the greatness, nay, the existence, of the Republic; and, unlike Madison, he was consistent to the end, and did not adopt a course calculated to subvert what he had reared.

The praise due to Hamilton should not make us forget the claims of Madison, whose synthetic powers equalled Hamilton's, and who, in a letter to Randolph of the 8th of April, 1787, gave an outline of the plan which the Convention subsequently adopted, except that the power to set aside a State law as unconstitutional was vested in the Supreme Court instead of Congress.1

Congress now proceeded to name the first Wednesday in January, 1789, for the appointment of electors to choose a President of the United States, the first Wednesday of the succeeding February for the meeting of the electoral colleges, and the first Wednesday of the following March and the city of New York as the time and place for the inauguration of the new government.

1 "In truth, my ideas of a reform strike deeply at the present confederation, and lead to such a systematic change that they scarcely admit of the expedient. . . . I hold it for a fundamental point that an individual independence of the States is utterly irreconcilable with the idea of an aggregate sovereignty. I think at the same time that a consolidation of the States into a single Republic is not less unattainable than it would be inexpedient. Let it be tried, then, whether any middle ground cannot be taken which will support a due supremacy of the national authority, and leave in force the local authorities, so far as they can be subordinately useful." The mode proposed was: "A proportionate representation of the States to their numbers; the national government to be armed with a positive and complete authority in all cases where uniform measures are necessary for retaining the power it now possesses. A negative in all cases whatsoever on the legislative acts of the States, as the king of Great Britain heretofore had. This I conceive to be essential, and the least positive abridgment of the State sovereignties. Without such a defensive power, every positive power that can be given on paper will be unavailing. It will also give internal stability to the States. The extension of this national supremacy to the judiciary department. A legislature of two branches, one to be chosen by the legislatures, or the people at large, the other of a more select number, holding their appointments for a longer time, going out in rotation. Perhaps the negative on the State laws may be most conveniently lodged in this branch." Madison to Randolph, April 8, 1787; History, etc., by John C. Hamilton, iii. 250, 251. 1 Madison's Writings, 288.

See

ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT.

45

Electors having been appointed in the various States, who met and cast their votes in accordance with this recommendation, which had no legal or binding force save from the assent of those to whom it was addressed, and the elections for Senators and Representatives having been duly held, the Congress of the United States assembled on the 4th of March, 1789; but the want of a quorum delayed the count of the electoral vote until the 6th of April, when George Washington was found to have been unanimously chosen as President, and John Adams as Vice-President. Washington was sworn into office on the 30th of April, and the various departments of the government were then organized and went into operation.

These proceedings, like those on which they were based, partook of a revolutionary nature, because two of the States had not ratified the Constitution, and were entitled to insist that the existing government should not be set aside and another substituted without their assent; but the change was so beneficial, and in such entire accordance with the logic of events, that no one seriously contemplated armed resistance, and all pretext for complaint was removed by the accession. of North Carolina in November, 1789, and of Rhode Island in May, 1790.

We have, so far as I am aware, no account of the thoughts of the officers of the newly established government in entering on the performance of their duties; but we may infer that while they were not free from the solicitude which the novelty of the experiment, and the responsibility incident to setting so many new and untried springs in motion, were calculated to inspire, they had yet a heartfelt satisfaction in the belief that the anxiety which since the passage of the Stamp Act, and for more than twenty years, had clouded the breast of every American, was at length dispelled, and that the nation, now assured of its existence, was about to enter on a long season of prosperity, which might lead to greatness.

Such we know authentically were the emotions of the members of the Federal Convention when they completed their labors by signing the scroll on which the Constitution

was engrossed. Franklin, Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton, and others of equal weight, had urged the necessity for unanimity and concession, and Washington, for the first time since he took the chair, said a few earnest words in favor of an amendment intended to conciliate the smaller States, which was unanimously adopted.

The delegates then gathered round the secretary's desk to subscribe their names; and while the last was signing, Dr. Franklin, looking towards a sun which was depicted behind the president's chair as on the verge of the horizon, observed that painters in the practice of their art found it difficult to distinguish a rising from a setting sun. "I have," he went on to say, "often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at the sun behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to know it is a rising, and not a setting sun."1 The future did not belie this prediction; but it was not until the inauguration of General Washington as the first President of the United States that the sun of the Republic could be said to be clearly above the horizon.

13 Madison Papers, 1624.

LECTURE IV.

The Constitutional Convention.- Authority of the Delegates. - The Resolutions offered by Randolph and by Patterson. The National Supremacy of the United States asserted, and the Sovereignty of the States, even under the Confederation, questioned by King, Madison, Gerry, Morris, and others. - The United States a Government of Individuals, not of States. The People, not the States, the Immediate Subjects of its Coercive Powers. Buchanan's Message.

BEFORE examining the powers of the Government of the United States in detail, it may be well to note the various and not infrequently conflicting opinions which, expressed with rare earnestness and sincerity in the Convention that met in Philadelphia on the 14th of May, 1787, led to the evolution of the Constitution and prepared the way for its acceptance in the States. The authority of the delegates was limited to proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation, which, agreeably to the thirteenth and final clause of that instrument, would not be binding until approved by Congress and ratified by the legislature of every State. The reason for this requirement is obvious. It was because a perpetual compact and such the Confederation was, not merely by implication, but expressly could not be rescinded without the consent of all the parties. There could be no more convincing proof that notwithstanding the weakness of the existing Government, it was viewed, not as a mere delegate or representative of the States whose authority might be recalled at pleasure, but as a principal whose concurrence was essential to the compact. When, however, the delegates assembled, it became apparent that they could not devise an efficient Government without exceeding their instructions both in form and substance. Instead of amending the Confederation, they

proceeded to frame a new Constitution, which was to be submitted for ratification, not to Congress and the State legislatures, but to the people of the several States.1

On the 30th of May, three days after the organization of the Convention, it was by a large majority of the States and delegates present resolved, on the motion of Edmund Randolph, from Virginia, that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary; and to this determination the Convention substantially adhered throughout their subsequent proceedings. For although "Government of the United States was, on the rising of the committee of the whole, substituted for "National Government" on the motion of Mr. Ellsworth, the significant adjective supreme remained to control the sentence.2

A government consisting of a supreme legislature, executive, and judiciary, and acting directly on all the inhabitants, without regard to local boundaries or jurisdictions, is necessarily a national government, whatever it may be called. This was explicitly stated by Mr. Madison and other delegates; and the proposition is too obvious for argument. In the Convention at the time, and when the question subsequently came before the people, the proposed government was characterized on all sides as national, the only difference being that while the friends of the Constitution pointed out that it was in some points federal, in others national, the opponents of the measure took the ground that the consolidation was complete, and abrogated the sovereignty of the several States.

On the 19th of June, after the scheme of Governor Randolph had been reported by the committee of the whole, Mr. Patterson, on behalf of the New Jersey delegation, asked for time to digest a plan purely federal as distinguished from that

1 Thus Gouverneur Morris declared on the 23d of July that it was erroneous to suppose that the Convention was "proceeding on the basis of the Confederation. This Convention is unknown to the Confederation." Elliott's Madison, 355 (Philad., 1876).

2 See Luther Martin's letter to the Maryland House of Delegates, 1 Elliott's Debates, 190.