unavoidable. In the formation of the Senate, we ought to carry it through such a refining process as will assimilate it, as nearly as may be, to the House of Lords in England. He repeated his warm eulogiums on the British Constitution. He was for a strong National Government; but for leaving the States a considerable agency in the system. The objection against making the former dependent on the latter might be obviated by giving to the Senate an authority permanent, and irrevocable for three, five or seven years. Being thus independent, they will check and decide with uncommon freedom.

Mr. READ. Too much attachment is betrayed to the State Governments. We must look beyond their continuance. A National Government must soon of necessity swallow them all up. They will soon be reduced to the mere office of electing the National Senate. He was against patching up the old Federal system: he hoped the idea would be dismissed. It would be like putting new cloth on an old garment. The confederation was founded on temporary principles. It cannot last: it cannot be amended. If we do not establish a good government on new principles, we must either go to ruin, or have the work to do over again. The people at large are wrongly suspected of being averse to a General Government. The aversion lies among interested men who possess their confidence.

MR. PIERCE was for an election by the people as to the first branch, and by the States as to the second branch; by which means the citizens of the States would be represented both individually and collectively.

General PINCKNEY wished to have a good National Government, and at the same time to leave a considerable share of power in the States. An election of either branch by the people, scattered as they are in many States, particularly in South Carolina, was totally impracticable. He differed from gentlemen who thought that a choice by the people would be a better guard against bad measures, than by the Legislatures. A majority of the people in South Carolina were notoriously for paper-money, as a legal tender; the Legislature had refused to make it a legal tender. The reason was, that the latter had some sense of character, and were restrained by that consideration. The State Legislatures, also, he said, would be more jealous, and more ready to thwart the National Government, if excluded from a participation in it. The idea of abolishing these Legislatures would never go down.

Mr. WILSON would not have spoken again, but for what had fallen from Mr. READ; namely that the idea of preserving the State Governments ought to be abandoned. He saw no incompatibility between the National and State Governments, provided the latter were restrained to certain local purposes; nor any probability of their being devoured by the former. In all confederated systems, ancient and modern, the reverse had happened; the generality being destroyed gradually by the usurpations of the parts composing it.

On the question for electing the first branch by the State Legislatures as moved by Mr. PINCKNEY, it was negatived,--Connecticut, New Jersey, South Carolina, aye-3; Massachusetts, New York, Penn

sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, no-8.195

Mr. WILSON moved to reconsider the vote excluding the Judiciary from a share in the revision of the laws, and to add, after "national Executive," the words, "with a convenient number of the national Judiciary;" remarking the expediency of reinforcing the Executive with the influence of that depart

ment.

Mr. MADISON Seconded the motion. He observed, that the great difficulty in rendering the Executive competent to its own defence arose from the nature of republican government, which could not give to an individual citizen that settled pre-eminence in the eyes of the rest, that weight of property, that personal interest against betraying the national interest, which appertain to an hereditary magistrate. In a republic personal merit alone could be the ground of political exaltation; but it would rarely happen that this merit would be so preeminent as to produce universal acquiescence. The executive magistrate would be envied and assailed by disappointed competitors: his firmness therefore would need support. He would not possess those great emoluments from his station, nor that permanent stake in the public interest, which would place him out of the reach of foreign corruption. He would stand in need therefore of being controlled as well as supported. An association of the judges in his revisionary function would both double the advantage, and diminish the danger. It would also enable the Judiciary department the better to defend

itself against legislative encroachments. Two objections had been made,-first, that the judges ought not to be subject to the bias which a participation in the making of laws might give in the exposition of them; secondly, that the Judiciary department ought to be separate and distinct from the other great departments. The first objection had some weight; but it was much diminished by reflecting, that a small proportion of the laws coming in question before a judge would be such wherein he had been consulted; that a small part of this proportion would be so ambiguous as to leave room for his prepossessions; and that but a few cases would probably arise in the life of a judge, under such ambiguous passages. How much good, on the other hand, would proceed from the perspicuity, the conciseness, and the systematic character which the code of laws would receive from the Judiciary talents. As to the second objection, it either had no weight, or it applied with equal weight to the Executive, and to the Judiciary revision of the laws. The maxim on which the objection was founded, required a separation of the Executive, as well as the Judiciary, from the Legislature and from each other. There would, in truth, however, be no improper mixture of these distinct powers in the present case. In England, whence the maxim itself had been drawn, the Executive had an absolute negative on the laws; and the supreme tribunal of justice (the House of Lords). formed one of the other branches of the Legislature. In short, whether the object of the revisionary power was to restrain the Legislature from en

croaching on the other co-ordinate departments, or on the rights of the people at large; or from passing laws unwise in their principle, or incorrect in their form; the utility of annexing the wisdom and weight of the Judiciary to the Executive seemed incontestable.

Mr. GERRY thought the Executive whilst standing alone would be more impartial than when he could be covered by the sanction and seduced by the sophistry of the Judges.

Mr. KING. If the unity of the Executive was preferred for the sake of responsibility, the policy of it is as applicable to the revisionary, as to the executive, power.

Mr. PINCKNEY had been at first in favor of joining the heads of the principal departments, the Secretary at War, of Foreign Affairs, &c. in the Council of Revision. He had, however, relinquished the idea, from a consideration that these could be called on by the executive magistrate, whenever he pleased to consult them. He was opposed to the introduction of the judges into the business.

Colonel MASON was for giving all possible weight to the revisionary institution. The executive power ought to be well secured against legislative usurpations on it. The purse and the sword ought never to get into the same hands whether legislative or executive.

Mr. DICKINSON. Secrecy, vigor, and despatch are not the principal properties required in the Executive. Important as these are, that of responsibility is more so, which can only be preserved by leaving it singly to discharge its functions. He thought, too,