all busi- 
 ness incident to a disordered currency, the legislatuies 
 were still debating whether it was expedient to give to Con- 
 gress, even for a term of years, the right to regulate com- 
 merce for the welfare of the nation. The question whiclv 
 now seems so easy of solution was far more difficult to the^ 
 legislators of that day than it might now seem to be. The 
 question was a question of financial administration, and no 
 legislature in the world at that time exercised its powers 
 wisely, if its action l)e judged by modern exj)erience, in de- 
 termining its course of financial administration. The prob- 
 lem of such administration was a peculiarly difficult one, and 
 was one of the new, the pi'essing problems which had arisen 
 in the conduct of government. There was not gold and sil- 
 ver enough to do the business of the world at the close of 
 the eighteenth century, and the safe use of credit was not 
 yet practically worked out ; nor yet, in the nineteenth cent- 
 ury, while prostrating panics still rage at times, can it be 
 said that financial principles are so clearly understood among 
 men as are the principles of govei'nment laid down by con- 
 ventions in constitutions of government. The time may 
 come when financial constitutions may be framed among 
 men as political constitutions of government are framed. 
 But at the time of which I write credit was abused rather 
 than used. The people divided into factions on the propo- 
 
96 THE BOSTON MERCHANTS COMPLAIN. 
 
 sition of giving to Congress the power to regulate commerce. 
 There were tariff men and non-tariff men, papei'-money men 
 and hard-money men. Some claimed that trade should be 
 left to take care of itself ; that if the States should grant 
 such a revenue Congress would squander it as it had 
 squandered millions before. The States should control taxes 
 as they always had controlled them. It was replied that the 
 commerce of the country was at the mercy of foreign powers, 
 and, as every body knew, thirteen States could never agree 
 on the subject of regulating commerce. Congress therefore 
 should be empowered to make uniform regulations on the 
 subject. , 
 
 The Boston merchants set forth the deplorable condition 
 of business, and formally petitioned the General Court of Mas- 
 sachusetts to instruct their delegates in Congress to bring 
 up the whole question again. The merchants found a leader 
 in Governor Bowdoin, who told the State legislature that 
 bitter experience proved the necessity of bestowing ujDon 
 Congress the power to control trade for a limited time. He 
 suggested in 1785 that each State should appoint delegates 
 to a Trade Convention in which miglit be settled amicably 
 what powers should be given to the general government. 
 New York had made a similar suggestion three years earlier. 
 But the Massachusetts delegates in Congress, led by Rufus 
 King, argued that any change in the Confederation would 
 lead to the establishment of an aristocracy ; and the cause 
 of the Boston merchants was for the time defeated. 
 
 The nation was bankrupt. The paper issues of fourteen 
 presses had confused the currency beyond control. No cen- 
 ti'al authority existed. Legislatures passed laws discriminat- 
 
THE PLANTERS COMPLAIN. 97 
 
 iiig ngainst the people of other States; treaties were ignored, 
 and 23ublic honor seemed lost. Amid such prostration of 
 credit it might seem incredible that there would continue 
 opposition to a remedy for public disorders ; but opposition, 
 powerful and popular, existed in every State. It was affirmed 
 that Congress had no right to adopt the commercial laws of 
 one State rather than those of another. AVhose commercial 
 laM^s Avould all be willing to obey ? Nor will the States, it 
 Avas said, ever allow Congress to prescribe commercial laws 
 of its own, for had not New York, led by Governor Clinton, 
 repeatedly refused to give Congress any right whatever t% 
 interfere in the trade of that State ? 
 
 But the planters in the South, although by following a 
 somewhat different course of reasoning, at last reached the 
 same conclusion as had been reached by the merchants of 
 the North. " If Congress lays an impost," said the mer- 
 chants, " we will gain, because the duty will be paid by the 
 consumers and we shall be troubled no longer by the con- 
 stant fluctuations in prices caused by the conflicting laws of 
 so many States; smuggling Avill be checked and prices will 
 be more settled under general regulations." " If Congress 
 fixes an impost," said the planters, "we shall no longer be 
 obliged to compete with raw products in whatever form 
 from the West Indies or from other foreign points, and the 
 protection in our favor will raise the price of our products 
 and create a home market." The planters and the mer- 
 chants thus gradually came to be common supporters of the 
 national idea that the regulation of commerce should be 
 under the control of Congress. 
 
 Congress itself was quite given up to despair. On the 15th 
 
98 ^ ENGLAND AND FRANCE LEARN THE NEWS. 
 
 of February, 1786, the committee chosen by Congress out of its 
 own number to take into consideration the state of tlie Union 
 made its report. Perhaps no more melanclioly and discourag- 
 ing report ever came from a committee of Congress. The 
 States had 'failed to come up to their requisitions. The public 
 embarrassments were daily increasing. It was the instant duty 
 of Congress to declare most explicitly that the crisis had ar- 
 rived when the people of the United States, by whose will 
 and for Avhose benefit the federal government had been in- 
 stituted, should speedily decide whether or not they would 
 support their rank as a nation by maintaining the public 
 faith at home and abroad, and by a timely exertion in estab- 
 lishing a general revenue strengthen the Confederation and 
 no longer hazard not only the existence of the Union, but 
 also the existence of those great and invaluable rights for 
 which they had so arduously and honorably contended. 
 
 At the time of this humiliating confession from Congress 
 itself information was passing to foreign governments from 
 their agents in America concerning the low state of trade 
 and commerce and the impending dissolution of the Confed- 
 eration. To England, Temple wrote: "The trade and navi- 
 gation of the States af)pear to be now at a stand-still." To 
 France, Otto M^rote: "It is necessary either to dissolve the 
 Confederation or to give to Congress means proportional to 
 its wants. It calls upon the States for the last time to act 
 as a nation : all its resources are exhausted ; the present 
 crisis concerns solely the existence of Congress and of the 
 Confederation." 
 
 On the 12th of November following, Washington wrote 
 to Thomas Johnson, who ten years before had moved Wash- 
 
TUE GRAZE FOR PAPER MONET. 99 
 
 ington's appointment to the command of the army, that " the 
 want of energy in the federal government, the jiulling of 
 one State and parts of States against anotlier, and the com- 
 motions among the eastern people, have sunk our national 
 character below par and have brought our politics and 
 credit to tlie brink of a precipice. A step or two more must 
 plunge us into inextricable ruin." A week later he wrote to 
 David Stuart : " However delicate the revision of the fed- 
 eral system may appear, it is a work of indispensable neces- 
 sity. The present Constitution is inadequate ; the super- 
 structure is tottering to its foundation, and without helpy 
 will bury us in its ruins." On the same day he wrote to 
 Edmund Randolph : " Our affairs seem to be drawing to an 
 awful crisis." Otto, in a letter of the 10th of October, to 
 Vergennes, the French minister, had summed the necessity 
 of the hour, " to grant to Congress powers extensive enough 
 to compel the people to contribute for . . . the exact pay- 
 ment of debts " — that is, that Congress should be empow- 
 ered to regulate commerce and to levy taxes. 
 
 The people, meanwhile, alarmed by continuous industrial 
 depression and by bankruj^tcy, had sought relief in the very 
 evils whicli liad caused the destruction of j^i^iblic and private 
 credit. The rage for the issue of paper money broke out 
 afresh and more violently than ever. Legislators responded 
 to public opinion that the debts should be Avij^ed out with 
 paper money. In seven States the hard-money men were 
 out-voted; within the j^ear Marjdand, North Carolina, New 
 York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Ver- 
 mont issued great quantities of paper money. They also 
 attempted to enforce its circulation by law. The famous 
 
100 SHAY'S REBELLION. 
 
 forcing act of Rhode Island led to the celebrated case of 
 Trevett vs. Weeden, in which the odious paper-money laws 
 were pronounced unconstitutional. But this decision of a 
 court of law is only evidence of the lawlessness which pi*e- 
 vailed commonly in New England and in some other por- 
 tions of the country, and which demoralized society. The 
 obligation of contracts ceased to be binding, in the o^^inion 
 of the masses; a cessation of the ability to j)ay money creat- 
 ing an idea that the obligation to pay had ceased also. Af- 
 frays became common. Armed mobs interrupted or pre- 
 vented the session of courts. In Massachusetts a reign of 
 riot, known as Shays' Rebellion, wliicli is referred to by 
 Washington in his letter to Johnson as "the commotions 
 among the eastern people," was supported by men maddened 
 by the agonies incident to a ruined credit, and who sought 
 to vent their blind fury against the supposed authors of 
 their calamities, the merchants, the lawyei-s, and the courts. 
 The insurgents in Massachusetts were favored by the gov- 
 ernors of Rhode Island and Vermont, who secretly connived 
 with them and openly aided them Avhenever any opportunity 
 was presented to injure the State of Massachusetts. As if 
 to make more miserable the desj^erate people, winter sat in 
 earlier and fiercer than since the terrible winter at Valley 
 Forge. Laborers were out of employment. Merchants com- 
 plained of the interruption or of the utter cessation of trade. 
 Tax-collectors returned men as tax delinquents who had long 
 been re25uted wealthy. The country, as Washington had 
 prophesied in his famous Newburg letter, written about three 
 years before, " was left almost in a state of nature," and the 
 people were learning by their own unhappy experience "that 
 
NEW JERSEY REFUSES TO PAT. 101 
 
 there is a natural and necessary progression from the extreme 
 of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny, and that arbitrary 
 power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty 
 abused by licentiousness." 
 
 Yet even amid this general bankruptcy several States 
 passed laws impairing the obligation of contracts. The 
 sense of justice seemed stunned, or lost to the republic. If 
 the inviolability of private rights could thus be ignored by 
 public legislation, then after that " the deluge." " Interfer- 
 ence with private rights and the steady dispensation with 
 justice," wrote Madison in after years, " were the evils which 
 above all others led to the new Constitution." 
 
 During the winter of 1785-86 Congress rarely constituted a 
 quorum. The Confederation was falling to pieces. State leg- 
 islatures either neglected to elect or found it difficult to elect 
 delegates to Congress. No longer did the office attract the 
 great leaders ; it brought neither profit, fame, congenial 
 duties, nor an opportunity for promoting the public Avelfare. 
 The giants had disappeared and the pygmies had taken pos- 
 session of the land. To New Jersey it Avas reserved to 
 break the last strand which bound the Confederation to life. 
 In 1786 that State refused to pay its quota of one hundred 
 and sixty-six thousand dollars. Congress sent its committee 
 to reason with the New Jersey legislature. The legislature 
 gave the committee a hearing, but no money. Then it was 
 that Congress confessed its helplessness. The United States 
 in Congress assembled, the pei'petual Union under the Arti- 
 cles of Confederation, having received in five months only 
 one fourth of the revenue necessary to support it for a single 
 day, defective in the theory of government on which it 
 
/ 02 MADISON A D VO CA TES REFORM. 
 
 claimed foundation, wholly lacking power to exercise those 
 functions of practical administration which constitute the 
 vitality of government, having passed through every stage 
 of misery, from inherent defect to suspected decrepitude, 
 from acknowledged decrepitude into open neglect, and from 
 common neglect into notorious contempt, ceased to attract 
 any more attention among men save for a few flickering mo- 
 ments before it expired forever. 
 
 As the merchants of Boston had found an advocate in 
 Governor Bowdoin, so the planters of Virginia, a year 
 later, appealing to the House of Burgesses, found an advo- 
 cate in James Madison. The planters knew, as knew the 
 northern merchants, that tlie general government had repu- 
 diated its debts ; they knew that the several States had 
 begun to scale or to repudiate the State debts, and ordinary 
 powers of reason led them to believe that in a short time, 
 how soon no man could tell, private individuals would be 
 unable to collect the lawful claims outstanding in their 
 favor, Madison, on the last day of the session of 1786, suc- 
 ceeded in getting the liouse to pass an act in the immediate 
 interest of the people of Virginia, but an act the conse- 
 quences of which no statesman could have foreseen. He 
 began a movement which from obscure origin, perhaps 
 among merchants and planters, gained strength Avith every 
 slight advance, which passed quickly and almost impercepti- 
 bly from State to State, and swelled at last into a national 
 impulse that found adequate expression in the Constitutional 
 Convention of 1787. 
 
 Between Maryland and Virginia the Potomac River was 
 the boundary line. It was the common highway of com- 
 
THE COMMISSION AT 2I0UNT YERNON. 103 
 
 merce to and from the States along its banks and to and 
 from other States drained by it or by its tributaries. The 
 duties levied by the laws of Maryland and Virginia were 
 constantly evaded by smugglers, who skillfully succeeded in 
 landing goods from foreign countries in Maryland as goods 
 from Virginia, or in Virginia as goods from Maryland. 
 Each State had long accused the other of harboring smug- 
 glers, and comj)laints had been brought repeatedly before 
 the two legislatures. As early as 1784 Madison had made 
 personal observation of these infractions of interstate law, 
 and had written to Jefferson suggesting the appointment of 
 a joint commission of the two States for the purpose of 
 ascertaining the respective rights of the States over the 
 commerce of the river. A bill was soon brought into the 
 Vriginia House of Burgesses. Three commissioners were 
 appointed for that Commonwealth. Three were appointed 
 by Maryland, and in March, 1785, the commissioners met 
 at Alexandria ; but they soon adjourned to Mount Vernon, 
 in order to consult with Washington. As the commissioners 
 entered upon an examination of the interests before them 
 many questions arose pertinent to the case, but bej^ond their 
 powers to settle. Delaware and Pennsylvania were inter- 
 ested in the commerce of the river. If it was to the advan- 
 tage of Maryland and Virginia to agree to uniform duties, 
 was not a similar agreement beneficial to Pennsylvania and 
 to Delaware ? If to four States, why not extend the agree- 
 ment to all the States of the Union ? Washington said to 
 the commissioners, " The proposition is self-evident ; we are 
 either a united people or we are not so. If the former, let 
 us in all matters of national concern act as a nation which 
 
/ 04 WA SHINGTON' DECLARED FOR A MORE PERFECT UNION. 
 
 has a national character to sui3j)ort. If the States individu- 
 ally attempt to regulate commerce an abortion or a many- 
 headed monster will be the issue. If we consider ourselves or 
 wish to be considered by others as a united people, why not 
 adopt the measures which are characteristic of it and sup- 
 port the honor and dignity of one ? If we are afraid to 
 trust one another under qualified jjowers there is an end of 
 union." 
 
 These ideas advanced by Washington were ideas in the 
 mind of many thoughtful men in the country at the time 
 and were the seed of the more perfect Union. While yet at 
 Mount Vernon the commissioners drew up a report suggest- 
 ing that two commissioners be appointed by each State wa- 
 tered by the Potomac to report a uniform system of customs 
 next year. Maryland at once invited Pennsylvania and 
 Delaware to participate in this common commercial policy. 
 Virginia, leading the way to a grander result, passed a simi- 
 lar resolution extending its provisions, and, sending a copy to 
 each State, invited all to appoint delegates to meet in a 
 Trade Convention at Annapolis on the second Monday in 
 September, 1786. The spirit of the merchants and of the 
 planters had taken hold of the legislators. It was this far- 
 reaching resolution that the House of Burgesses passed on 
 the last day of the session of 1786, and it Avas Madison, ad- 
 vocating the cause of the Virginia planters, and of the mer- 
 chants of Boston as well, who inserted a clause which met 
 the approval of the House, that the Convention about to be 
 called should be empowered to take into consideration the 
 trade and commerce of the whole countiy, and that Congress 
 should be vested with powers to regulate commerce. 
 
THE PAMPHLETEERS. 105 
 
 On the 9tli of April Otto had written to his government: 
 Congress affords the States " a glimpse of the fatal and inev- 
 itable consequences of bankruptcy, and it declares to the 
 whole world that it is not to blame for the violation of the 
 engagements which it has nia<le in the name of its constitu- 
 ents. All its resources are exhausted ; the 2:»ayment of taxes 
 diminishes daily, and scarcely suffices for the modest exjjenses 
 of the government; the present crisis concerns solely the exist- 
 ence of Congress and of the Confederation. The most impor- 
 tant members of Congress are doing all in their power to add 
 to the act of confederation some articles which the present 
 situation of affairs renders indispensable; they propose to give 
 to Congress executive powers and the right to make exclus- 
 ively emissions of jDaper money and of regulating commerce." 
 
 Franklin wrote to Jefferson, then in Paris, that " the dis- 
 position to furnish Congress with ample powers is augment- 
 ing daily as the people become more enlightened." The 
 newspapers teemed with the wn-itings of obscure economists, 
 yet not all obscure. Publius * had addressed the American 
 public before, and he was soon to address them again in a 
 series of brief newspaper articles which have become the 
 first American political classic. But there were obscurer men 
 than Publius, for Cato and Camillus, Plain Farmer and Cin- 
 cinnatus wrote also. Innumerable pamphlets, which are yet 
 turning up in our day, bore the burden of the song of "present 
 discontent." Even the professors in the colleges were said to 
 emerge from the mysteries of logic and of Aristotle to examine 
 critically, ere it was too late, the much-talked-of Articles of 
 Confederation, under which they suddenly discovered that 
 * Hamilton ; the classic is The Federalist. 
 
106 THE ANNAPOLIS CONVENTION. 
 
 they liad been living for several years. Again were the 
 Greek and the Italian republics compelled to do a post- 
 mortem service to mankind, and what parallels were drawn 
 between the Confederation and the Achtean League, between 
 Amalfi and Modena ! Clergymen discoursed from political 
 texts, and during the recess of the court the lawyers 
 dropped their arguments before the jury and took up new 
 arguments in defense of favorite systems of finance as apjjlied 
 to a government which had never pursued any system. The 
 interests of trade, of the currency, of commerce, and of a 
 national government were for the first time in America 
 assuming a pronounced political character. The whole nat- 
 ure of the absorbing theme was of the administration rather 
 than of the principles of government. 
 
 The Trade Convention met at Annapolis in September, 
 but the attendance of delegates was so small as to discourao-e 
 the few who had assembled from taking into prolonged con- 
 sideration at that time the grave questions that agitated the 
 country. Neither Georgia nor South Carolina sent dele- 
 gates, nor was a single New England State represented. 
 Little Avas done except to meet and to adjourn. But before 
 adjourning Madison and Hamilton agreed upon a report 
 Avhich, drawn with all of Hamilton's skill and foresight, was 
 adopted by the Convention after a discussion lasting two 
 days. The report urged that a new Convention, composed of 
 delegates from each State, possessing greater powers than 
 those conferred on the delegates to the Annapolis Conven- 
 tion, should be called to meet in Philadelphia on the second 
 Monday of May, 1787. Copies of this report were sent to 
 the States, and the Annapolis Trade Convention adjourned. 
 
THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. 107 
 
 Again Virginia took the lead, and on the 9th of November 
 the House of Burgesses passed a bill, brought in by Madison, 
 that the State should send delegates to the proposed Consti- 
 tutional Convention. The first delegate chosen by any State 
 was chosen by Virginia, and he was her foremost citizen, 
 Washington. Madison was the fifth chosen, and his services 
 in the Convention were destined to be greater than those 
 of any otlier delegate on the floor. Virginia was followed 
 speedily by New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North 
 Carolina, and Georgia, which in succession elected delegates. 
 In Massachusetts a bitter faction delayed the election unUl 
 the 21st of February, on which day Congress also gave its 
 Aveak and formal consent to the calling of the Convention. 
 Rhode Island never sent a delegation ; but before midsum- 
 mer every other State was represented. On the 14th of 
 May, 1787, the Convention assembled in the old State House 
 in Philadelphia, where so many of the delegates had already 
 won a just fame. At the same time Congress was in session 
 in New York, and on the 13th of July it passed an ordinance 
 which has imparted immortal fame to the last labors of the 
 Congress of the Confederation; the ordinance. of 1787 was 
 passed, providing for the organization of the territory north 
 of the river Ohio in which " slavery, except as a punishment 
 for crime for which the party had been duly convicted, was 
 forever prohibited." This act fixed the boundary of slavery 
 in the United States — a boundary continued westward by 
 the great compromise of 1820 ; a boundaiy which was the 
 theme of endless controversy and again of compromise in 
 1850; a boundary which was set aside by the decision in the 
 Dred Scott case seven years later ; a boundary which disap- 
 
108 CONGRESS SETS THE DAY. 
 
 peared at last in the smoke of battle. This boundary be- 
 came in our jjolitical history the precedent for a policy of 
 slavery restriction, which, at first appearing as the ordinance 
 itself, grew at last into a sentiment of the majority of the 
 people of the United States and was set into the national 
 Constitution in 1865 in the very language which is found in 
 the ordinance passed nearly eighty years before. 
 
 When the work of the Constitutional Convention was done 
 and the Constitution of the United States was made, it was 
 forwai'ded to the Congress of the Confederation to be ap- 
 proved by that body and by it to be sent to the executives 
 of the States. There were delegates in Congress who did 
 not favor any proposition to empower Congress to levy taxes 
 or to regulate commerce, and they played the part of obstruc- 
 tionists to the end. On the 2'7th of September, 1787, Con- 
 gress agreed to send the new Constitution to the States for 
 ratification or rejection, and during the following twelve 
 months the action of the States was officially made known to 
 Congress: the Constitution was adopted. It was left for 
 Congress to prepare the way for the entrance of the new 
 government, and on the loth of September, 1788, it fixed 
 the first Wednesday in January of 1789 as the time for 
 choosing presidential electors, the first Wednesday in Feb- 
 ruary as the time for the meeting of the electors and the 
 choice of a President of the United States, and the first 
 Wednesday of March as the day when the new Constitu- 
 tion should become the supreme law of the land and the 
 President-elect should be inaugurated. Five weeks later, 
 when the anniversary of the battle of Yorktown had for 
 the seventh time returned, the Congress of the Confedera- 
 
WHY TEE CONFEDERATION FAILED. 109 
 
 tion expired for want of a quorum, and the Confederation 
 came to an end. 
 
 If we seek for the cause of tiie decay of the Confederation 
 it is found in its inability to levy taxes, to raise a revenue, 
 to regidate commerce. These functions were exercised by 
 the State legislatures. For generations the struggle had 
 gone on in England between king and Parliament fur the 
 possession of the taxing power, and the king had been van- 
 quished. For more than a hundred and sixty years the strug- 
 gle was continued in America, but the struggle was between 
 the Pai'liament and the colonial assemblies, and Parliamer% 
 was vanquished. And when peace was won and independence 
 was acknowledged the struggle over the taxing power contin- 
 ued in a new form, not between the State assemblies, but be- 
 tween two systems of government which for the first time in 
 America were discovered as essential to the perfection of 
 representative government — the local system rejjresented by 
 the States, and the national system represented feebly by the 
 Confederation. The Confederation was the creation of the 
 assemblies — not their master or their equal. It was not at 
 all clear to the people how a national government should be 
 organized, when, in 1776, their representatives in the Conti- 
 nental Congress brought in that report which constituted 
 the Articles of the Confederation. A national government 
 implied a system of administration whose functions were 
 yet obscure. Grinding necessity compelled the calling of a 
 Trade Convention, and the Annapolis Convention pointed the 
 way toward a more perfect Union. The august powers of 
 a supreme law must be exercised before the creation of a 
 iiational government could be possible, A double system, 
 
no THE TWO SYSTEMS. 
 
 local and national, must be worked out, with no abrupt 
 departure from precedents, for safety's sake. Each com- 
 plete within itself, these two systems were to be inaugurated 
 by the continuation of the State governments and by the 
 formation of the Constitution by the people of the United 
 States. 
 
VIRGINIA CALLS A CONVENTIOX FOR AMERICA. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION WAS MADE, CONFERRING 
 ALL NECESSARY POWERS ON THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 / 
 
 /. 1787. 
 
 When Congress asked the States to amend the Articles so 
 that it might levy a tax according to population and spend tlA 
 revenue to pay interest on the public debt, twelve States had 
 consented ; but Rhode Island refused, and the amendment 
 was not made. When Congress asked again for powers to 
 levy an impost by specific duties twelve States assented, but 
 New York refused, and the measure failed ; and when Con- 
 gress made a third attempt for revenue, asking that the 
 power to regulate trade be granted for twenty-fi\'e years, 
 twelve States consented, but New York again refused. 
 Mindful of these failures, the Congress had consented to the 
 calling of a Constitutional Convention. Had this last effort 
 to amend the Articles emanated only from Congress itself, 
 doubtless the effort would have shared the fate of the earlier 
 attempts at amendment, but the call for the Constitutional 
 Convention of 1787 came from the leading State in the 
 Union, Virginia, and it was known that Washington favored 
 the movement. Imitating the example of Virginia, the States 
 elected delegates to the proposed Convention, and to this 
 day the fame of the men they chose is one of the glories of 
 American history. 
 
112 THE MEN CHOSEN. 
 
 From Virginia came George Washington, the most in- 
 fluential man in America ; James Madison, a member of 
 the House of Burgesses, and destined to serve under the 
 Constitution, soon to be formed, as foreign minister, as mem- 
 ber of Congress, as secretary of state, and twice as President 
 of the United States ; Edmund Randolph, governor of the 
 State and the first attorney-general of the United States ; 
 John Blair, chief-justice of his State, a graduate of William 
 and Mary College, a great lawyer, and later an associate 
 justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ; George 
 Mason, author of the famous " Declaration of Rights " of Vir- 
 ginia in IIIQ, and afterward chosen one of the first United 
 States senators from his State ; George Wythe, a signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence, a most eminent lawyer and 
 judge in his State, and the legal preceptor of two Presidents 
 and of one chief -justice of the United States ; and James 
 McClurg, a graduate of William and Mary, a doctor of 
 medicine from Edinburgh, and at the head of his profession 
 in that State, chosen to represent Virginia when Patrick 
 Henry declined to serve. 
 
 New Hampshire sent John Langdon, who had served his 
 State in the old Congress, in the General Assembly, and on 
 the bench, destined afterward, as temporary speaker of the 
 first Congress, to notify Washington of his election to the 
 presidency, twice governor of his State, and once United 
 States senator; and Nicholas Gilman, the youngest man 
 chosen to the Convention by any State, afterward a mem- 
 ber of the House of Representatives, and at the time of his 
 death a United States senator. 
 
 Massachusetts sent Elbridge Gerry, the fifth signer of the 
 
THE MEN CHOSEN. 113 
 
 Declaration, a graduate of Harvard, afterward a member of 
 Congress, an envoy to France, and the fourth Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the United States; Nathaniel Gorham, a delegate to 
 the old Congress, a judge, and a conspicuous member of the 
 ratifying convention of his State; Rufus King, one of the 
 authors of the ordinance of 1787, afterward three times 
 United States senator from New York and twice minister to 
 the court oi St. James; and Caleb Strong, a graduate of Har- 
 vard, one of the framers of the constituli(jn of his State, one 
 of its first United States senators and once its governor. 
 
 From Connecticut came William Samuel Johnson, a gracl* 
 uate of Yale, a lawyer of eloquence and ability, the agent of 
 Connecticut in England in colonial days, the friend of 
 Samuel Johnson, chief-justice of his State, member of the 
 Continental Congress, first United States senator from his 
 State, and president of Columbia College; also came Roger 
 Sherman, the one man who is distinguished as a signer of 
 the four chief state papers in our history, the Articles of 
 Association of 1774, the Declaration of Independence of 
 1776, the Articles of Confederation of 1781, and the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. He began life as a shoe- 
 maker, but by reason of his abilities he became chief-jus- 
 tice of his State, which ofiice he resigned after a tenure of 
 twenty-three years, to become a member of Congress; and 
 at the time of his death he was a senator of the United 
 States; and Oliver Ellsworth, a graduate of Princeton, a 
 judge in his State, and afterward appointed chief-justice of 
 the United States by Washington, and, later, minister to the 
 court of France. 
 
 The delegates from New York were Robert Yates, who 
 8 
 
114 TEE MEN CHOSEN. 
 
 had served as a member of the provincial Congresses of his 
 State and who afterward became its chief -justice j John Lan- 
 sing, a member of the old Congress, and afterward the suc- 
 cessor of Robert Yates as chief -justice of the State. To 
 Lansing and Yates, who opposed the new Constitution and 
 left the Convention, we are indebted for valuable notes on 
 the debates in the Convention during their membership. 
 Ablest of the New York delegation, and inferior to no mind 
 in the Convention, was Alexander Hamilton, who had served 
 as aid-de-camp to Washington, as member of the legisla- 
 ture of his State, and, though deserted by his colleagues, he 
 remained in the Convention and exerted a most extraordinary- 
 influence over his fellow-members. Afterward, as first secre- 
 tary of the treasury, "he smote the corpse of public credit 
 and it sprang upon its feet," To Madison is doubtless due the 
 honor of proposing the plan of the national government, but 
 the honor of applying that plan later, in practical administra- 
 tion, is due chiefly to Hamilton. 
 
 New Jersey chose William Livingstone, a graduate of 
 Yale, a member of the Continental Congress, and eleven 
 times governor of the State; David Brearley, her chief-jus- 
 tice; William Churchill Houston, her member in Congress, 
 William Paterson, one of the signers of the Declaration, 
 ten times attorney-general of his State, afterward her 
 senator in Congress, once her governor, and later apj^ointed 
 by Washington a justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States; and Jonathan Dayton, a graduate of Prince- 
 ton, a member of Assembly, of the last Continental Con- 
 gress, afterward twice speaker of the House of Rej)resenta- 
 tives, and once United States senator. 
 
THE MEN CHOSEN. 115 
 
 But no State could boast of such delegates as were sent 
 by Pennsylvania. Foremost in fame was Franklin, who 
 divided with Washington the admiration of the world. " He 
 was widely famed before many of his illustrious colleagues 
 in the Convention were born; he was the only American of 
 his century who was a citizen of the world. In science, in 
 diplomacy, in society, in letters, in practical business, in great 
 public charities, and in organizations of wide influence to this 
 day he was foremost, and of all the Americans in an age of 
 great men he is still more talked and written about than any 
 save Washington. As president of his State he sat most 
 influential in the delegation, and though too feeble by rea- 
 son of age to participate actively in the debates in the Con- 
 vention, by his presence and by his inexhaustible good 
 humor and practical sagacity his influence was so great 
 that it may be said that the Constitution could not have 
 been framed without him. With him were Thomas Mifflin, 
 soldier, member of Assembly, and nine years governor of 
 his State; Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, 
 delegate to Congress, a signer of the Declaration, first 
 United States senator from Pennsylvania, and founder of 
 the Bank of North America; George Clymer, one of the 
 signers, a delegate to Congress, and afterward a member of 
 the House of Representatives; Thomas Fitzsimons, a fa- 
 mous merchant of Philadelphia; Jared Ingersoll, the leader 
 of the bar of his State; James Wilson, a student at four 
 universities and the ablest constitutional lawyer in the Con- 
 vention, a frequent debater, and afterward professor of law 
 in the University of Pennsylvania, and appointed by Wash- 
 ington a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; 
 
116 THE MEN CHOSEN. 
 
 and Gouverneur Morris, delegate to Congress, and later gov- 
 ernor of New York, and afterward one of its United States 
 senators. It was Gouverneur Morris who was chosen by the 
 Convention to write the Constitution in its final form, because 
 his colleagues recognized the finish and elegance of his style. 
 
 Delaware elected George Read, one of the signers of the 
 Declaration, a member of the Trade Convention at Annap- 
 olis, and afterward United States senator and chief -justice 
 of his State; Gunning Bedford, a delegate to the Assembly 
 and to Congress, and afterward commissioned by Washing- 
 ton as the first judge of the federal district court for 
 Delaware; John Dickinson, a judge, a delegate to Congress, 
 author of the celebrated letters of a " Farmer " and of the 
 Declaration of 1775; while a member of the Supreme Coun- 
 cil of Pennsylvania the legislature of that State founded 
 Dickinson College in his name. The State also sent Richard 
 Bassett, afterward United States senator and chief-justice of 
 his State, governor, and United States circuit judge; and 
 Jacob Broom, a member of the Annapolis Convention, and 
 afterward highly honored by the people of Delaware. 
 
 From Maryland the delegates wei-e James McHenry, a 
 member of Washington's military family, of the Senate of 
 Maryland and of the Continental Congress at the same time, 
 afterward secretary of war under Washington; Daniel of St. 
 Thomas Jenifer, of the Council of Safety for his State, dele- 
 gate to Congress, a member of the commission appointed by 
 Maryland to settle the jurisdiction over Chesapeake Bay, the 
 commission which adjourned to Mount Vernon, and whose 
 report initiated the movement which led to the calling of the 
 Constitutional Convention; Daniel Carroll, delegate to Con-. 
 
THE MEN CHOSEN. 117 
 
 gress, and afterward, as member of Congress, one of the com- 
 missioners that located the capital of the United States; 
 John Francis Mercer, a graduate of William and Mary Col- 
 lege, a student at law of Thomas Jefferson, a delegate to 
 Congress; he refused to sign the Constitution, and opj)osed its 
 ratification by the people of his State; he was afterward a 
 representative in Congress and governor of Maryland; and 
 Luther Martin, one of the distinguished lawyers of his day, 
 attorney-general of his State, a champion of State rights, 
 and, like Yates and Lansing, he not only opposed the Consti- 
 tution, but became one of the four of its members f|pin 
 whose letters and notes the debates in the Convention are to 
 some extent known. But he is better known to posterity as 
 of counsel to Aaron Burr in his trial for conspiracy to over- 
 throw the national government, and a recipient, in his last 
 days, of the charitable legislation of his State and of the 
 meager hospitality of Burr. 
 
 North Carolina chose for delegates Alexander Martin, a 
 graduate of Princeton, a member of Assembly, of the first 
 and second provincial Congresses, governor, and afterward 
 United States senator; William Richard Davie, also a grad- 
 uate of Princeton, afterward governor of his State, and en- 
 voy to France with Gerry and Ellsworth; William Blount, 
 member of provincial assemblies, of the House of Commons 
 of his State, delegate to the old Congress, afterward gov- 
 ernor of the territory south of the river Ohio, founder of the 
 city of Knoxville, and United States senator frofn Tennessee, 
 but impeached, found guilty, and expelled in 1797, his im- 
 peachment settling the question that in the meaning of the 
 Constitution a member of Congress is not a civil officer; 
 
118 THE MEN CHOSEN. 
 
 Richard DoLbs Spaight, a graduate of the University of 
 Glasgow, member of Assembly, delegate to the Continental 
 Congress, and afterward a representative in Congress; Hugh 
 Williamson, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 and professor of mathematics in that institution, one of the 
 Americans in London examined by the Privy Council on the 
 subject of the destruction of tea at Boston, member of the 
 North Carolina Assembly, of the Continental Congress, and 
 afterward of the Congress of the United States. 
 
 From South Carolina came John Rutledge, a native of Ire- 
 land, a student of law at the Temple, inferior to none of his 
 contemporaries in learning and eloquence, member of the 
 first Congress, governor, judge of the State court of chan- 
 cery, appointed by Washington a justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, chief -justice of his State, and ap- 
 pointed chief -justice of the United States; Charles Cotes- 
 wortli Pinckney, educated at Oxford, and afterward minister 
 to France; Charles Pinckney, member of Assembly, of the 
 Continental Congress, and a reputed author of the system 
 of government finally agreed upon in the Convention, four 
 times governor of his State, United States senator, minister 
 to Spain, and, later, member of Congress; Pierce Butler, also 
 an Irishman, a delegate to the Continental Congress, active 
 in the debates in the Convention, and first United States 
 senator from his State. 
 
 Georgia elected William Few, like so many of his col- 
 leagues, member of Assembly and of the Continental Congress; 
 afterward United States senator and member of the legis- 
 lature of NeAV York; Abraham Baldwin, a graduate of Yale, 
 and some time a tutor in the college, president of the Univer- 
 
WASHINGTON PRESIDES. 119 
 
 sity of the State, of which he Avas one of the founders, mem- 
 ber of the Continental Congress, afterward member of the 
 House of Representatives, and United States senator; Will- 
 iam Houston and William Pierce, both of whom had been 
 members of the old Congress. 
 
 Rhode Island refused to choose delegates, and was not 
 represented in the Convention. 
 
 By these fifty-five men the Constitntion of the United 
 States was made, and at some time during the session they 
 were present. Eighteen men, chosen as delegates by eight 
 of the States, in addition to the fifty-five, declined to sewe 
 and never attended the Convention. 
 
 The delegates who participated in the immortal work of 
 framing the national Constitution composed the most remark- 
 able body of statesmen that ever assembled on this continent. 
 Each of them was famed for some honorable achievement 
 in civil life; many of them had served with distinction in the 
 war; together they represented the executive, the legislative, 
 the judicial, and the military experience of the land; famil- 
 iar with the multifarious forms of the questions of the hour; 
 acquainted with the practical administration of aft'airs; fresh 
 from the people and capable of knowing what constitutes 
 the general welfare and how to form a more perfeo-t Union. 
 On the 25th of May, 1787, in the assembly hall of the State 
 House in Philadelphia, a quorum of States being present, on 
 motion of John Langdon, Washington was called to the 
 cliair. William Jackson was appointed secretary. Three 
 days later, nine States being represented on the floor, the 
 doors were shut, a solemn pledge of secrecy was imposed on 
 the members, and the work of the Convention began; and it 
 
120 TEE VIRGINIA PLAN. 
 
 was not till fifty years had passed that the proceedings in the 
 Convention were made known. Then, by authority of Con- 
 gress, the journal was published, and, of greater value, were 
 also published Madison's notes, taken during the debates. 
 From the journal, from Lansing and Yates's notes, from 
 Luther Martin's letter to the governor of Maryland, and from 
 Madison's notes, from the letters of members of the Conven- 
 tion written at the time, or from their letters and conversa- 
 tions in later life preserved by their friends, their descendants, 
 and their heirs, our knowledge of how the Constitution was 
 made is obtained. 
 
 On Tuesday, the 29th, Governor Randolph arose and 
 opened the work of the Convention by presenting fifteen 
 resolutions as a general plan of national government. It is 
 known as the Virginia plan. A national government was to 
 be established consisting of a supreme executive, a supreme 
 legislature, a supreme judiciary, and a council of revision. 
 The executive should be chosen by the legislatures and be 
 ineligible for re-election. The legislature should consist of 
 two branches, should possess a veto power on all laws con- 
 trary to the new Constitution, and should have power to 
 coerce a refractory State. Members of the first legislative 
 branch should be chosen by the people and the first branch 
 elect the members of the second from men nominated by 
 the State legislatures. Rejaresentation in the lower house 
 should be apportioned to the States according to their pop- 
 ulation and the proportion of the national expenses each 
 State should bear. The national judiciary should be elected 
 by the national legislature. A council of revision, consist- 
 ing of the executive and of the United States judges, should 
 
THE PLAX IS DISCUSSED. 121 
 
 revise the laws before they went into operation. New 
 States should be admitted into the Union; the new Con- 
 stitution could be amended and each State should be guar- 
 anteed a republican form of government and the ownership 
 of the soil within its boundaries. The Convention then went 
 into a committee of the whole on the state of the Union, and 
 the Virginia plan was taken up. Charles Pinckney pre- 
 sented to this committee another plan for a Constitution of 
 which little is known. On tlie following day, and for a 
 fortnight longer, the details of the Virginia plan were dis- 
 cussed, resolution by resolution. O^^inions were not uniforjii, 
 but the weight of numbers declared for a national govern- 
 ment of three branches, a legislature of two houses, and 
 that the people should elect the members of one house. On 
 the organization of the executive every sort of opinion was 
 expressed. It should be triple; it should be a committee; 
 it should be one person with a council; it should be one per- 
 son without a council ; he should be elected by the national 
 legislature on joint ballot; by one branch of the national 
 legislature; by both branches by lot; by the governors of 
 the States; by the State legislatures; by electors; by the 
 people directly. It was determined that the executive 
 should be one person, elected for seven years, ineligible for 
 re-election, and that the national legislature should deter- 
 mine the manner of choosing him. 
 
 By this time the 5tli of June had come, and the various 
 and irreconcilable ideas among the members were clearly seen. 
 Unanimity rajiidly disappeared. The Convention fell apart 
 into sectional parties, of the East, of the Middle States, and 
 of the South; parties not clearly defined but animated by a 
 
122 THE NEW JERSEY PLAN. 
 
 sectional spirit. From debating, men fell to wrangling. 
 There were individuals and there were whole delegations 
 seriously opposed to a national government; to any kind of a 
 confederacy of the States; to State sovereignty, or even to 
 any change in the old Articles of Confederation. The Nortli 
 was commercial; the South was agricultural; there were great 
 States like Virginia, and there were little States like Dela- 
 ware. It soon became plain that if a Constitution was to be 
 framed at all it must be by compromises, and of compromises 
 there were three — one on representation, one on slavery and 
 the slave-trade, and one on the ccmtrol of commerce. The 
 great States were Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, 
 great in area and in population; tliey favored a strong cen- 
 tral government with rej)resentation in the national legisla- 
 ture based on population. The small States were New 
 Jersey, New York, and Delaware, and they insisted on the 
 principle of representation in the old Confederation, the 
 equal representation of the States in the national legislature. 
 There seemed to be of no way of compromising the two ideas 
 on representation. 
 
 At this critical movement New Jersey, led by Pa'terson, 
 took the floor. He held a conservative position. The Conven- 
 tion was going beyond its powers. It had assembled to amend 
 the Articles of Confederation, not to abolish thein. The idea 
 of the Articles was good. The States were sovereign and 
 equality of representation was the only possible basis for 
 amendment. Popular representation or representation ac- 
 cording to wealth was unfair. If population fixed representa- 
 tion Virginia would have sixteen votes, Georgia but one. New 
 Jersey would never consent to such a plan. 
 
TEE NEW JERSEY PLAN. 123 
 
 To Patevson's objections the adherents of the Virginia phin 
 replied that, true enough, the States were sovereign and equah 
 So, too, was every man by nature sovereign and equal to ever}^ 
 other man; but when civil government is formed the indivi- 
 dual must surrender something for the general good. It war< 
 so with the States. A national government could not be 
 formed if the States remained sovereign. Government is 
 founded on the 2)eople, and representatives should therefore 
 be apportioned to equal niimbcrs of the peo{)le. It was the 
 people, not the States, that M^ere to be represented. An equit- 
 able ratio could be fixed for representation just as four yea|^ 
 before the quotas among the States had been fixed by the 
 Congress. The ratio was known to all; according to the 
 whole number of free inhabitants of both sexes, and three 
 fifths of all other persons except Indians not taxed. 
 
 To this view the large States assented. The great States 
 had won, and representation in both branches of the national 
 legislature was tp be according to ]iopulation. But the small 
 States were by no means satisfied. Their leading delegates 
 conferred together. By the 13th of June the remaining pro- 
 visions ©f the Vii'ginia plan had passed the committee, and it 
 was thought b}^ many that a day should be named for consid- 
 ering the report, when Paterson claimed the attention of the 
 Convention and introduced what is known as the New Jersey 
 plan. Congress was to consist, like the old Congress, of a single 
 house, empowered to regulate trade and commerce, to levy 
 duties, to fix postage rates, and to require stamps on certain 
 articles. The executive should consist of a committee, eligible 
 for a single term and removable by Congress upon request of 
 a majority of the governors of the States. There should be a 
 
124 WILSON TAKES THE FLOOR. 
 
 suiieme court, naturalization laws of uniform application, and 
 the States should send their several quotas of national revenue 
 to Congress as under the Articles of Confederation. This Con- 
 stitution and the laws and treaties made iinder it were to be 
 the supreme laAV of the land, and to this Constitution all 
 officers were to make oath of allegiance. In support of this 
 plan its friends maintained that it was strictly according to 
 the powers of the Convention, and that while amending the 
 Articles it amended them in a manner which the people 
 would easily understand and accept. Further than to pro- 
 pose such a plan the Convention had no powers to go, as 
 every delegate knew if he would read his commission. To 
 change the Articles required specific powers and the consent 
 of all the States, Either the Convention must accept the 
 New Jersey plan, or go home and ask for powers to make a 
 new government. 
 
 Then the friends of the Virginia plan defended their plan 
 of government, and James Wilson took the floor. New Jer- 
 sey pro2:)osed . but one department of government, Virginia 
 three; by the New Jersey plan the States would be repre- 
 sented; by the Virginia plan, the people. By the New 
 Jersey plan the minority would rule; by the Virginia plan, 
 the majority. By the New Jersey plan State law out-ranked 
 national law; by the Virginia plan the national legislature 
 could veto the laws of the States. Madison pointed out, in 
 defense of the Virginia plan, of which he was probably the 
 author, that the New Jersey plan and the Articles of Con- 
 federation were substantially the same. The national 
 authorit}^ was equally weak by either plan; it could not 
 punish for violations of its laws; it could not maintain its 
 
HAMILTON'S IDEAS. 125 
 
 treaties; it could not prevent one State from invading the 
 rights of another; it could not secure domestic tranquillity 
 nor guarantee a republican form of govei'nment to the State 
 nor provide for the common defense. In no respect by the 
 adojition of the New Jersey plan would the people of the 
 United States be any better off than they were under the 
 Articles of Confederation. 
 
 At this juncture Hamilton arose and with characteristic 
 boldness attacked both the Virginia and New Jersey plans, 
 and presented brielly and clearly his own ideas of what the 
 national government should be. Ho was then just thirt^ 
 years of age, youthful in appearance, fascinating in his man- 
 ner, and persuasive in his speech. It is said that his ideas 
 were more admired than followed by his colleagues. He 
 began by saying that he doubted whether the Convention 
 would frame the most desirable kind of government. He 
 intimated that the people would hardly sustain such a gov- 
 ernment, which would, in their opinion, be too aristocratic, 
 or at least too undemocratic. His ideas were that the supreme 
 legislature should consist of two houses, an Assembly and a 
 Senate; the members of Assembly chosen by the people fur 
 three years and the members for the Senate to be elected by 
 electors chosen by the people, to serve during good behavior. 
 The executive was to serve daring good behavior, and should 
 be one man, chosen by electors. His powers were to be 
 supreme: to veto any law; to conduct war if once begun; to 
 make treaties by and with the advice and consent of the 
 Senate, and to appoint the heads of departments at his own 
 discretion. The national judiciary should be supreme. State 
 laws conflicting with the Constitution and the national laws 
 
126 TWO OPPOSING SYSTEMS. 
 
 were to be void. The governors of tlie States were to be 
 appointed by the national government. Hamilton's notions 
 were too closely after British models, and they were not de- 
 bated. The Convention then returned to the Virginia and 
 New Jersey plans. The Virginia plan was the germ of the 
 national idea; the New Jersey plan was essentially that of 
 State sovereignty. New Jersey advocated a general gov- 
 ernment of limited powers; Virginia, a general government 
 with powers "extending to every thing or to nothing." 
 
 Mindful of the state of the country and of the need of a 
 strong national government, the Committee of the Whole 
 reported in favor of the Virginia plan. For a week the 
 work proceeded smoothly. The great States had again 
 triumphed. Slight modifications in the language of the 
 resolutions on representation were made to please the small 
 States, and the word "national," distasteful to the New 
 Jersey party, was dropped in some places. During the 
 remainder of June the Convention went back and forth 
 through the resolutions. Should the national legislature 
 consist of two houses ? Should its members be twenty-five 
 or thirty years of age ? What should be their term '? Should 
 there be three executives or one ? But these questions were 
 inferior in importance to the great question of the basis of 
 representation. Then and there came to light in the de- 
 bates, in all their essential character as the examination of 
 the resolutions continued, two sets of political ideas between 
 which reconciliation seemed impossible. 
 
 / The State rights men would found the new government 
 jon the States as sovereigns; the national men would found 
 it on individuals. The little States exclaimed that their 
 
THE CONNECTICUT COMPROMISE. 127 
 
 riglits and liberties would be swallowed up by popular repre- 
 sentation in both branches of the national legislature. The 
 great States replied that there was greater danger to them- 
 selves than to the small States, ^because it was the experien(;e 
 of history that great States contiguous to each other and 
 sovereign parts of an imperial system could not agree, and 
 that some of them would join the little States. Moreover, 
 there was nothing common to the hxrger States. Their 
 interests were all unlike. If equal suffrage jjrevailed they 
 would be compelled to bear much heavier burdens than 
 would the little States in support of the new governnienT. 
 The large, not the small States, were the States to make 
 complaint. But the small States were not persuaded by these 
 affirmations, and a serious interruption in the work of the 
 Convention seemed imminent. At this crisis the party of 
 compromise, known from their leaders as the Connecticut 
 party, made a proposition f Why not adopt both ideas — the 
 State rights ideas and the ideas of the Virginia plan '? 
 Virginia considered the people as a whole — let one house in 
 the national legislature represent the people. l^e^Y Jersey 
 considered the people as composed of distinct political com- 
 munities — let one house represent these communities. To 
 this suggestion of compromise, New Jersey, ISTew York, and 
 Delaware would not listen; but the great States accepted the 
 compromise. 
 
 But the compromise on representation was not made 
 without angry words, without threats of secession, and 
 without personal and bitter remarks. The whole matter 
 was considered by a committee of eleven, and the debates in 
 committee were no less bitter than those in Convention. It 
 
128 THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 
 
 was evident that a crisis had come. Then Franklin acted 
 the part of peace-maker, and his approval of tlie Connecti- 
 cut suggestion favorably influenced his colleagues toward it. 
 The report was at last brought in, was considered, and was 
 agreed to — each State should have an equal vote in the 
 second branch, and one representative in the first branch for 
 every forty thousand inhabitants. For this concession the 
 smaller States insisted that all money bills should originate 
 in the more popular branch; that such bills could not be 
 amended in the second branch, and that no money could be 
 appropriated without the consent of the popular branch of 
 the legislature. The vote was taken. The decision was 
 reached. The first compromise in the Constitution was 
 made. Two weeks passed before the final vote was taken, 
 but the compromise was never changed. 
 
 The Convention then gave its attention to the details of 
 representation. The resolution fixing representation in the 
 lower house at one representative to forty thousand inhab- 
 itants did not satisfy some of the delegates. Population, 
 they said, was already moving westward. The East must 
 ultimately feel the effects. The Western States would soon 
 outvote the Eastern States. The proportion was too specific. 
 A general system was safer. To determine the rule of 
 representation Randolph proj^osed a census. The idea wa.i 
 familiar to New York and to Massachusetts, but a census 
 broiight difficulties to light. In the Southern States were 
 half a million of beings whom it was difficult to classify. 
 Were they population or wealth ? They were proj^erty, and 
 could be bought and sold, leased and mortgaged, or disposed 
 of by gift or by testament. To some delegates from the 
 
NEW YORK LEAVES THE CONVENTION. 129 
 
 North it seemed that they should be accounted as was live 
 stock in the North. They should be classed as property, and 
 not as persons. To the Southern delegates they were both per- 
 sons and property, and as persons they should have repre- 
 sentation in the government about to be established. Hugh 
 Williamson at once proposed that the census should be of 
 all free whites and three fifths of all other persons. Upon 
 this motion the Convention divided by a new line. The di- 
 vision into great States and small Stat.es disappeared. The 
 division was now on the question of slavery. Massachusetts, 
 Pennsylvania, and New Jersey demanded that slaves shonW. 
 not be represented at all. Georgin, South Carolina, and Del- 
 aware demanded that slaves should be represented equally 
 with whites. Lansing and Yates, of New York, had left the 
 Convention when the Connecticut compromise passed ; Hamil- 
 ton, left alone, could not vote, and New York was no longer a 
 member of the Convention. But the remaining States, Vii*- 
 ginia, North Carolina, and Maryland, though not unanimous 
 in sentiment, favored the view of the three Northern States 
 on the slavery question, that slaves should not be represented. 
 The compromise on representation in the national legisla- 
 ture was not without a precedent in State experience, for in 
 several States the method of representation in the two 
 branches of the legislature was on the plan of the com- 
 promise, Massachusetts and Virginia both having representa- 
 tion in their upper house by districts, and in their lower house 
 by popitlar vote. But when the problem of slave represen- 
 tation came before the Convention no precedent could be 
 quoted from the States, for in not one of them could a slave 
 vote nor in one of them was he represented. In local gov- 
 
130 SLAVERY. 
 
 ernraent slavery was an industrial, but not a political, factor; 
 in national government slavery at once assumed both indus- 
 trial and political characteristics. The slave was both person 
 and property, and the general government was to be founded 
 on persons and on property. Slavery at once became a new 
 problem, if not unexpected at least sufficiently serious to di- 
 vide the Convention into two parties. 
 
 Slave labor was as necessary to the South as free labor to 
 the North, argued the Southern delegates. All wealth there 
 chiefly depended upon such labor. Lands rose in value and 
 the production of the country and its imports depended 
 chiefly on the labor of slaves. In time of war, as had been 
 recently demonstrated, slaves could be relied on in the de- 
 fense of the country. As the proposed government was to 
 protect property, and that was the j^rincipal reason for 
 making it, slaves ought to have equal representation Avith 
 the whites. The opponents of slave representation replied 
 that slaves were not represented in the State legislatures, 
 that they could not vote, nor had any master in the South a 
 number of votes in proportion to the number of his slaves. 
 The demand of the Southern delegates Avas unprecedented ; 
 more, it Avas immoral and contrary to the principles of the 
 American goAernments, Avliich Avere founded on the rights of 
 man. Slave representation would not be a representation of 
 the slave, but an increase in the political poAver of his mas- 
 ter. BetAveen these opposing parties, as between the gi'eat 
 States and the little States the Connecticut men had risen as a 
 party of compromise, so noAV rose a third party, a party of 
 compromise. The negro slave Avas not equal to the f]'ee 
 white man, yet the negro slave Avas a person, and should. 
 
TAXATION AND SLAVERY. 181 
 
 therefore, have representation. Perhaps the provision in the 
 Articles of Confederation was as near risfht as could be made, 
 that three fifilis of the slaves should be counted. Perhaps, 
 as slavery Avas a State institution, the slaves might be repre- 
 sented in the national Senate. 
 
 But the way out of the difficulty was not clear, and on the 
 vote for representation based on a census every State present 
 on the floor voted in the negative. No progress thus far in 
 arranging the i>lan of representation. It was then moved by 
 Gouverneiir Morris that taxation be in the ratio of representa- 
 tion, and the motion passed that direct taxes should so be laid. 
 But an alert advocate of slave representation detected in this 
 resolution a j^roposition to tax the slave population and at the 
 same time exclude it from repi'esentation, and the State of 
 North Carolina expressed the opinion of the South that unless 
 a three-fifths representation were granted the South for her 
 slaves she would not join the proposed Confederation. The 
 slavery question was thus brought to an issue on whicli the fate 
 of the Constitution hung. Every man present knew that the 
 work of the Convention must be submitted to the several 
 States for ratification. Rhode Island, of course, would not 
 ratify if she would not send a delegate to the Convention. 
 New York was already displeased over the compromise on 
 representation, and had left the Convention. North Carolina 
 now threatened to join the number of opposing States. Cer- 
 tainly all this opposition must be quieted or no Constitution 
 could be framed, nor, if framed, ado^jted. A compromise on 
 slave representation must be made. There were six Southern 
 and four Northern States in the Convention. If the South 
 was satisfied the North should be satisfied A compromise 
 
132 THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. 
 
 was tlien suggested — tliat representation sliould be according 
 to direct taxation, and both representation and direct taxation 
 should be according to population. Population should in- 
 clude all free Avhites and three fifths of the slaves. 
 
 The second compromise was adopted by the committee, 
 and on the 16th of July both compromises on slave ]-ep- 
 resentation and direct taxation were reported to the Conven- 
 tion. Just three days earlier the last Congress under the 
 Confederation, in session in New York, had passed the ordi- 
 nance of 1787, forever forbidding slavery north of the river 
 Ohio, except as a pujiishment for crime. Thus within one 
 week, and almost at the same time, the question on which the 
 fate of the Union depended in 1787, and on which three quar- 
 ters of a century later in its history it again depended, was dis- 
 cussed in Congress and in the Convention. The report of the 
 committee brought both compromises, on representation and 
 slavery, together, and the vote of the Convention was on the 
 whole report. The States divided anew. The small States 
 — Connecticut, lS^e^y Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland — voted 
 for the rejDort because it gave them equal representation in 
 the Senate. Pennsylvania and Virginia joined South Caro- 
 lina and Georgia for the same reason, and voted against the 
 report. The vote of Massachusetts was lost because Gor- 
 ham and King w^oukl not consent that the new government 
 should encourage or be fotmded on slavery. The fate of the 
 two compromises depended on the vote of North Carolina. 
 North Carolina voted yea, and the report jDassed by five 
 votes to four. The second compromise was made. At this 
 time the Convention was on the point of disruption. The 
 large States began to talk of a confederation of their own, 
 
THE COMMITTEE OF FIVE. 133 
 
 to whicli ultimately tlie small States would be forced to seek 
 admission. The small States gave no sign of retreat from 
 the position they had gained, and the factions set to work on 
 the details of the distribution of powers between the national 
 government and the States; on the jurisdiction of the Su- 
 preme Court; on the manner of appointing its judges; on 
 the qualifications for congressmen, for the President, and 
 for judges, and on the method of ratifying the Constitution. 
 Ten days more had passed, and on the 26th the various plans 
 of government that had been reported were given to a grand 
 committee which was instructed to bring in a Constitution. 
 The Convention then voted to adjourn for two weeks. 
 
 This important committee consisted of Nathaniel Gorhani, 
 Oliver Ellsworth, James Wilson, Edmund Randolph, and 
 John Rutledge. When the 6th of August came and the Con- 
 vention re-assembled, every member had before him a broad- 
 side, neatly printed in large type, of a draft of a national 
 Constitution. . It differed from the Constitution to Avhich we 
 are accustomed, and the differences show how the di-aft was 
 afterward amended. Congress was to choose the President 
 for a term of seven yeai's, and he could never be re-elected. 
 He was to be called "His Excellency." Pie might be im- 
 peached by the House of Representatives, but his trial should 
 be before the Supreme Coui't. Pie need not be a native 
 American. The draft said nothing of a Vice-President. 
 Members of Congress were to be paid by the States that sent 
 them, and if a senator wished to hold any office under the 
 United States he must have been out of the Senate one whole 
 year. Congress could emit bills of credit, could choose by 
 ballot a treasurer of the United States, could determine the 
 
134 THEIR REPORT REVISED. 
 
 qualifications for its membersliip, and could admit new States 
 upon a two-tliirds vote of members present. Each State 
 should choose two senators. Disputes between States respect- 
 ing jurisdiction or territory were to be settled by the Senate, 
 or, in case this failed, by a commission chosen, in a cumber- 
 some manner, by the Senate and the disputing States. But 
 much of the Constitution as we know it can be found in this 
 draft of the committee of five. 
 
 As soon as the draft was before the Convention the process 
 of revision began. By tliis revision the Constitution was 
 made to comprise its present provisions and to take some por- 
 tion of its present form. "The People of the United States 
 of America" took tlie place of "We the people of the 
 States." The title " His Excellency " for the President was 
 dropped. The Congress Avas described as consisting of two 
 branches, the lower to be called the House of Representa- 
 tives, the upper, the Senate. Nearly all the pi-ovisions in 
 the Constitution, as we know them, appeared in the report 
 of the committee of five. The powers of Congress to lay 
 and collect taxes and to regulate commerce, which had been 
 in dispute for ten years, were now granted without oppo- 
 sition, for every man in the Convention knew by experience 
 that a national legislature without those supreme powers 
 would be no stronger than the Congress then in session in 
 New York. Treaties were to be made, and embassadors and 
 judges of the Supreme Court were to be appointed by the 
 Senate. 
 
 Amendments to the powers of Congress were at onee jjro- 
 posed: to dispose of the unappropriated public lands; to insti- 
 tute temporary governments for new^ States; to grant charters 
 
THE OLD ECONOMT VERSUS THE NEW. 135 
 
 of incorporation; to secure copyrights to authors; to establish 
 a university ; to encourage the advancement of useful knowl- 
 edge; to fix the seat of government; to establish seminaries 
 of learning ; to grant patents ; to provide for executive de- 
 jjartments of war, of the navy, of the treasury, of home affairs, 
 of foreign affairs, and of State; to secure the payment of the 
 public debt; to preserve the liberty of the press; to prevent 
 the quartering of troops in any house in time of peace with- 
 out the owner's consent ; to exclude religious qualifications 
 for office in the new government, and to give the President 
 an advisory council of seven. % 
 
 These and other amendments were referred to the com- 
 mittee of five. But there were two sections in the draft 
 which awakened such hostility and diversity of sentiment 
 that the whole report was endangered. 
 
 One of these sections forbade Congress to tax any article 
 of export from any State or to tax or to prohibit the impor- 
 tation of slaves. The other section forbade Congress to pass 
 a navigation act. To organize a government without the 
 power to tax exports was an innovation in political history. 
 Every nation of the world from time immemorial had taxed 
 the products of its soil which any of its inhabitants presumed 
 to send away. To tax exports and to admit imports free was 
 a maxim in the old economy. Some members expostulated 
 against the innovation. The Southern delegates feared if the 
 general government was forbidden to tax exports that the 
 States would tax them, and thus the agricultural States would 
 be at the mercy of the commercial States. And only two 
 States, Georgia and South Carolina, insisted that Congress 
 should be prohibited from taxing the importation of slaves; 
 
136 DIVISION- ON- SLAVERY. 
 
 every other State desired to see a speedy end of the whole 
 slave traffic. But South Carolina and Georgia held the bal- 
 ance of power on any final vote on the slave question. Their 
 delegates insisted that without slave labor their rice-swamj^s 
 and their indigo-fields would be abandoned, their business 
 ruined, and their States made bankrupt, and that they would 
 never confederate if Congress was empowered to tax slaves 
 or to prohibit their importation. 
 
 Again the Convention divided on the slave question. Con- 
 necticut joined Georgia and North Carolina in the demand 
 for the free importation of slaves. The old Confederation 
 had not intermeddled with slavery; why should the new? 
 The slave-pens at Newport were a source of wealth as well as 
 the indigo-fields of Georgia or the corn-fields of Pennsylvania. 
 To the States, and to the States alone, the control of slavery 
 must be left, for they knew best the sources of their wealth, 
 and their wealth was the wealth of the Union. Quickly the op- 
 ponents of slavery were on their feet, but the arguments they 
 l^resented were based on other grounds than that of the immo- 
 rality of the slave-trade. ' New England was more prosperous 
 than Georgia; Georgia had slaves, New England had none, 
 therefore Georgia was less prosperous than New England be- 
 cause she had slaves.} Pennsylvania was a land of thrift, of 
 rich farms, and of prosperous boroughs; Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia were lands of desolation; but the land of desolation was 
 the land of slavery, and the land of prosperity was the land 
 of freedom. But there was not a State represented in the 
 Convention in which slavery was not lawful; not a community 
 in America without its slave, save in the disputed land called 
 Vermont and in some communities of Methodists and of the 
 
DEBATES OX SLAVERY. 137 
 
 Society of Friends. A sterner law, a. law more just than that 
 of men or any \aw which men might frame, tlie law of frost 
 and snoWjjhad driven African slavery out of New England as 
 it had not driven slavery out of A'irginia and the Carolinas. 
 Had New England possessed the climate of South Carolina, 
 African slavery would not have been opposed by a single 
 delegate from the North. It was on slavery as a producer of 
 wealth that the whole debate in the Convention turned. As 
 a producer of wealth in a government founded on wealth and 
 on persons slavery became a political factor. As a political 
 factor it had already dictated the second compromise in Hie 
 Convention, and as a wealth-producing factor it now dictated 
 a third compromise. The States of Virginia and Maryland 
 had already ceased to import slaves. But over the mountains 
 in the valley of the Cumberland, of the Kanawha, and the 
 Ohio, the settlers were clamoring for slaves. If South Caro- 
 lina and Georgia were permitted to import slaves, the new 
 States of the West would be organized as slave States; the 
 institution of slave labor would speedily reduce these new 
 regions to desolation, and, with the added power of rejDresen- 
 tation based on all free whites and three fifths of all slaves, 
 the political power of the South and of the South-west would 
 overbalance that of the North. The principles of American 
 free institutions would be corrupted and the best ends of gov- 
 ernment defeated. 
 
 To any suggestion of opposition to slavery on moral 
 grounds the Southern delegates and their Northern friends 
 on the floor replied that the question Avas one of wealth and 
 politics, not of religion and humanity. The question was a 
 Union with slavery or no Union at all. The crisis in the 
 
138 A COMPROMISE POSSIBLE. 
 
 making of the Constitution had corae. South Carolina and 
 Georgia would not come into the Union if the importation 
 of slaves was to he taxed; some of the Northern States in- 
 timated that they would not come into the Union if the 
 importation of slaves was not to he taxed. A third compro- 
 mise must be effected or no Constitution could be made. To 
 a committee of five both sections were sent, the section on 
 taxation on importation of slaves, and the provision for a 
 navigation act. This committee at once discovered that the 
 first section Avas distasteful to the South, and that the second 
 section was distasteful to the North. A comj^romise was 
 suggested by Gouverneur Morris. On the 25th of August 
 the compromise was made. The East consented to the im- 
 portation of slaves until the year 1800, and the South agreed 
 to give Congress power to pass navigation laws. Upon re- 
 consideration the South demanded a longer time, and 1800 
 w^as changed to 1808; and also, upon further debate, to please 
 the Southern members, no navigation laws could be passed 
 except by a two-thirds vote of Congress. But on later re- 
 consideration the clause on navigation laws was modified, 
 and no limitation concerning them was laid on Congress. 
 The third and last great comjDromise of the Constitution was 
 thus made. 
 
 August w^as now almost past. Its remaining days were 
 spent by the Convention in reducing the draft of the com- 
 mittee of five to the form of the Constitution as we know it, 
 and on the last day of tlie month the amended draft was 
 sent to a committee of eleven, who reported from time to 
 time till the 8th of September, when the perfected draft was 
 given over by ballot to a committee on arrangement and 
 
FRANKLIN AS PEA CE-MAKER. 139 
 
 slyle, consisting of Johnson, Hamilton, Goiiverneur Morris, 
 Madison, and King. A week later this committee brought 
 in their report. The report showed the graceful and elegant 
 hand of Morris, and the Constitution, as he revised it, was 
 ordered to be engrossed, Hamilton had written the pream- 
 ble, and it was prefixed to the engrossed Constitution as a 
 general introduction. 
 
 The Constitution thus made pleased no member in all 
 its details, and numerous criticisms were heard. Some said 
 that they could not sign it because a bare majority of Con- 
 gress could pass a navigation act. Elbridge Gerry nan|pd 
 nine defects in the Constitution which would hinder him 
 and which did hinder him from signing. The Convention 
 seemed on the point of slipping away from the work of its 
 own hands and disowning its own creation. Franklin saw 
 the danger, and he sought to avoid it. He prepared on 
 Sunday a characteristic speech to read to the Convention, 
 but Avhen the Convention assembled on the following day 
 Franklin was too feeble to read his speech, and his colleague, 
 James Wilson, read it for him. Perhaj)s this speech gave 
 us the Constitution of the United States, "I confess," said 
 the aged- philosopher, " that there are several parts of this 
 Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am 
 not sure that I shall never approve tliem; for, having lived 
 long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by 
 better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions, 
 even on important subjects, Avhich I once thought right, but 
 found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow 
 the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more 
 respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as 
 
140 HE TELLS A STORY. 
 
 \yell as most sects in religion, think tliemselves in possession 
 of all truth, and that whenever others differ from them it is 
 so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication tells the 
 Eope that the only diiference between our churches in their 
 opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is ' the Church 
 of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in 
 the wrong.' But though many private persons think almost 
 as highly of their own infallibility as that of their sect few 
 express it so naturally as a certain French lady who in a dis- 
 pute with her sister said: 'I don't know hoAV it happens, 
 sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in 
 the right — -il n'y a que moi qui a toujoui's raison.' 
 
 "In these sentiments I agree to this Constitution with all 
 its faults, if they are such; because I think a general gov- 
 ernment necessary for us, and there is no form of govern- 
 ment but what may be a blessing to the people if well ad- 
 ministered; and I believe further that this is likely to be 
 well administered for a course of years, and can only end 
 in despotism, as other forms have done before it, Avhen the 
 people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic gov- 
 ernment, being incapable of any other. I doubt, too, whether 
 any other Convention we can obtain may be aHe to make 
 a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of 
 men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom you in- 
 evitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their 
 passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and 
 their selfisli views. From such an assembly can a perfect 
 production be expected ? It therefore astonishes me to find 
 this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and 
 1 think that it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting 
 
FBANKZm'S SrEECII. 141 
 
 witli conlidence to hear that our councils are confounded, 
 like those of the builders of Babel, and that our States are 
 on the point of separation, only to meet hei"eafter for the 
 pur})ose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent to 
 this Constitution because I exj^ect no better, and because I 
 am not sure that it is not the best. The opinions I have had 
 of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have never 
 whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls 
 they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us 
 in returning to our constituents were to report the objections 
 he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in suppdfct 
 of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and 
 thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages 
 resulting natui-ally in our favor among foreign nations, as well, 
 as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. 
 Much of the strength and efficiency of any government in 
 procuring and securing happiness to the people depends on 
 opinion — on the general opinion of the goodness of the gov- 
 ernment, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its gov- 
 ernors. I hope, therefore, that for our own sakes as a part 
 of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act 
 lieartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution 
 (if apjjroved by Congress and confirmed by the conventions) 
 wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future 
 thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well ad- 
 ministered. On the whole I cannot help exjn'essing a wish 
 that every member of the Convention who may still have ob- 
 jections to it would with me on this occasion doubt a little of 
 his own infallibility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, 
 put his name to the instrument." 
 
142 TUB MEMBERS SIGN. 
 
 Madison tells us that Gouverueur Morris, in order to gain 
 the dissenting members, had drawn up an ambiguous form of 
 subscri^^tion, and, that it might have the better chance of 
 success, had put it into the hands of Dr. Franklin. It 
 was this "convenient form" which Franklin now moved: 
 " Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States 
 present, the 17th of September, etc. In witness whereof 
 we have hereunto subscribed our names." 
 
 Before Franklin's resolution was put, Gorham asked that 
 the ratio of representation be clianged from one for every 
 forty thousand to one for every thirty thousand inhabitants. 
 Gorham's motion provoked no debate. Washington put the 
 question and expressed his concurrence and hope that it might 
 be carried. This was done, and the last change in the Con- 
 stitution by the Convention was made. Franklin's speech 
 carried the resolution for ratification, and all the States pres- 
 ent signed, Washington, as President of the Convention and 
 delegate from Virginia, aftixing his name first. The twelve 
 States then came forward in their geographical order, be- 
 ginning with New Hampshire, and thirty-eight delegates 
 signed their names. 
 
 The signatures were attested by William Jackson, the 
 secretary, who that day handed over to Washington the 
 journal and the papers of the Convention, but not before he 
 had carefully burned the precious broadsheets, the copies of 
 resolutions, the notes, the questions, the letters, and the briefs 
 of remarks which he gathered from the floor, the desks of 
 members, and his own table. What would we not now give 
 for those records? Sixteen members refused to sign and 
 kept out of the room. Hamilton alone signed for New York. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION SENT TO CONGRESS. 143 
 
 As one by one delegates from all the States affixed their 
 names and the Southern members filed to the secretary's 
 desk, Franklin, beaming "with h;ippiness anl hope, caught 
 siglit of a sun rudely cut on the back of Washington's chair. 
 He whispered to a delegate near him that painters had found 
 it. difficult to distinguish a rising from a setting sun. "I 
 have often and often in the course of the session," said he, 
 " amid the solicitude 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 know 
 that it is a rising, and not a setting, sun." * 
 
 When the signing was over there was a hush in the Con- 
 vention. The Constitution of the United States was made. 
 The Convention continued in session till evening came; a few 
 words were spoken in farewell, and then it adjourned, never 
 to meet again. 
 
 On the following morning Major Jackson, the secretary, 
 set out for New York to lay before Congress the new Consti- 
 tution, the resolutions of the Convention, and Washington's 
 letter. But before he had been three hours on his way the 
 Constitution was read to the legislature of Pennsylvania. 
 It appeared in the Philadelphia morning ^^apers, the Gazetteer, 
 the Packet, and the Journal, and in broadsides hastily 
 printed. Two days later it was laid before Congress, and on 
 the 21st it was published in the New York papers. 
 
 To Madison's notes we are indebted for a knowledge of the 
 debates in the Convention. The seci'etary's almost colorless 
 journal gives the record of committees and of votes. Yates's 
 and Lansing's notes contribute a slight information of pro- 
 ceedings up to the time when they abruptly left, early in 
 
144 . WHENCE CAME THE CONSTITUTION f 
 
 July. Lutlier Martin's True Information gives us insight 
 into the opinions of tlie oj^ponents of the Constitution. An 
 entry by Franklin in liis diary fixes the place of meeting of 
 Convention. Outside of this meager material* we have 
 nothing that aids us essentially in gaining any knowledge of 
 how the Constitution was made. 
 
 The Constitution was not framed at a single stroke. It was 
 the result of long political experience in America. The mem- 
 bers of the Convention had constantly in mind the provisions 
 in . the State constitutions and the civil institutions with 
 which they were familiar. 
 
 The division of the national government into three de- 
 partments — executive, legislative, and judiciary — was com- 
 mon to that in all the States. But the separation of 
 these i^owers in the Constitution is more complete than that 
 of any of the States. To the peojjle of Pennsylvania, Dela- 
 ware, South Carolina, and New Hampshire the title of the 
 executive, " President," was familiar, and it was the title of 
 the presiding officer in the Congress of the Confederation. 
 The people were also familiar with the term Congress as 
 descriptive of a national legislature. The title "Senate" 
 for the upper house, representing the States, was familiar to 
 the people of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, New 
 York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and 
 Rhode Island; and the title for the lower house, "the House 
 of Representatives," had been long used in the four New 
 England States. That the federal judges should be ap- 
 pointed by the President, by and with the consent of the 
 Senate, followed a precedent familiar to the people of all the 
 
 *See preface to Bancroft's History of the Constitution, vol, i, edition 1882. 
 
WHEXCE GAME THE CONSTITUTIOX? 145 
 
 States. The-two years' term of office for members of the 
 House of Representatires was a compromise between the 
 various terms suggested by the State constitutions ; the sys- 
 tem by which one third of the national Senate was to retire 
 every two years prevailed in New York, Pennsylvania, Vir- 
 ginia, and Delaware. New York gave the precedent for a 
 census; the State of Massachusetts that for the President's 
 message and his veto power. Perhaps it was from Virginia 
 and Massachusetts that the two methods of representation 
 in Congress were taken — State representation in the Seniate 
 and popular representation in the House. The provision 
 giving to the House of Representatives the sole power to 
 originate money bills may be found, in language almost iden- 
 tical Avith that of the national Constitution, in the constitutions 
 of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The powers of Con- 
 gress were powers suggested by State constitutions, or by 
 the conditions which made a national Constitution necessary. 
 The powers given to the President are analogous to powers 
 granted to executives in the States. His command of the 
 army and tlio navy had precedent in all the States except 
 Rhode Island, and his pardoning power in all the States 
 except Rhode Island and Connecticut. His power to nom- 
 inate civil and military officers, subject to the action of the 
 Senate, followed the constitution of New York, and his 
 power to fill vacancies the constitution of Noi'tli Carolina. 
 The office of Vice-President found precedent in the deputy 
 governor or lieutenant-governor of some States, as Dela- 
 ware, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and 
 especially New York, where the lieutenant-governor pre- 
 sided in the State Senate, having no vote unless in case of a 
 10 
 
146 NE W FEA TUBES INTR OD UCED. 
 
 tie. North Carolina gave a precedent for the succession of 
 the Vice-President to the office of President. The method of 
 electing the President by electors specially chosen for that 
 purpose had its original in Maryland, where the qualified 
 voters chose " two persons for their respective counties to 
 be electors of the Senate " and " the electors of the Senate " 
 chose " by ballot, either out of their own body or the body 
 of the people at large, fifteen senators." Upon critical 
 analysis and comparison the State constitutions in force in 
 1787 seem to contain precedents for nearly all of the admin- 
 istrative provisions of the national Constitution. But there 
 Avere new and distinguishing features in the work of the Con- 
 vention. The Constitution was national in character and was 
 to be ordained and established by the people of the United 
 States. The Constitution and the laws and treaties made in 
 accordance with it was to be the suj^reme law of the land. 
 United States citizenship, distinct from State citizenship, 
 was created, and it was free from all those religious and prop- 
 erty qualifications which limited citizenship in the States, a 
 liberal precedent, which all State constitutions, save that of 
 Delaware, have since followed. The authority of the United 
 States over individuals was made direct and wholly inde- 
 pendent of the States. A national Supreme Court was es- 
 tablished, the powers of the States were limited, new States 
 and territories could be formed, and the power to levy taxes 
 and to regulate trade was given to Congress. The authority 
 to provide for the common defense, to promote the general 
 welfare, and to make all laws necessary and proper for car- 
 rying into execution all powers was vested by the Constitu- 
 tion in the government of the United States. 
 
THE NATION'S NEW CAREER. 147 
 
 By these liberal provisions the United States was freed 
 from the withering and destructive limitations to which the 
 Confederation had been subjected, and the nation entered at 
 once upon a career of prosperity unparalleled in history. 
 But before this career was begun the Constitution submitted 
 to Congress by the Convention had to go to the people of the 
 United States for ratification. 
 
148 OPPOSITION IN CONGRESS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW THE CONSTITUTION BKCAME THE SUPREME LAW OF THE 
 
 LAND. 
 
 1'787-187.0. 
 
 The Constitution was scarcely laid before Congress when 
 opposition to it began there. Nor did tliose members of the 
 Convention who were also members of Congress, and who 
 now hastened back to their seats, seem able to stem the ris- 
 ing flood of opposition. Ever}' delegate in Congress from 
 New York was opposed to the Constitution, and there ap- 
 peared a sufficient number from other States to make the 
 adoption of the New Plan doubtful. 
 
 That the Constitution was a new plan and was intended 
 to supplant the Confederation was reason enough to many 
 members of Congress for their opposition. No government 
 on earth commits suicide with pleasure. To this form of 
 opposition the friends of the New Plan rei^lied that Congress 
 had consented to the calling of the Convention, and it could 
 just as approjjriately consent to the work of the Convention. 
 But Richard Henry Lee, the leader of the opposition, saw no 
 relevancy in such an argument, and on the 26th of SeiDtem- 
 ber he brought in a long list of proposed amendments and a 
 bill of rights to correct those defects which he pointed out 
 in the instrument. He specially objected to the provision 
 for a Vice-President: to the limited number of members in 
 
FEDERALISTS AND ANTI-FEDERALISTS. 149 
 
 tlie lower bouse which the Convention had fixed; to the 
 danger that a mere 'majority in Congress sliould have power 
 to regulate commerce, and to the absence of a provision for 
 a council of state to assist the President. But to consider 
 these objections was to thresh old straw again. Congress re- 
 fused to consider proposed changes in the new Constitution, 
 and on the 27tli it was moved to send the Constitution to the 
 executives of the States, by whom it should be submitted to 
 the State legislatures. To submit the Constitution to its 
 fate in the State legislatures was merely to anticipate and 
 court defeat in thirteen congresses, and the motion %'as 
 amended by the friends of the New Plan who added the 
 words, " in order to be by them submitted to a convention of 
 delegates to be chosen agreeably to the said resolution of the 
 Convention;*' and the amended motion prevailed. 
 
 It was clear that there were two parties in Congress and 
 that there would be two parties in all the States, a party for 
 the Constitution and a party against the Constitution. The 
 names of these parties, the first political parties in our na- 
 tional history, were soon on every tongue. Federalists and 
 Anti-Federalists. It was also equally clear that the two 
 parties were evenly matched in Congress, and that whatever 
 was done there with the Constitution would be done by com- 
 promise. 
 
 On the 28th such a compromise was made; the Federal- 
 ists agreed that Congress should merely submit the Constitu- 
 tion to the States, and give no sign of approval or of disap- 
 proval of it; the Anti-Federalists, relying on the defeat of 
 the Constitution in the States, agreed that the submission to 
 the States should be by the unanimous vote of Congress. 
 
150 THE CONSTITUTION IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 By this colorless action the Constitution, the resolution of the 
 Convention, and the letter of Washington were simply sent 
 to the State executives by Congress without comment, and 
 the fate of the nation Avas thus placed in other hands. 
 
 The Pennsylvania legislature was the first to act. Eleven 
 days after the Convention which had framed the Constitution 
 adjourned the Pennsylvania Assembly called a Convention 
 of the people of that Commonwealth to take into consider- 
 ation the proposed Constitution for the people of the United 
 States. In Pennsylvania the political feeling was divided. 
 Philadelphia, with its immediate environs, was Federal in its 
 sympathies; the rural districts were generally Anti-Federal. 
 In the cit}^ the evils under Avhich America Avas suffering 
 affected the great merchants and the general material wel- 
 fare of the city, but in the country less interest was taken 
 in the movement for a better national government. The 
 Anti-Federalists quickly laid hold of every element of strength 
 for their cause. They emphasized the difference between 
 the Constitution of the State and the 2)roposed Constitution. 
 The State legislature consisted of a single house, which chose 
 the president of the Commonwealth, To approve of the new 
 Constitution, which provided for two chambers in its legis- 
 lature and the election of the President by specially chosen 
 presidential electors, was to condemn their own State consti- 
 tution. But the Federalists in the Pennsylvania legislature 
 had already taken the initiative. The House was about to 
 adjourn sme die, and its successor Avould be elected on the 
 first Tuesday of the next November, The Anti-Federalists 
 expected to win in the intervening campaign and to elect 
 enough members to prevent calling a Convention, and in that 
 
THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS DEFIED. 151 
 
 way to defeat the Constitution. But they were out-maneu- 
 vered. George Clymer, a member of the House, a signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence, came directly from tlie 
 Convention, where, less than a fortnight before, he had sub- 
 scribed his name to the Constitution. He knew the j^lan of 
 the opposition, and ho proceeded to defeat it by rising in his 
 place on the 28tli of September and moving that the legisla- 
 ture call a Convention. The Anti-Federalists were enraged. 
 Clymer, they said, was out of order, for Congress had not yet 
 officially laid the Constitution before them. Moreover, such 
 a motion required notice and three several readings before 
 by parliamentary rules it could be entertained. To this the 
 Federalists replied, by calling for the question; it was put 
 and passed by a vote of forty-three to nineteen. The House 
 then adjourned for dinner, but the nineteen adjourned to hold 
 an indignation meeting, where it was voted that they would 
 stay away from the Assembly and so prevent all proceedings. 
 Without the nineteen the House lacked two of a quorum, 
 and when at four o'clock the House was called to order but 
 forty-five members ansAvered to their names. This was not 
 a quorum, and the sergeant-at-arms was instructed to find the 
 absent members and to bring them to the bar of the House. 
 But the nineteen defied the sergeant-at-arms; he returned 
 alone, and the Assembly stood adjourned till next morning. 
 The affair was the talk of the town. The coffee-houses were 
 full of excited men, and the nineteen were the objects of pop- 
 ular hatred. By the time of assembling the Federalists had 
 acted. Tlie lodgings of t wo of the obstructionists were forced ; 
 they were boldly seized; they were dragged to the State House; 
 they were held fast in their seats; a quorum was counted, 
 
152 THE CAMPAIGN m PENNSYLVAJSriA. 
 
 and an act was passed calling a State Convention for the 
 20th of November. Then the maddened and cursing ob- 
 structionists were released from their seats; but the plan of 
 the obsti'uctionists had miserably failed. 
 
 The campaign in Pennsylvania, begun in the legislature 
 with such bitterness, was carried on over the State in the 
 same spirit. The printers could scarcely supply the pamphlets, 
 the caricatures, the doggerel verse, the broadsides called for 
 by party virulence and activity, Centinel,^Plain Truth, Cin- 
 cinnatus, and Cato edified the public with their ceaseless 
 pens. Let well enough alone, was the burden of one argu- 
 ment. The Confederation is well enough. It has managed 
 the war and freed the country. Nearly all the evils com- 
 l^lained of by the Federalists are due to extravagance 
 among the people. And tliis secret Convention, was it not 
 plainly an odious cons2)iracy against the liberties of the coun- 
 try ? Certainly there had not been much agreement among 
 the members; some had gone home angry; others had refused 
 to sign, and those who had gone home or had refused to sign 
 were just as capable of judging what was for the welfare of 
 the country as others who now boasted of remaining and 
 signing the document. Franklin was an old dotard; Wash- 
 ington a fool; Hamilton and Madison were boys; and this 
 James Wilson was only a sharp Scotch lawyer, an aristocrat, 
 the rich man's friend. 
 
 To aid the opposition in Pennsylvania, Richard Henry Lee 
 wrote his ZiCtters from a Federal Farmer and thousands of 
 copies were scattered throughout the State. The Farmer 
 admitted that a reformation was needed in the Confederation, 
 but aristocracy and centralization, which characterized this 
 
BELA WARE, PENNSTL VANIA, NE W JERSEY RA TIFY. 153 
 
 New Plan, were not the reform needed. And Lee proceeded 
 to lay down the doctrines of State rights. Wilson replied 
 in a speech delivered in Philadelphia, on the 24th of Novem- 
 ber, which remains, probably, the ablest exposition and vin- 
 dication of the Constitution made in a single speech by 
 any man of that day. He reviewed the Constitution in a 
 masterly way, and decided its fate in the eastefn part of the 
 State. But the Anti-Federalists from over the mountains 
 were not to be won by fine speeches merely. Public opinion 
 elsewherein America was rapidly forming, and Wilson's speech 
 crystallized public oj^inion in Pennsylvania. The Penni>^l- 
 vania Convention was stirred by the news that on the Gtli 
 day of December Delaware had unanimously ratified the 
 Constitution. There were illuminations in Philadelphia over 
 this event ; opposition to the Constitution gave way, and six. 
 days later Pennsylvania ratified by a vote of forty-six to 
 twenty-thi-ee. Then the city again gave itself up to dem- 
 onstrations of joy. At Trenton, on the 18th of the month, 
 after a week's session, the New Jersey Convention adopted 
 the Constitution unanimously. Within three weeks three 
 States had ratified, and two of these were States Avhich had 
 threatened to withdraw from the Federal Convention at one 
 time, till the first compromise on representation in the 
 national legislature was agreed to. But as the news traveled 
 westward through Pennsjdvania it provoked occasional out- 
 bursts of violence. Federalists were in some places, as in 
 Carlisle, handled somewhat roughly, and the j)rominent lead- 
 ers, Wilson and Clymer, of this party were burned in effigy. 
 As the compromise on representation broke the force of 
 much expected opposition in the small States of the North 
 
154 THE CONSTITUTION IN MASS A CHUSETTS. 
 
 the compromise on slavery worked favorably for the Consti- 
 tution in the South. On January 2d, Georgia ratified unani- 
 mously, and on the 9th Connecticut, in Convention but five 
 days, ratified by a vote of one hu;.dred and twenty-eight to 
 forty. 
 
 To Massachusetts the hope of the opposition now turned, 
 and with great assurance. That State had assembled in 
 Convention at Boston, on the 9th of January. Affairs in 
 Massachusetts resembled affairs in Pennsylvania. The east- 
 ern part of the State, Boston and the neighboring towns, 
 were mainly Federal, but the central and western towns were 
 decidedly Anti-FederaL Tliere Shay's Rebellion had raged, 
 and the malcontents and their sympathizers were Anti- 
 Federalists. Maine was then a district and belonged to 
 Massachusetts, and its people, desirous of having theii" own 
 State government, and fearing if the Constitution was adopted 
 that their desires would be in vain, opposed ratification. 
 Massachusetts was the home of local independence and self- 
 government, and the town-meeting was the vital element in 
 its civil life. There Avas, therefore, a general feeling against 
 delegating powers "of government to a central authority. 
 The towns were jealous of the General Court of the State, 
 and would be more jealous of a national legislature. To 
 delegate such powers to Congress as some said were dele- 
 gated by this new Constitution was to encourage despotism. 
 At least some men feared so, and among those who feared 
 was Samuel Adams, the uTost influential man in the Com- 
 monwealth. Elbi-idge Gerry had refused to give the Con- 
 stitution his signature. When such men as Samuel Adams 
 and John Hancock and Elbridge Gerry doubted, other men 
 
CHARACTER OF THE CON'VEXTIOX. 155 
 
 should not rush hastily to conclusions. The Anti- Federalists 
 were encouraged by the promise of the issue in Massachu- 
 setts, and the delegates sent up from the inland towns still 
 more encouraged them. But from the sea-coast towns nearly 
 all the delegates were favorable to the New Plan. Adams 
 himself was aware that the two parties represented very dif- 
 ferent interests in the Commonwealth. The Federalists in- 
 cluded the delegates who desired a restoration of commerce, 
 a revival of business, and the regulation of trade by the 
 national legislature. 
 
 On the 9th of the month the delegates, three hundred %nd 
 fifty-five in number, constituting the largest Convention that 
 was called in any State, entered upon the work before them. 
 There sat in the president's chair Governor Hancock, the rich- 
 est man in the State, clad in velvet and fine laces. There sat 
 King and Gorham and Strong, who had helped to make the 
 InTcw Plan. There sat Parsons, soon to be known as a great 
 lawyer, and Fisher Ames, soon to be known as a great orator. 
 Four and twenty ministers of the Gospel, learned men, repre- 
 senting various denominations in the State, many plain farm- 
 ers with practical New England wisdom, and some eighteen 
 men from the western towns, who had marched under the rebel 
 Daniel Shay, completed the membership. So large a Conven- 
 tion represented the various thought of the people of the State. 
 Everj'- man present Avas familiar with that parliamentary pro- 
 cedure which for a century and a half had been observed in 
 the town-meetings; and with characteristic thoroughness the 
 Convention took up the new Constitution clause by clause. 
 But before the debate began the Convention availed itself 
 of the experience of Elbridge Gerry, who had not been 
 
156 PARTIES IN THE CONVENTION. 
 
 chosen one of its members. It was ordered that a committee 
 of tliree wait upon him and request him to take a seat in tlie 
 Convention to answer any questions of fact from time to 
 time that the Convention might ask respecting the passing 
 of the Constitution. The searching test to which each pro- 
 vision of tlie Constitution was put is plainly shoAvn in the 
 record of the debates. The delegates spoke often and much. 
 Many delegates feared that the powers of Congress were 
 too great for the safety of the people. Unrestricted control 
 of a district ten miles square for the federal city was an in- 
 centive to tyranny. There was great danger, too, in making 
 the President commander-in-chief of the army and navy. 
 What prevented the establishment of a military dictator- 
 ship? Nor did the Constitution recognize the existence of 
 God, nor had it religious or property tests for its officers. 
 But not one clergyman in the Convention objected to it on 
 either of these grounds. The Convention was composed of 
 two classes, the country members and the city members; or, 
 by another division, the lawyers, judges, and the rich con- 
 stituting one class, and the rough, sun-tanned, hard-handed 
 farmers constituting another. Because the rich and the learned 
 and the aristocratic members favored the Constitution, if 
 for no other reason, the farmers op]30sed it, and it is now 
 evident that the vote of Massachusetts on the Constitution 
 was the vote of class against class in the Commonwealth, the 
 Constitution being the subject in controversy for the time 
 being. Aware of the preponderance of numbers on the one side 
 and of great names on the other, the Federalists began to fear 
 to put the question of ratification. The farmers were Anti- 
 Federal, and many wavering delegates were ready to join the 
 
PAUL REVERE WINS JOHN ADAMS. 157 
 
 farmers in order to gain tlieir political support in State af- 
 fairs. Each party accused, tbe other of briber}-. The Con- 
 vention was stirred to its center. At last that was discovered 
 Avhich every body had long known, that one man's opinion 
 would decide the vote of the Convention, and that one man 
 was Samuel Adams. He had came up to the Convention an 
 , opponent of the Constitution. This was generally known. 
 But it was also known that he had not fully made up his 
 mind to vote against ratification. Each party courted him, 
 but it was the Federalists who succeeded in capturing him, 
 and in this way: At the Green Dragon Tavern a caucu%of 
 friends of the Constitution was held; resolutions in support 
 of it were passed, and a committee was appointed to present 
 these resolutions to Adams. The plan had been worked out 
 b}'' the Federal bodies with the help of a great number of 
 mechanics of Boston, to whose general interests Adams had 
 always been deeply devoted. At the head of the committee 
 was Paul Revere, whose name still stirs patriotic memories. 
 Adams received the paper, i*ead it, and inquired: 
 
 " How many mechanics were at the Green Dragon when 
 these resolutions passed ? " 
 
 "More, sir, than the Green Dragon could hold," answered 
 Revere. 
 
 " And where were the rest, Mr. Revere ? " 
 
 "In the street, sir." 
 
 " And how many were in the street ? " 
 
 " More, sir, than there are stars in the sky." 
 
 T!ie Federal plan worked. Adams, like Lincoln, had abid- 
 ing faith in the people. He changed his opinions and fav- 
 ored ratification. When, in the debate on the two-yeai"s' terra 
 
158 MASSACHUSETTS RATIFIES. 
 
 of membersliip of the House of Representatives Adams asked 
 Caleb Strong wliy the Convention made the term so long, as 
 the election to the lower house in Massachusetts was annua], 
 Strong replied that the term was a compromise. Adams 
 said, "I am satisfied," A Federalist sitting near ]Mr. 
 Adams said: " Will Mr. Adams kindly say that again ? " "I 
 am satisfied," he rej^eated; and no furtlier objection on that , 
 clause was made. When it was known that Adams favored 
 the Constitution the Federalists felt safe. On the 6th of 
 February the vote was taken; it stood one hundred and 
 eighty-seven to one hundred and sixty-eight in favor of rat- 
 ification. 
 
 Tlien Boston took uj) the spirit of that vote: bonfires were ' 
 made, streets illuminated, bells rung, toasts drunk, and gen- 
 eral joy prevailed; and the street on which stood the meet- 
 ing-house in which the Convention had assembled was on that 
 day renamed, and has ever since been called Federal Street. 
 But before the vote was taken ten amendments were pi'o- / 
 posed to the Constitution, and with these suggested amend- 
 ments the Constitution stood ratified. Massachusetts was 
 thus the sixth State to ratify. Her action was not hastened 
 by news from other States that had ratified, for there was no 
 news. The mails for weeks, between Philadelphia and New 
 York and Boston, had been interrupted. The Anti-Federal- 
 ists accused their opponents of fraud and of stopping the 
 mails. But the condition of the roads, the inclemency of the 
 weather, the indifference of the post-boys, and the imperfect 
 provision for carrying newsj)apers long distances were the 
 true explanation. 
 
 Although two thirds of the requisite number of States had 
 
THE CONSTITUTION IN NEW UAMPSHIKE. 159 
 
 ratified the Constitution, its fate in the remaining States was 
 so uncertain as to continue anxiety among its friends.. New 
 Hampsliire was quite like Massachusetts in its feelings toward 
 the New Plan, and, like Massachusetts before the Boston Con- 
 vention, it was claimed by both j^arties. Thus far, however, 
 the East had steadily su^^ported the new Constitution; and 
 Avhen it was known that on the 19th of February New Hamp- 
 shire had assembled in Convention at Exeter there Avas a gen- 
 eral expectation of a speedy, and probably of a unanimous, 
 ratification. Bat New Hampshire had no great cities along 
 its coast; no great cities on its rivers. The State Avas a^i- 
 cultural, not commercial, and the delegates Avho appeared at 
 Exeter voiced the feelings of the country districts in opposi- 
 tion to the New Plan of national government. The fcAV Fed- 
 eralists in the Convention saAV only defeat in an immediate 
 vote, and they Avere glad to agree to an adjournment till the 
 third Wednesday in June, by Avhich time they hoped that 
 ratification by other States Avould either make the number 
 sufiicient to adopt the Constitution without Ncav Hampshire 
 or sufiicient to influence a favorable A'Ote in Ncav Hampshire. 
 The adjournment of the Exeter Convention caused joy among 
 the Anti-Federalists. They hurried the neAvs into States that 
 had not yet acted, and specially into Maryland, Avhich had called 
 its Convention on the 21st of April. Maryland held senti- 
 ments toAvard the Constitution the opposite of those in Penn- 
 sylvania. In Pennsylvania the leaders had favored, the mass 
 of voters had opposed, the Constitution; in Maryland the 
 majority of the electors fa\'ored it, the leaders opposed it. 
 In vain did Luther Martin and Samuel Chase declaim against 
 the NeAV Roof. Maiyland, next to Virginia, had inaugu- 
 
160 2IARYLAND AND SOUTH CAROLINA RATIFY. 
 
 rated the movement wliicli had brought about the new Con- 
 stitution, and the people of the State sent up to the Balti- 
 more Convention more than sixty pronounced friends of the 
 new government. To obstruct, to make long speeches, to 
 devise delays, to move an adjournment — all failed. The 
 vote was cast on the 25th of the month, and the question of 
 ratification was carried by a vote of sixty-three to eleven. 
 To the Constitution thus ratified the minority proposed 
 twenty-eight amendments. 
 
 Great was the joy of the Federalists when the news came 
 from Maryland. Only two more States were needed, and the 
 Constitution would be the law of the land. South Carolina 
 convened on the 12th day of May, and South Carolina, next 
 to Virginia, was the richest State of the South. There were 
 those in the South Carolina Cowvention, as there were many 
 more in the State, who took alarm at the prospect of the 
 regulation of trade by a national government. The Eastern 
 States had shij^s, the Southern States had goods; the exclu- 
 sive control over commerce would put the Southern at the 
 mercy of the Eastern States. But these fears were allayed 
 by the speech of Charles Pinckney, who persuaded the Con- 
 vention that the general government would regulate the trade 
 of the whole country in an equitable manner. On the 23d 
 day of the month the ballot was cast, and the Constitution was 
 ratified by a vote of one hundred and forty to seventy-three. 
 With the vote of ratification was sent up four amendments, 
 insisted on by the minorit}^ Weeks passed before the vote 
 in South Carolina reached New England, and on the 17th of 
 June, the day of all New England days, the New Hampshire 
 Convention had re-assembled, and the Convention of New 
 
VIRGINIA AND NEW YORK IN CONVENTION. 161 
 
 York met at Poiiglikeepsie. On the 2(1 of the moiitli 
 the Convention of Virginia had assembled at Eichmond. 
 After four days the Exeter Convention adojjted the Constitu- 
 tion by a vote of fifty-seven to forty-six, the minority send- 
 ing uj) twelve amendments. New Hampshire was thus the 
 ninth State to ratify, and the Constitution "^s by its own 
 provisions the Supreme Law of the Land.y 
 
 But New York and Virginia were now in Convention, and 
 a Union without these two great States would soon prove a 
 divided Union. When New Ilamjjshire ratified, Virginia had 
 been in Convention neaily three weeks, and the enemies%&f 
 the Constitution there had been^marshaling every argument 
 they could devise against it. yTatrick Henry led them. He 
 had refused to attend the Philadelphia Convention, and he 
 now refused to give his approval to its work. Henry could 
 not argue, but he could make winning speeches. Madison 
 and Randolph and John Marshall could not always make 
 winning speeches, but they could argue. Henry's objections 
 to the New Plan were summed up in one sentence : The Con- 
 stitution is a consolidated government. On the dangers of 
 such a government he talked until the 14th of June had 
 come. Ten days jjassed in the debate on a motion to take 
 up the Constitution clause by clause. Henry proposed a 
 bill of rights and twenty amendments. On the 25th of 
 the month the vote was taken on adoption; eighty-nine voted 
 to ratify and seventy-nine voted nay. But the victory in 
 Virginia was due to the influence of one of her citizens who 
 was not a member of this Convention. Washington exerted 
 himself in behalf of the Constitution which, in Convention, 
 he had been the first to sign; and the influence of Washing- 
 
 n 
 
162 WASHINGTON'S INFLUENCE. 
 
 ton ill Virginia was equal to at least ten votes in the Rich- 
 mond Convention. 
 
 By the 28th of June the news from New Hampshire and 
 the news from Virginia met in Philadelphia and New York 
 city, and the Federalists in all the great towns of the coast 
 prepared to celebrate the adoption of the Constitution with 
 appropriate ceremonies on the approaching 4th of July. 
 What time, they said, was more fitting? The anniversary 
 of national independence should be made more glorious by the 
 celebration of the adoption of the Constitution. Of the pro- 
 cessions, the speeches, the toasts, the mechanical and industrial 
 displays on great floats dragged uj) and down the streets; 
 of the huzzas, of the salutes and salvos, of the waving of 
 flags, the display of bunting by day and the illuminations 
 at night, of the joy of the people that at last they had safely 
 come under the New Roof, and that tlie more perfect 
 Union was formed, the newspaj^ers made ample record, and 
 the memories of men long kej^t a vivid picture. But in 
 Albany and in Providence the rejoicings were interrupted 
 by Anti-Federalist mobs and riots. There were some bloody 
 affrays. 
 
 New York had been assembled in convention some three 
 weeks, and George Clinton was its president. Perhaps no 
 m.an who claimed to be an American was more bitterly op- 
 posed to the Constitution than Clinton, and perhaps no 
 American had greater influence in the State of New York. 
 To an understanding of the Constitution the people of New 
 York, since the 30th of October of the previous year, had 
 been specially favored, for on that day began to appear, in 
 the N'ew Yorh Packet, a series of papers signed Publius, in 
 
THE FEDERALIST. 163 
 
 exposition of the Constitution. Copied into other newspa- 
 pers, the articles by Publius were widely read. It was soon 
 discovered that Publius was the name chosen, not by one, 
 but by three men who favored the New Plan — Hamilton, Avho 
 suggested the articles, Madison, and Jay. These articles are 
 known to us as The Federalist, the ablest exposition of the 
 national Constitution ever made. To the readers of the news- 
 papers in which they appeared they were merely the letters 
 of some political partisans. On the 4th of April, 1788, they 
 had ceased. Jay had ceased to write. liamiltcm was busy 
 with a large legal practice. Madison was defending The 
 Constitution in Virginia. But when the Convention of New 
 York assembled at Poughkeepsie Hamilton resumed the 
 series and wrote the last ten papers. Madison, in fourteen 
 papers, wrote on the plan of the new government; on its 
 conformity to republican principles; its powers; its relation to 
 slavery and the slave trade; its mediating office between the 
 Union and the States; its separation into three departments 
 and the mode of constructing the House of Representatives. 
 Hamilton, in sixty-three numbers, discussed the defects 
 of the Confederation; the energy of the jjroposed national 
 government; its relation to public defense, to the executive, 
 to the judiciary, to the treasury'-, and to commerce. Three 
 papers were written jointly by Hamilton and Madison. Jay, 
 in five papers, discussed the general plan of the new Con- 
 stitution. The influence of this series in 1787-88 must not 
 be judged by the fame of The Federalist a century later. 
 Many then thought that these Federal letters were far in- 
 ferior to the Objections to the Federal Constitution, by 
 George Mason, or The Fhartxination of the Constitution of 
 
164 CLINTON KEEPS BACK THE VOTE. 
 
 the United States of America, by "An American Citizen."* 
 Nor in the opinion of some were tliey more persuasive than 
 the Observations on the New Constitution, by a " Co- 
 lumbian Patriot,"! nor the Address to the People of the 
 State ofNeio York, by " A Plebeian." | 
 
 Time has tried the writings of the fathers, and llie 
 Federalist is their one classic book on the Constitution of 
 the United States. 
 
 But the people of the State of New York to whom Pub- 
 lius wrote wei-e little influenced by The Federalist. Clinton 
 opposed the Constitution, and Clinton's friends opposed the 
 Constitution, and the Poughkeepsie Convention was mostly 
 composed of Clinton's friends. A vote on ratification might 
 have been taken any day of the session up to the 24th of 
 June, and the vote would have been almost unanimously 
 against ratification. Not to vote, but to delay, was the Anti- 
 Federal plan. New Hamjjshire had not yet been heard from, 
 and it Avas pretty sure that when the news came it would be 
 news of the rejection of the Constitution. Virginia had not 
 yet voted, but Virginia was counted on as Anti-Federaj. Clin- 
 ton therefore kept back the vote, hoping that nine States 
 could not be found to ratify, and the blame of a rejection 
 could not then be put u2)on New York. But if New Hamp- 
 shire should ratify, then New York must follow or remain 
 out of the Union. To ratify meant to bury every objection 
 which Yates and Lansing and Clinton could find in the New 
 Plan and to adopt a government whose plan was hateful; to 
 refuse to ratify meant State independence, an expensive gov- 
 ernmental establishment, heavy taxes, and constant danger 
 
 *Teucli Coxo. f Elbridge Gerry. ;{: Mela nctliou Smith. 
 
HAMFLTON CARRIES FEW YORK. 16b 
 
 from neighboring powers — the United States on the east and 
 south, and England on the north. But the Convention was 
 proud; it was confident that the State could svipport an estab- 
 lishment, and equally confident that the Constitution was 
 essentially bad. The Federalists in the State lived chiefly in 
 New York city, and there they tried to awaken some enthu- 
 siasm for the Constitution by a parade, by speeches, and be- 
 fore the day Avas over by attacking the office of an Anti- 
 Federalist paper, the Ifew York Journal. This display of 
 party vigor won no new friends, and it was generally felt 
 that the Convention would refuse to ratify. In the Con^n- 
 tion with others sat John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, and 
 Hamilton spoke ten times. He attempted to defend the 
 Constitution before a body opposed to it and to win those 
 opponents into voting for it. Chief among the speakers in 
 Clinton's party was Melancthon Smith. He attempted to 
 answer Hamilton, but he ended by deserting his party and. 
 joining the Federalist minority. Never before or since in 
 American history was such a political victory won as Hamil- 
 ton won in the Poughkeepsie Convention. He is said to 
 have remarked, subsequently, that he could see the delegates 
 change their opinions. The Anti-Federalist majority was 
 transformed into a minority, and the only question pending 
 was how to compromise on party diiferences. Thirty-two 
 amendments were proposed, and the Anti-Federalists insisted 
 that ratification, if it came at all, must be on condition that 
 these amendments be embodied in the new Constitution. 
 But conditional ratification was without precedent, and before 
 replying to the inquiry of the minority, Hamilton met Madi- 
 son in conference at New York and put the question, Can a 
 
166 TEE CONSTITUTION IN NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 State ratify conditionally and afterward withdraw from the 
 Union if the conditions are not satisfied ? Madison's reply 
 was an emphatic negative. Conditional membership in the 
 Union meant a broken Union, and the Union could not pro- 
 vide for its own dissolution. On the 26th of the month a 
 vote was reached; it stood thirty for ratification, twenty- 
 seven against, and thirty-two amendments were proposed. 
 Although victors by so small a majority the Federalists 
 were the victors, and their victorious leader was Hamilton. 
 He was just entering his thirty-second year. To his argu- 
 ments and eloquence the victory was due. The friends of 
 the Constitution assembled in force in ISTew York city; they 
 built a fair ship of state, which they placed on wheels and 
 drew up and down the streets amid loud huzzas, and the 
 name of the ship was — Hainilton. 
 
 On the day when the vote in New York was reached, 
 North Cai'olina had been five days in Convention at Hills- 
 borough. Opposition was strong. While in consideration 
 of the Constitution, clause by clause, came in tlie news of 
 ratification by Virginia, by New Hampshire, and by New 
 York, and ajso the, letter from Governor Clinton advis- 
 ing the States to call another Constitutional Convention. 
 Eleven States had ratified; should North Carolina refuse? 
 They objected to many parts of the Constitution; they 
 l^roposed a declaration of rights in twenty articles, and 
 amendments to the number of twenty-six. On the 2d of 
 August the Convention adjourned without voting on the 
 question of ratification. It was not until November 21 of 
 the following year that North Carolina ratified, and not until 
 May 29th, 1790, that Rhode Island adopted the Constitution. 
 
TEE CONSTITUTION' BECOMES THE LA W OF THE LAND. 167 
 
 It bad been i-esolved, on the last day of the session of the 
 Philadelphia Convention, that as soon as Congress should re- 
 ceive official information that nine States had ratified the Con- 
 stitution the new government should speedily go into effect; 
 electors should be appointed by the States for the purpose of 
 choosing a President and a Vice-President; senators and rep- 
 resentatives should also be chosen in the several States; the 
 Senate should convene and appoint a president of the Senate 
 for the sole purpose of receiving, opening, and counting the 
 votes for President, and that after he should be chosen 
 the Congress, together with the President, should, without 
 delay, proceed to execute the Constitution. This last recom- 
 mendation of the Convention accompanied the text of the 
 new Constitution to Congress, and the civil programme which 
 it outlined was carried out. 
 
 Eleven States having ratified, Congress received official 
 information and proceeded to fix the date when the Consti- 
 tution should become the Law of the Land. Many days 
 were spent in debating what place should be chosen for the 
 national capital. Should it be ISTew York, or Philadelphia, 
 or Trenton, or Lancaster, or Baltimore ? And after many 
 curious reasons for each of these towns New York was 
 chosen. It was decided that presidential electors should be 
 chosen on the first Wednesday of January, 1789; that the 
 electors should meet and vote for President on the first 
 Wednesday of February, and that the new Congress should 
 assemble on the first Wednesday in March, which in that year 
 came on the 4th of the month. The presidential electors were 
 with general uniformity in the States appointed by the 
 State legislatures, which doubtless was the manner of choice 
 
* 
 
 / 68 WA SEING TON AND ADAMS ELECTED. 
 
 intended by the framers of the Constitution. There was no 
 organized campaign, no struggle between well-defined parties. 
 It was generally expected that the presidential vote would 
 be cast for the foremost American, but speculation and in- 
 trigue entered into the choice of Vice-President. Nearly 
 a month passed after tlie date for the assembling of Congress 
 before a quorum appeared in both houses. The House 
 got together a quorum on the 1st of April; the Senate 
 elected its president ^ro tempore, John Langdon, on the Gth. 
 On that day the houses met in joint session, and the votes 
 were counted. There were sixty-nine votes in all, and there 
 were sixty-nine ^•otes for George Washington for President. 
 For Vice-President John Adams, of Massachusetts, received 
 thirty-four votes, the remainder being scattered among sev- 
 eral competitors. The speaker therefore declared George 
 Washington elected President, and John Adams, Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the United States. A messenger was dispatched to 
 Mount Vernon, another to Braintree, to acquaint Washing- 
 ton and Adams of their election. 
 
 After the lapse of a century and more, the events con- 
 nected with the Constitution of the United States probably 
 are more clearly understood than they were to the actors 
 themselves in those events. A few men took the initiative 
 toward an amendment of the Articles of Confederation, A 
 few men advocated reform from their places in State legis- 
 latures, as did Madison, or from the quiet of their homes, as 
 did Washington. A few men were chosen by Conventions 
 to make the Constitution. They assembled in Philadelphia; 
 they met in a Convention with closed doors; they took an 
 oath of secrecy ; they compromised their differences and 
 
THE MEN WHO DID IT. 169 
 
 made the Constitution; not a new plan, apiece of work sud- 
 denly struck off, but an expression of American experience 
 in politics and in representative government. The Consti- 
 tution went to Congi-ess, where a few men succeeded in get- 
 ting it sent, with decency, to the executives of the States. 
 A few men welcomed the Constitution, were elected members 
 of State Conventions, and in every State, save two, labored 
 for it against every form of opposition. Samuel Adams and 
 Fisher Ames in Massachusetts, John Langdon in New 
 Hampshire, Roger Sherman in Connecticut, David Brearley 
 in New Jersey, Benjamin Franklin and James Wilson in 
 Pennsylvania, Alexander Hamilton in New York, Washington, 
 Madison, and John Marshall in Virginia, Charles Pinckney 
 in South Carolina, Abram Baldwin in Georgia, and a few 
 other men of similar character and sentiments carried the 
 Constitution through the State Convention. 
 
 The people did not vote directly on the question of ratifi-W^ 
 cation. A popular vote would, undoubtedly, have defeated 
 
 it. The Constitution was the work of men wliose thoughts . 
 
 werejaj_m advance joi- thai of the mass of Americans. Its 
 liberal spirit has caused tlie modification of all the first con- 
 ~stTtutions of the States, and has become the model for con-_ 
 stitutions of new States admitted into the Union. We would 
 err in imputing to our ancestors that understanding of the 
 national Constitution which is now familiar knowledge in 
 America. To them the Constitution was a theory; to us it is 
 rather an administration. To them the problem was, What 
 -caTTrTHo ? To us the problem is. What will it do ? We may 
 safely affirm that few persons in private life in 1789 ever 
 learned to understand the Constitution. Many of the eminent 
 
170 EXIT TFIE confederation: 
 
 men wlio iramed it made such an interpretation of its pro- \ 
 visions as by the clear light of subsequent events in our na- I 
 tional history must be said to be wrong. The national gov- / 
 ernment had been administered above seventy years before [ 
 its essential character as the Supreme Law of the Land was \ 
 plainly admitted by the people of the United States. But the \ 
 interpretation of the Constitution, by writers, by legislators, 
 by journalists, by political parties, by Presidents, by Con- 
 gress, by the Sujsreme Court, cannot be told within the limits 
 of this book. Nor has interpretation yet fully crystallized. 
 Interpretation must ever be changing as change the condi- 
 tions of affairs in our country. 
 
 After the 1st of January, 1789, there never assembled a • 
 quorum of the old Congress. On the evening of March 3 a 
 parting salute of thirteen guns was fired in honor of the old 
 Confederation, and on the morning of the 4th the era of the 
 more perfect Union was announced by the firing of eleven 
 guns in honor of- the eleven ratifying States. These salvos 
 seemed to mark a meaningless ceremony. There was no one 
 of the old Congress to go away, and only eight senators and 
 thirteen representatives of the new Congress had come. 
 These members at once dispatched letters to their colleagues- 
 elect. Soon after April 1st a quorum assembled. On Thurs- 
 day, the 9th of April, John Adams received the official letter 
 from Congress notifying him of his election, and on the fol- 
 lowing Monday he set out for New York. As he passed 
 from town to town he was received with honorable attention, 
 and, journe^dng on in a splendid carriage, he reached the capi- 
 tal on the 20th and took the oath of office before the Senate 
 on the following day. To Mount Vernon had gone as special 
 
WASHINGTON'S JOURNEY TO NEW YORK. 171 
 
 messenger Charles Thompson, the trusted secretary of the 
 Continental Congress throughout its history. On the 14th 
 of April Washington received the official letter of his election. 
 Two days later he set out for New York. His journey was 
 a peaceful, triumphal j^rocession. At Alexandria, at Wil- 
 mington, at Philadelphia, at Trenton, at Princeton, at Eliza- 
 bethtown, at a score of smaller cities and towns, he was 
 received with every proof of veneration and affection. His 
 journey was a continuous ovation. On the 23d he reached 
 New York and stopped at the Franklin House, which had 
 been specially fitted up as his residence. Preparations w|Z"e 
 now making for his inauguration. The programme was 
 made by a congressional committee. The President was to 
 be received in the Senate chamber on Thursday, the 30th of 
 April. Both houses should then adjourn to the Representa- 
 tives' chamber, where Washington should take the oath of 
 office administered by the Chancellor of the State of New 
 York, R. R. Livingstone. The President, the Vice-President, 
 and both houses of Congress should then hear divine wor- 
 ship in St. Paul's Church. Tliis simple programme Avas fol- 
 lowed. Never before had so many people been in the city. 
 Never before had good will, good cheer, and good feeling 
 been so universal there. At one o'clock of his inauguration 
 day Washington, escorted by tlie military, proceeded from 
 his place of residence to the Federal State-House. He en- 
 tered the room of the Representatives and was conducted 
 to the chair by John Adams. The Vice-President then in- 
 formed him that " the Senate and the House of Representa- 
 tives were ready to attend him to take the oath required by 
 the Constitution, and that it would be administered by the 
 
172 THE m AUGUR ATT OK 
 
 Chancellor of the State of New York." Washington replied 
 that he was ready. He arose and was conducted to an open 
 gallery which overlooked Broad Street. At his appearance 
 the people hushed to a respectful silence. He came forward, 
 Chancellor Livingstone read the oath, Washington repeated 
 it, and, stooping, kissed the Bible which the secretary of the 
 Senate had raised to his lips. At this instant a flag was run 
 up as a signal, and immediately from the Battery there was 
 a discharge of artillery. The bells rang out their peals, and 
 Livingstone cried, " Long live George Washington, Presi- 
 dent of the United States ! " which was taken up by the 
 people and which echoed and re-echoed thi'oughout the city. 
 Within a few days Washington sent the list of his cabinet 
 advisers to the Senate, and they were immediately confirmed. 
 Jefferson was called to the department of state, Hamilton to 
 the treasury, Knox to the department of Avar ; Randolph 
 was made attorney-general.V Congress passed the judiciary 
 act on the 24tli of September following, creating one Supreme 
 Court and tw^o orders of inferior courts, called Circuit Courts 
 and District Courts.* Washington appointed John Jay chief- 
 justice, and with him five associate judges. Thus before the year 
 closed the Constitution in all of its departments was in proc- 
 ess of administration. On the 4th of March, 1789, we date 
 the time when the Constitution of the United States became 
 the Supreme Law of the Land. It was natural that Washing- 
 ton should gather about him in the administration of the new 
 government the men who had served with him during the /^ 
 war and who had sat wnth him in the Convention of 1787. 
 From that company of excellent companions he made his 
 *Tlie Appellate Courts were created by act of Marcli 3, 1891. 
 
THE TEN AMENDMENTS. 1^3 
 
 appointments, and thus it came that those who had been first 
 to Itiiiig about the Constitution of ihe United States were the 
 first cliosen to administer it. But the difficulties, tlie contests, 
 tlie intrigues, the endless debates, and tlie bitter opjiosition 
 through which the Constitution passed before it became the 
 Law of tlie Land was only an introduction to the more severe 
 tests to which it has been put in practical administration 
 since that time. About it have contended powerful parties 
 in the forum and mighty armies on the field of .battle. Nor 
 has it remained unchanged to our day. 
 
 The numerous amendments suggested by the various rau- 
 fying conventions in 1787 and 1788 indicate how narrowly 
 the Constitution escaped defeat at that time, and also to what 
 degree dissatisfaction with its form and with its various 
 clauses took definite expression. The common objection to 
 the Constitution at that time was the omission of a Bill of 
 Rights — a defect which was carefully pointed out in each Con- 
 vention. It Avas to remedy this supposed defect that so many 
 amendments Avere proposed, about one hundred and thirty in 
 all, at the time of its ratification. As soon as Congress as- 
 sembled under the Constitution the subject of amendments 
 Avas taken up, and before the year 1789 had jjassed the first 
 ten amendments Avere proposed by Congress and ratified by 
 the States. These ten amendments, made so soon after the 
 creation of the instrument itself, have ahvays been considered 
 as of a piece Avith the Avork of the Convention. The eleventh 
 amendment, declared in force January 8, 1798, Avas made in 
 conformity Avith a demand of the State of Georgia and other 
 sympathizing States in order to permit a State to escaj^e being 
 brought as a defendant before the bar of a federal court. By 
 
174 NATURE OF THE AMENDMENTS. 
 
 this amendment it lias come al)Out that some of tlie States, 
 not being compelled to pay theii" debts, have repudiated them. 
 The twelfth amendment was added September 25th, 1804, after 
 the first experience of the country with a disputed presiden- 
 tial election. The presidential electors at the time of the first 
 election of Thomas Jefferson were equally divided between 
 him and Aaron Burr, and the election went to the House of 
 Representatives. It was thought that the defect in the Con- 
 stitution, as it formerly provided for the election of President, 
 would be emedied by this amendment; but subsequent experi- 
 ence has twice j^roved that the amendment failed as a remedy. 
 
 No problem which arose in the administration of the na-, 
 tional Constitution was more difficult than the problem of 
 slavery. It was an industrial and a political problem, and at 
 last it divided the sentiment of the country. By the thirteenth 
 amendment, which became a part of the Constitution Decem- 
 ber 18tli, 1865, slavery was abolished in the United States. 
 Three years later, on the 28th of July, the Constitution Avas 
 again amended so as to confer citizenship on all persons born 
 or naturalized in the United States, and to extend the pro- 
 tection of the Constitution and the laws over them in all their 
 civil rights. In order to prevent discrimination against any 
 citizens on account of race, color, or previous condition of 
 servitude, the fifteenth amendment was added to the Consti- 
 tution March 30th, 1870. This last Constitutional amendment 
 forbids any State to discriminate against any of its citizens 
 in conferring the right to vote. 
 
 During the century more than seven hundred and fifty 
 amendments have at various times been proposed to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. Perhaps no subject on which 
 
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE. 175 
 
 there is a diiference of opinion in the administration of gov- 
 ernment has been omitted in these proposed amendments. Of 
 these seven hundred and fifty, fifteen have been adopted. 
 Wiih each successive year of administration the adoption of 
 amendments is increasingly difficult, but without doubt in the 
 future, as it has been in the past, the Constitution will from 
 time to time be modified so as to adapt itself closely to chang- 
 ing or changed conditions of American national life. So long 
 as it is adapted to the wants of the nation it will remain the 
 Supreme Law of the Land. The principles on which the Con- 
 stitution are founded are accepted with harmony, but in 1|jj^e 
 administration of those principles individuals and political 
 parties differ. The story of the administration of the Con- 
 stitution cannot be told in this book; I have sought simply to 
 tell the story of the origin, the formation, and the adoption 
 of the Constitution. However widely we may differ as to the 
 administration of our Supreme Law, I am quite sure that we 
 agree that the destiny of the Constitution is bound up with 
 the destiny of the people of the United States. 
 
 From the time of the first colonial Assembly in Virginia to 
 the time of the ratification of the national Constitution, a 
 period of one hundred and seventy years, the American 2:)eople 
 were working out the problem of the disposition of the taxing 
 pawer, and at last they placed it in their national govern- 
 ment, as they had for generations placed it in their local gov- 
 ernments, in the lower house of the legislature, the House of 
 Representatives. Without doubt the House of Representa- 
 tives is the nucleus of the government of the United States, 
 the center of our national system. The dispute about taxes, 
 through which this country was passing for nearly two cent- 
 
176 THE CONSTITUTION THE WORK OF CENTURIES. 
 
 uiies, was a dispute as to who should levy thera. For all 
 future time there seems to remain a second, and perhaps no 
 less critical, question, How shall taxes be levied? how shall 
 finance be administered? In the close study of American 
 politics it is this question Avhich, if understood, makes clear the 
 condition of civil affairs at any time. It may seem to some 
 that a hundred' and seventy years is a long time for learning 
 that the lower house of a legislature should levy taxes, but 
 it should not be forgotten that mankind is a slow scholar. 
 
 I think that, were all the details of our constitutional 
 history told, the strange and often contradictory story 
 would be considered rather as a romance than as a history, 
 for history is commonly supposed to be very grave, very sys- 
 tematic, very philosophical, and very true. Napoleon once 
 spoke of history as a fable agreed upon. If you who have 
 been so forbearing as to read this Story of the Constitution 
 have read between the lines you have detected that history 
 is never agreed upon; that history is like the men and women 
 who make it, quite uncertain, and frequently far from being 
 just as people imagine it maybe. You have discovered what 
 even so great a man as a recent prime minister of England 
 failed to discover when he spoke of the Constitution of the 
 United States as being made at a single stroke. Our Consti- 
 tution has been centuries a-making and is not yet made. We 
 have a written Constitution and an unwritten Constitution, 
 and we use them both, and both have grown with our national 
 growth and both may decay with our national decay. But 
 as Americans Ave lay claim to some discoveries in constitu- 
 tional affairs. We have worked out a representative gov- 
 ernment after an apprenticeship of nearly two centuries, and 
 
THE SECOND PART OF THE STORY. 177 
 
 in our daily administration of that form of government we 
 are now serving an apprenticeship in administration. Whether 
 our apprenticeship in administration sliall be as long as was 
 our apprenticeship in working out the principles of represent- 
 ative government no man can tell, but, as the administration 
 of government proves to be an exceedingly difficult problem, 
 there is little doubt that our second period of apprenticeship 
 will be much longer than our first. The story of government 
 from the time when the first Virginia House of Burgesses as- 
 sembled in 1619 till the first national Congress assembled in 
 1*789, when told ages hence, will doubtless be less strange and 
 perhaps less interesting than that second part of the story of 
 
 government u^Jon which we have entered. 
 13 
 
178 THE CONSTITUIION. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.* 
 
 We the People of the United States, in order to form a 
 more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tran- 
 quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the gen- 
 eral Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves 
 and our Posterit}^, do ordain and establish this Constitution 
 for the United States of America. 
 
 ARTICLE I. 
 
 Section 1. 
 All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a 
 Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate 
 and House of Representatives. 
 
 Section 2. 
 
 The House of Representatives shall be comj^osed of Mem- 
 bers chosen every second year by the People of the several 
 States, and the Electors in each State shall have the qualifi- 
 cations requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of 
 the State Legislature. 
 
 No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have at- 
 tained to the age of twenty-five Years, and been seven years a 
 Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, 
 be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. 
 
 * This text follows the original at Washington, except for the amendments, 
 whioii are printed in modern form. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 179 
 
 Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned 
 among the several States which may be included within this 
 Union, according to their respective Numbers, "which shall be 
 determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, 
 including those bound to service for a Term of Years, and ex- 
 cluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons. 
 The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years 
 after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, 
 and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such 
 Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Rep- 
 resentatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thoua|p,nd, 
 but each State shall have at least one Representative; and 
 until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New 
 Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts 
 eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Con- 
 necticut five, New York six. New Jersey four, Pennsylvania 
 eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten. North Caro- 
 lina five. South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 
 
 When vacancies hap^Jen in the Representation from any 
 State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of 
 Election to fill such Vacancies. 
 
 The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker 
 and other Officers; and shall have the sole Po^ver of Im- 
 peachment. 
 
 Section 3. 
 
 The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
 Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, 
 for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote. 
 
 Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence 
 of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may 
 
180 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first 
 Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, 
 of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and 
 of the third class at the Expiration of the sixth Year; so that 
 one-third may be chosen every second Year, and if Vacancies 
 happen by Resignation or otiierwise, during the Recess of the 
 Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make 
 temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legis- 
 lature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. 
 
 No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained 
 to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of 
 the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an In- 
 habitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 
 
 The Vice-President of the United States shall be President 
 of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally 
 divided. 
 
 The Senate shall ch use their other Officers, and also a 
 President pro tempore in the Absence of the Vice-President, 
 or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the 
 United States. 
 
 The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeach- 
 ments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath 
 or Affirmation. Wlien the President of the United States is 
 tried," the Chief -Justice shall preside: And no Person shall 
 be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the 
 Members present. 
 
 Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further 
 than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and 
 enjoy any Office of honor. Trust, or Profit under the United 
 States: but the Party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. ISl 
 
 and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, 
 according to Law. 
 
 Section 4. 
 
 Tlie Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for 
 Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each 
 State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at 
 any time b}^ Law make or alter such Regulations, except as 
 to the Places of choosing Senators. 
 
 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, 
 and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, 
 unless they shall by Law appoint a diiferent Day. % 
 
 Section 5. 
 
 Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns 
 and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each 
 shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Num- 
 ber may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to 
 compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, 
 and under such Penalties as each House may provide. 
 
 Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, 
 punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and. Math the 
 Concurrence of two- thirds, expel a Member. 
 
 Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and 
 from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as 
 may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and 
 Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, 
 at the Desire of one-fifth of those Present, be entered on the 
 Journal. 
 
 Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, Avith- 
 out the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three 
 
182 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two 
 Houses shall be sitting. 
 
 Section 6. 
 
 The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compen- 
 sation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid 
 out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all 
 Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be 
 privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session 
 of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning 
 from the same ; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, 
 they shall not be questioned in any other Place. 
 
 No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for 
 which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under 
 the Authority of the United States, which shall have been 
 created, or the Emoluments Avhereof shall have been increased 
 during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the 
 United States, shall be a Member of either House during his 
 Continuance in Office. 
 
 Section 7. 
 
 All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House 
 of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur 
 with Amendments as on other Bills. 
 
 Every Bill which shall have passed the Plouse of Repre- 
 sentatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be 
 presented to the President of the United States; If he approve 
 he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Ob- 
 jections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who 
 shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and pro- 
 ceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 183 
 
 thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be 
 sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by 
 which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by 
 two-thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all 
 such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be detei'mined by 
 yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and 
 against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House 
 respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the Presi- 
 dent within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have 
 been presented to him, the same shall be a Law, in like Manner 
 as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjo\|}"n- 
 ment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. 
 Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence 
 of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary 
 (except on a case of Adjournment), shall be presented to the 
 President of the United States; and befoi'e the Same shall 
 take Eifect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved 
 by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and 
 House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limita- 
 tions prescribed in the Case of a Bill. 
 
 Section 8. 
 
 The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, 
 Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide 
 for the common" Defence and general Welfare of the United 
 States ; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform 
 throughout the United States; 
 
 To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; 
 
 To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among 
 the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; 
 
1S4 TEE constitution: 
 
 To establish a uniform Rule of ISTaturalization, and uniform 
 Laws on the subject of Bankrujitcies throughout the United 
 States; 
 
 To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign 
 Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures ; 
 
 To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Se- 
 curities and current Coin of the United States; 
 
 To establish Post-Offices and post-Roads ; 
 
 To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, 
 by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors 
 the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Dis- 
 coveries; 
 
 To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; 
 
 To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on 
 the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations; 
 
 To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, 
 and mal<:e Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; 
 
 To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of 
 Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two 
 Years; 
 
 To provide and maintain a Navy; 
 
 To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the 
 land and naval Forces; 
 
 To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the 
 Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Inva- 
 sions; 
 
 To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the 
 Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be em- 
 ployed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the 
 States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 185 
 
 tlie authority of training tlie militia according to the disci- 
 pline prescribed by Congress; 
 
 To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, 
 over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, 
 by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Con- 
 gress, become the Seat of the Government of the United 
 States, and -to exercise like Authority over all Places pur- 
 chased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in 
 Avhich the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Maga- 
 zines, Arsenals, Dock- Yards, and other needful Buildings; 
 And % 
 
 To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper 
 for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and. all 
 other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government 
 of the United. States, or in any Department or Officer thereof . 
 
 SECTioisr 9. 
 
 The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of 
 the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall 
 not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one 
 thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may 
 be im2:)osed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars 
 for each Person. 
 
 The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be 
 suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the 
 public Safety may require it. 
 
 No Bill of Attainder, or ex post facto Law shall be j^assed. 
 
 No Capitation or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in 
 Proportion to the Census or Enumei-ation herein before 
 dii'ected to be taken. 
 
i86 THE constitution: 
 
 No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from 
 any State. 
 
 No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Com- 
 merce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of an- 
 other: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be 
 obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties, in another. 
 
 No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, 'but in con- 
 sequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular 
 Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of 
 all public Money shall be published from time to time. 
 
 No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United 
 States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust 
 under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, ac- 
 cept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind 
 whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 
 
 Section 10, 
 
 No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Con- 
 federation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin 
 Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold 
 and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any 
 Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the 
 Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. 
 
 No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay 
 any Imposts or Duties on Lnports or Exports, except what 
 may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection 
 Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts laid 
 by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of 
 the Treasury of the LTnited States; and all such Laws shall 
 be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 187 
 
 No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any 
 Duty or Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War, in time of 
 Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another 
 State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless 
 actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not 
 admit of delay. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 Section 1. 
 
 The Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the 
 United States of America. He shall hold his office during 
 the Term of four Years, and together with the Vice-Presi- 
 dent, chosen for the same Term, be elected as follows: 
 
 Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legisla- 
 ture thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the 
 whole Number of Senatoi's and Representatives to which 
 the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator 
 or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or 
 Profit under the United States, shall be appointed* an 
 Elector. 
 
 *The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and 
 
 * This clause has been amended and superseded by the Twelfth Amend- 
 ment to the Constitution. By the provisions of the original clause the per- 
 son in the electoral college having the greatest number of votes (provided 
 he had a majorit}^ of the whole number of electors appointed) became 
 President, and the person having tiie next greatest number of votes became 
 Vice-President, thus giving the Presidency to one political party and the 
 Vice-Presidency to another. In the year 1800 the Democratic Republicans 
 determined to elect Thomas Jefferson, President, and Aaron Burr, Vice- 
 President. The result was that each secured an equal number of votes, and 
 neither was elected. The Constitution then, as now, provided that in case 
 the electoral college failed to elect a President, the House of Representa- 
 
188 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 vote by Ballot for two Persons, ol' whom one at least sliall 
 not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. 
 And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and 
 of the Number of Votes for each; which List they sign and 
 certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government 
 of the United States, directed to the President of the Sen- 
 ate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of 
 the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Cer- 
 tificates and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person 
 having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, 
 if such Number be a majority of the whole Number of Elect- 
 ors appointed; and if there be more than one who have 
 such a Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then 
 the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse, , by 
 Ballot, one of them for Pi-esident; and if no Person have a 
 Majority, then from the five -highest on the List, the said 
 House shall in like manner jchuse) the President. But in 
 \^chusing 'the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, 
 the Representation from each State having one vote; a 
 quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Mem- 
 bers from two-thirds of the States, and a Majority of all 
 
 tives, votin<? as States, should elect. The Federalists distrusted and dis- 
 liked Jefferson ; the Democratic Republicans and some of the Federalists 
 distrusted and disliked Buir. The vote in the House on the thirt3'-sixth 
 ballot gave the Presidency to Jefferson and the Vice-Presidency to Burr. 
 In order to prevent a repetition of so dangerous a struggle, the Twelfth 
 Amendment, by which the electoral votes are cast separately for the can- 
 didates for President and for Vice-President, was proposed by Congress 
 December 12, 1803, and declared in force September 25, 1804. Since that 
 time the electoral college has been constituted as at present, witli an odd 
 number of votes; a tie vote in tlie college is impossible. — The Government of 
 the People of the United States, Thorpe, page 272. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 189 
 
 the States shall be necessary to a choice. In eveiy Case, 
 after the Choice of the President, the Person having the 
 greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice- 
 President. But if tlrere should remain two or more who 
 have equal Votes, the Senate shalhchuse'jfrom them, by Bal- 
 lot the Vice-President. 
 
 The Congress may determine the Time of i^chusing^ the 
 Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; 
 which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. 
 
 No Person except a natural-born Citizen, or a Citizen of 
 the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Qo\)^ 
 stitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither 
 sliall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have 
 attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen 
 Years a Resident within the United States. 
 
 In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or 
 of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the 
 Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve 
 on the Vice-President, and the Congress niay by Law jjro- 
 vide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation, or In- 
 ability both of the President and Vice-President, declaring 
 what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer 
 shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a 
 President shall be elected. 
 
 The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Serv- 
 ices, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor 
 diminished during the Period for which he shall have been 
 elected, and he shall not receive within that Period, any 
 other Emolument from the United States, or any of them. 
 
 Before he enter on the Execution of his Office he shall 
 
190 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 take the following Oatli or Affirmation: — "I do solemnly 
 swear (or affirm) that I will faithfull}^ execute the Office of 
 President of the United States, and will, to the best of my 
 Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
 United States." 
 
 Section 2, 
 
 The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army 
 and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the 
 several States, when called into the actual Service of the 
 United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of 
 the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, 
 iipon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective 
 Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and 
 Pardons for Offences against the United States, exce2:)t in 
 Cases of Impeachment. 
 
 He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent 
 of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the 
 Senators present concur ; and he shall nominate, and by and 
 with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint 
 Ambassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls, Judges of 
 the sui^reme Court, and all other Officers of the United 
 States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided 
 for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress 
 may by LaAV vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, 
 as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of 
 Law, or in the Heads of Departments. 
 
 The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies 
 that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by grant- 
 ing Commissions which shall expire at the End of the next 
 Session. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 191 
 
 Section 3. 
 
 He shall from time to time give to the Congress Infor- 
 mation of the State of the Union, and recommend to their 
 Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessai'v and 
 expedient ; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene 
 both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement 
 between them, with Respect to the time of Adjournment, he 
 may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; 
 he .shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; 
 he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, 
 and shall commission all the Officers of the Unitq^ 
 States. 
 
 Section 4. 
 
 The President, Vice-President, and all civil Officers of the 
 United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment 
 for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high 
 Crimes and Misdemeanors. 
 
 ARTICLE III 
 
 Section 1. 
 The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested 
 in one supreme Court, and in such iuferior Coui'ts as the 
 Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. 
 The Judges, both of the su2:)renie and inferior Courts, 
 shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, 
 at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensa- 
 tion, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance 
 in Office. 
 
192 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Section 2. 
 
 The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and 
 Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the 
 United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, 
 under their Autliority; — to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, 
 other public Ministers, and Consuls; — to all Cases of admi- 
 ralty and maritime Jurisdiction; — to Controversies to which 
 the United States shall be a party; — to Controversies be- 
 tween two or more States; — between a State and Citizens of 
 another State; — between Citizens of different States, — be- 
 tween Citizens of the same State; — claiming Lands under 
 Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citi- 
 zens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens, or Subjects. 
 
 In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers, 
 and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party, the 
 supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the 
 other Cases before mentioned the supreme Court shall have 
 appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such 
 Exceptions, and under such Regulations, as the Congress 
 shall make. 
 
 The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, 
 
 shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State 
 
 Avhere the said Crimes shall have been committed ; but 
 
 when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at 
 
 such Place, or Places, as the Congress may by Law have 
 
 directed. 
 
 Section 3. 
 
 Treason against the United States shall consist only in 
 levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, 
 fxivinsr them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be con- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 19o' 
 
 victed of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses 
 to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. 
 
 The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment 
 of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corrup- 
 tion of Blood, or Forfeiture, except during the Life of the 
 Person attainted. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 Section 1. 
 Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the^ 
 iniblic Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every 
 other State. And the Congress may by general Laws pre- 
 scribe the Manner in which sucli Acts, Records, and Pro- 
 ceedings shall be proved and the Effect thereof. 
 
 Section 2. 
 
 The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privi- 
 leges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. 
 
 A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or 
 other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in 
 another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority 
 of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be re- 
 moved to the State having Jurisdiction of the crime. 
 
 No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under 
 the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Conse- 
 quence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from 
 such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim 
 of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.* 
 
 * The Underground Railroad. — Before the abolition of slavery a sys- 
 tem of aidiug runaway slaves to reach Canada was perfected in various 
 
194 THE CONSTJTUlIOJfJ. 
 
 Section 3. 
 
 New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 
 Union ; but no new State shall be formed or erected within 
 the Jurisdiction of any other State ; nor any State be formed 
 by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, 
 without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States con- 
 cerned, as well as of the Congress. 
 
 The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all 
 needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or 
 other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing 
 in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any 
 Claims of the United States, or of any particular States. 
 
 Section 4, 
 The United States shall guarantee to every State in this 
 Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect 
 each of them against Invasion ; and on Application of the 
 Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature can- 
 not be convened) against domestic Violence. 
 
 ARTICLE V. 
 
 The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall 
 deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Con- 
 stitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatui-es of two- 
 parts of the country. From different points on the Canadian frontier to the 
 Southern States were secret routes, along wliich, gevierall}^ by night, slaves 
 were helped to freedom by persons opposed to slavery. The whole move- 
 ment was unlawful at the time, and was popularly known as the " Under- 
 ground Railroad." A slave reaching British soil instantly became free. 
 — The Government of the People of the United States, p. 2*77. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 195 
 
 thirds of the several States, shall call a Conveiitiun for pro- 
 posing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to 
 all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when 
 ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several 
 States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the 
 one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by 
 the Congress ; Provided, that no Amendment, which may 
 be made prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and 
 eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth clauses 
 in the Ninth Section of the first Article ; and that no State, 
 without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffi-I^e 
 in the Senate. 
 
 ARTICLE VI. 
 
 All Debts contracted, and Engagements entered into, 
 before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid 
 against the United States under this Constitution, as under 
 the Confederation. 
 
 This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States 
 which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties 
 made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the 
 United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land; and 
 the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing 
 in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 Tiie Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and 
 the Members of the several State legislatures, and all execu- 
 tive and judicial Officers, both of the United States, and of 
 the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, 
 
196 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever 
 be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust 
 under the United States. 
 
 ARTICLE VII. 
 
 The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall 
 be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution Ijo- 
 tween the States so ratifying the Same. 
 
 Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the 
 States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the 
 Year of. our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty- 
 seven and of the Independence of the United States of 
 America the twelfth. 
 
 In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our 
 Names. George Washington, President, 
 
 And Deputy from Virginia. 
 
 The Word " the " being inter-lined between the seventh 
 and eighth Lines of the first Page, The Word "Thirty" 
 being jDartly written on an Erazure in the fi.fteenth Line of 
 the first Page, The Words " is tried " being inter-lined be- 
 tween the thirty second and thirty third Lines of the first 
 Page and the word " the " being inter-lined between the 
 forty third and forty fourth Lines of the second Page. 
 
 Attest, William Jackson, Secretary. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. CONNECTICITT. 
 
 John Langdon, "Wm. Sam'l Johnson, 
 
 Nicholas G-ilman. Roger Sherman. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Nutlianiel Gorham, new york. 
 
 Eufus King. Alexander Hamilton. 
 
THE GONSTITUTIOK 
 
 197 
 
 NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Wni. Livingston, 
 David Brearlej', 
 Wm. Paterson, 
 Jona. Dayton. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 B. Franklin, 
 Tliomas Mifflin, 
 Eob. Morris, 
 Geo. Cl3-mer, 
 Thos. Fitzsimons, 
 Jared Ingersoll, 
 James Wilson, 
 Gouv. Morris. 
 
 DELAWARE. 
 
 Geo. Read, 
 
 Gunning Bedford, Jr., 
 John Dickinson, 
 Richard Bassett, 
 Jacob Broom, 
 James McHenry. 
 
 MARYLAND. 
 
 Dan of St. Thos. Jenifer, 
 Dan. Carroll. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 Johu Blair, 
 James Madison, Jr. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 "Wm. Blount, 
 
 Richard Dobbs Spaight, 
 
 H. "Williamson. 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 J. Rutledge, 
 
 Charles Cotesworth Pincknej^, 
 Charles Pinckney, ^ 
 
 Pierce Butler. ^ 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 "William Few, 
 Abr. Baldwin. 
 
 In Convention, Mondatj, Sq^temher 17, 1787. 
 Prese7it 
 The States of 
 New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mr. Hamilton 
 from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- 
 land, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. 
 Mesolved, That the preceding Constitution be laid before 
 the United States in Congress assembled, and that it is the 
 Opinion of the Convention, that it should afterwards be 
 submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each 
 State by the People thereof; under the Recommendation of 
 the Legislature, for their Assent and Ratification; and that 
 each Convention assenting to, and ratifying the same, should 
 give Notice thereof to the United States in Congress as- 
 sembled. 
 
198 TEE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Mesoloed, That it is Opinion of this Convention that as 
 soon as the Conventions of nine States shall have ratified 
 this Constitution, the United States in Congress assembled 
 should fix a Day on which Electors should be apj)ointed by 
 the States which shall have ratified the same, and a day on 
 wliich the Electors should assemble to vote for the President, 
 and the Time and Place for commencing Proceedings under 
 tliis Constitution. That after such Publication the Electors 
 should be appointed and the Senators and Representatives 
 elected : That the Electors should meet on the Day fixed 
 for the Election of the President, and should transmit their 
 V^otes certified, signed, sealed and directed, as the Constitu- 
 tion requires, to the Secretary of the United States in Con- 
 gress assembled, that the Senators and Representatives 
 should convene at the Time and Place assigned; that the 
 Senators should appoint a President of the Senate for the 
 sole Purpose of receiving, opening and counting the Votes 
 for President; and, that after he shall be chosen, the Con- 
 gress, together with the President, should, without delay, 
 proceed to execute this Constitution. 
 
 By the unanimous Order of the Convention, 
 
 George Washington, President. 
 
 W. Jackson, Secretary. 
 
TEE CONSTITUTION. 199 
 
 ARTICLES IN ADDITION TO, AND AMENDMENT OF, THE CONSTI- 
 TUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.* 
 
 Article 1. 
 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishraent 
 of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or 
 abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right 
 of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Gov- 
 ernment for a redress of grievances. 
 
 Article 2. % 
 
 A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of 
 
 a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms 
 
 shall not be infringed. 
 
 Article 3. 
 
 No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any 
 
 house without the consent of the owner ; nor, in time of war, 
 
 but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 
 
 Article 4. 
 The right of the people to be secure in their persons, 
 houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 
 seizures, sliall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, 
 
 * Proposed by Congress and ratified by the legislatures of the several 
 States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution. 
 
 More than seven hundred amendments to the Constitution have been 
 proposed since it was adopted. Several are usuaUy proposed at each session 
 of Congress. 
 
 The first twelve articles of amendment to the Federal Constitution were 
 adopted so soon after the original organization of the Government under it 
 in 1789 as to justify the statement that they were practically contempo- 
 raneous with the adoption of the original (Justice Miller, United States 
 Supreme Court.) — The Gomrnment of the People of the United States, p. 280. 
 
200 TEE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 but upon i^robable cause, supported by oa^h or affirmation, 
 and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the 
 persons or things to be seized. 
 
 Article 5. 
 No person shall be held to answer for a capital or other- 
 wise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment 
 of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval 
 forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of 
 war, or public danger; nor shall any person be subject, for 
 the same offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; 
 nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness 
 against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
 without due process of law; nor shall private property be 
 taken for public use withaut just compensation. 
 
 Article 6. 
 In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the 
 right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of 
 the State and district wherein the ci'ime shall have been com- 
 mitted, which district shall have been previously ascertained 
 by law, aisd to be informed of the nature and cause of the 
 accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses aga^inst him; 
 to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his 
 favor ; and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. 
 
 Article 1. 
 In suits at common law where the value in controversy 
 shall exceed twenty dollars the right of trial by jury shall be 
 preserved; and no fact, tried by a jury, shall be otherwise 
 re-examined in any court of the United States, than accord- 
 ing to the rules of the common law. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 201 
 
 Article 8. 
 Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines 
 imposed, nor cruel and unusual punisliments inflicted. 
 
 Article 9. 
 
 The enumeration in tlie Constitution of certain riglits ishall 
 
 not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the 
 
 people. 
 
 Article 10. 
 
 The powers not delegated to the United States by the 
 
 Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 
 
 to the States respectively, or to the people. ^ 
 
 Article 11. 
 The judicial power of the United States shall not be con- 
 strued to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or 
 prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of 
 another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign 
 
 State.*. 
 
 Article 12. 
 
 The Electors shall meet in their respective States and vote 
 
 by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom at 
 
 least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with 
 
 themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted 
 
 *In the case of Chisholm vs. The State of Georgia the Supreme Court de- 
 cided tliat under Article III, § 2, of the Constitution a private citizen of a 
 State might bring suit against a State other than the one of which he was a 
 citizen. This decision, by which a State might be brought as defendant 
 before the bar of a Federal court, was highly displeasing to a majority of 
 the States in 1794. On the 5th of March of that year the Eleventh Amend- 
 ment was passed by two-thirds of botli houses of Congress, and declared 
 in force January 8, 1798. Practically, tlie amendment has been the au- 
 thority for the repudiation of debts by several States. — The Government of 
 the People of the United States, p. 282. 
 
202 THE constitution: 
 
 for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for 
 as Vice-President; and they shall make distinct lists of all 
 persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for 
 as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which 
 lists they shall sign, and certify, and transmit, sealed, to the 
 seat of government of the United States, directed to the 
 Pi'esident of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, 
 in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
 open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; 
 the person having the greatest number of votes for Presi- 
 dent shall be the President, if such number be a majority of 
 the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no j^erson 
 have such majority, then, from the jDersons having the highest 
 numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for 
 as President, the House of Representatives shall choose im- 
 mediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the 
 President the votes shall be taken by States, the representa- 
 tion from each State having one vote; a quorum for this j^ur- 
 pose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds 
 of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be neces- 
 sary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall 
 not choose a President, whenever the right to choose shall 
 devolve upon them, before the 4th day of March next fol- 
 lowing, then the Vice-President shall act as President, and 
 in case of the death, or other constitutional disability, of the 
 President. 
 
 The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice- 
 President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a 
 majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if 
 no person have a majority, then, from the two highest num- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 203 
 
 bers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; 
 
 a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the 
 
 whole number of Senators ; a majority of the whole number 
 
 shall be necessary to a choice. 
 
 But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of 
 
 President, shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the 
 
 United States. 
 
 Article 13. 
 
 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a 
 punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duh^ 
 convicted, shall exist within the United States or any ||lace 
 subject to their jurisdiction. 
 
 Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appro- 
 priate legislation.* 
 
 Article 14. 
 
 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and 
 subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United 
 States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall 
 make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 
 or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any 
 State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without 
 due process of law, nor deny to any person within its juris- 
 diction the equal protection of the laws, f 
 
 * The Emaucipation Proclamation and the events of the Civil "War led to 
 the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. Its language is substantiality 
 the same as that used in the celebrated ordinance of 1787. It was proposed 
 April 8, 1864, and proclaimed in force December 18, 1865. 
 
 f The events of the Civil War (1861-65) made necessary an entire recon- 
 struction of political society in the United States, to accord with the new 
 conditions produced by the abolition of slavery. The object of the amend- 
 ment was to confer citizenship upon negroes, and to make it an object to 
 all the States to recognize and further this right. It was proposed Juue 8, 
 
204 THE GONSTITUTIOK 
 
 Rej^resentatives shall be aj)portioned among the several 
 States accoi'ding to their respective numbers, counting the 
 whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not 
 taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the 
 choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the 
 United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive 
 and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legis- 
 lature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of 
 such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of 
 the United States, or in any w^ay abridged, except for par- 
 ticipation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representa- 
 tion therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the 
 number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number 
 of male citizens, twenty-one years of age, in such State. 
 
 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Con- 
 gress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold 
 any office, civil or military, under the United States, or un- 
 der any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a 
 member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or 
 as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or 
 judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of 
 the United States, sliall have engaged in insurrection or re- 
 bellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the ene- 
 mies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of 
 each Plouse, remove such disability. 
 
 The validity of the public debt of the Lmited States, au- 
 
 185,6^ and declared in force July 28, 1868. The amendment is especially il- 
 lustrative of the " reconstruction " ideas in force after the war. The amend- 
 ment made the people of the colored race citizens of the United States, and 
 conferred upon them the equal protection of the laws. — The Government of 
 the People of the United States, p. 284. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 205 
 
 tliorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of 
 pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection 
 or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United 
 States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation 
 incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United 
 States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; 
 but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal 
 and void. 
 
 The Congress shall have jiower to enforce, by appropriate 
 legislation, the jjrovisions of this article. 
 
 Article 15. 
 
 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall 
 not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any 
 State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of 
 servitude. 
 
 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
 appropriate legislation.* 
 
 * " The Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of 
 sufifrage upon any one " (Chief- Justice Waite). An amendment was nec- 
 essary to prevent the States or the United States from giving preference, in 
 the right to vote, to one citizen of the United States over anotlier on account 
 of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. "The Fifteentli Amend- 
 ment had the effect in law of removing from the State constitutions, or mak- 
 ing void, any provision iu them which restricted the right to vote to the 
 while race " (Justice Harlan). By the second section Congress is ex- 
 pressly empowered to enforce the amendment. It was proposed by Con- 
 press February 26, 1869, and proclaimed in force March 30, 18*70. This 
 amendment illustrates the liberal character of the Government of the peo- 
 ple of the United States, and a striking contrast may now be drawn between 
 tiic narrow and somewhat selfish principles of the Federal Government in 
 ] 789, and the broad and humane principles whicli actuate the nation at the 
 present time. — The Government of the People of the United States, p. 286. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AdmlnistratlOD of government in the Unit- 
 ed States of America, 1776 to 1787, 68. 
 
 in England, 69. 
 
 in the United States of America afier 
 1787, 175, 176, 177. 
 Articles of Confederation, committee on, 
 76, 77, 78. 
 
 character of, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 83, 84. 
 
 before the States, 79. 
 
 an anomalous government, 85. 
 
 theory of, 86. 
 
 defects of, 86, 87. 
 
 collapse of, 101, 109. 
 Assembly, Colonial, composition of, 16. 
 
 compared to State legislature, 17. 
 
 first general, 25, 26, 27. 
 
 and-Parliament, 29. 
 
 and taxation, 31. 
 
 triumphs over Parliament, 57, 58. 
 
 a precedent in the Constitution, 144, 
 145. 
 
 resume, 175, 176. 
 Authorities consulted, 9. 
 
 Charters, first Virginia, 18. 
 
 its seal, 19. 
 
 Its failure, 20. 
 
 second Virginia, 20. 
 
 third Virginia, 21, 22. 
 Congress, first Continental, 31. 
 
 second, 37, 70. 
 
 Congress of Confederation, 60, 61. 
 
 its acts, 62. 
 
 its delegates, 66, 67. 
 
 its finance, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95. 
 
 lacks of quorum, 101. 
 
 denied adequate powers. 111. 
 
 passes ordinance of 1787, 132. 
 
 ceases to exist, 170. 
 
 1 Constitutions, first State, 38, 39, 40. 
 
 Massachusetts, 1780, 40-46. 
 
 of other States, 46, 
 
 changes in, during the century, 47. 
 
 property qualifications, 48. 
 
 religious qualifications, 49. 
 
 administrative departments, 42. 
 
 legislative departments, 53. ^ 
 
 judicial departments, 54. 
 
 influence of one State on another, 
 55,56. 
 
 difference between first and later con- 
 stitution, 56. 
 
 New Jersey, 70. 
 
 Virginia, 71. 
 
 Virginia's plan for a national govern- 
 ment, 120, 121, 134. 
 
 New Jersey plan, 122. 
 
 Connecticut compromise, 127. 
 
 debate on representation, 128-132. 
 
 compromises in national, 128, 132, 138. 
 
 debate on slavery, 130-138. 
 
 the national Constitution signed, 142. 
 
 presented to Congress, 143. 
 
 origin of national Constitution, 144, 
 145, 146. 
 
 before the State ratifying conven- 
 tions : Pennsylvania, 150 ; Delaware, 
 153 ; New Jersey, 153 ; Georgia, 154 ; 
 Connecticut, 154 ; Massachusetts, 
 154; New Hampshire, 159, 161; 
 Maryland, 1.59; South Carolina, 
 160; Virginia, 161; New York, 162; 
 North Carolina, 166; Rhode Island, 
 167. 
 
 Constitution takes effect, 168. 
 
 amendments to, 173, 174, 175. 
 
 text of the Constitution of the United 
 States, 178-305. 
 
208 
 
 Convention, first American, 30. 
 Hartford, 87, 88. 
 Annapolis, 106. 
 Philadelphia, 107, ct seq. 
 ratifying conventions, 150-167. 
 
 Declarations, of 1765, 30. 
 of 1770, 33, 71, 75, 76. 
 
 Education, 51. 
 
 Elector, qualifications of, 23, 23, 24, 
 48,49. 
 
 Finance, taxation by Parliament, 39. 
 
 during confederation, 89, 90. 
 
 paper money, 91-99. 
 
 tariff, 97. 
 Franklin, 73, 73, 105, 115, 138, 139. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hamilton, 74, 125, 163, 105, 173. 
 
 Members of Constitutional Convention, 
 111, 113, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119. 
 
 Navigation laws, 96, 97, 103, 135, 136, 137, 
 138. 
 
 Revolution of 1776, 28, 39, 31. 
 
 Washington, George, his views on govern- 
 ment, delegate to Philadelphia Con- 
 vention, 111 ; its president, 119. 
 
 elected President of the United States, 
 171. 
 
 his journey to New York, 171. 
 
 inauguration, 172. 
 
 appoints his cabinet, 173. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 
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