undertake the legislative service. Genius and virtue, it may be said, ought to be encouraged. Genius, for aught he knew, might; but that virtue should be encouraged by such a species of venality, was an idea that at least had the merit of being new.

Mr. KING remarked that we were refining too much in this busi ness; and that the idea of preventing intrigue and solicitation of offices was chimerical. You say, that no member shall himself be eligi ble to any office. Will this restrain him from availing himself of the same means which would gain appointments for himself, to gain them for his son, his brother, or any other object of his partiality? We were losing, therefore, the advantages on one side, without avoiding the evils on the other.

Mr. WILSON supported the motion. The proper cure, he said, for corruption in the legislature, was to take from it the power of appointing to offices. One branch of corruption would, indeed, remain, that of creating unnecessary offices, or granting unnecessary salaries, and for that the amendment would be a proper remedy. He animadverted on the impropriety of stigmatizing with the name of venality the laudable ambition of rising into the honorable offices of the government, an ambition most likely to be felt in the early and most incorrupt period of life, and which all wise and free governments had deemed it sound policy to cherish, not to check. The members of the legislature have, perhaps, the hardest and least profitable task of any who engage in the service of the state. Ought this merit to be made a disqualification?

Mr. SHERMAN observed that the motion did not go far enough. It might be evaded by the creation of a new office, the translation to it of a person from another office, and the appointment of a member of the legislature to the latter. A new embassy might be established to a new Court, and an ambassador taken from another, in order to create a vacancy for a favorite member. He admitted that inconveniences lay on both sides. He hoped there would be sufficient inducements to the public service without resorting to the prospect of desirable offices; and, on the whole, was rather against the motion of Mr. Madison.

Mr. GERRY thought there was great weight in the objection of Mr. Sherman. He added, as another objection against admitting the eligibility of members in any case, that it would produce intrigues of ambitious men for displacing proper officers, in order to create vacancies for themselves. In answer to Mr. King, he observed, that, although members, if disqualified themselves, might still intrigue and cabal for their sons, brothers, &c., yet as their own interests would be dearer to them than those of their nearest connections, it might be expected they would go greater lengths to promote them.

Mr. MADISON had been led to this motion, as a middle ground between an eligibility in all cases and an absolute disqualification. He admitted the probable abuses of an eligibility of the members to of

fices, particularly within the gift of the legislature. He had witnessed the partiality of such bodies to their own members, as had been remarked of the Virginia Assembly by his colleague, (Col. Mason.) He appealed, however, to him in turn to vouch another fact not less notorious in Virginia, that the backwardness of the best citizens to engage in the legislative service gave but too great success to unfit characters. The question was not to be viewed on one side only. The advantages and disadvantages on both ought to be fairly compared. The objects to be aimed at were, to fill all offices with the fittest characters, and to draw the wisest and most worthy citizens into the legislative service. If, on one hand, public bodies were partial to their own members, on the other, they were as apt to be misled by taking characters on report, or the authority of patrons and dependents. All who had been concerned in the appointment of strangers, on those recommendations, must be sensible of this truth. Nor would the partialities of such bodies be obviated by disqualifying their own members. Candidates for office would hover round the seat of government, or be found among the residents there, and practise all the means of courting the favor of the members. A great proportion of the appointments made by the states were evidently brought about in this way. In the general government, the evil must be still greater, the characters of distant states being much less known throughout the United States than those of the distant parts of the same state. The elections by Congress had generally turned on men living at the seat of the federal government, or in its neighborhood. As to the next object, the impulse to the legislative service was evinced by experience to be in general too feeble with those best qualified for it. This inconvenience would also be more felt in the national government than in the state governments, as the sacrifices required from the distant members would be much greater, and the pecuniary provisions, probably, more disproportionate. It would therefore be impolitic to add fresh objections to the legislative service by an absolute disqualification of its members. The point in question was, whether this would be an objection with the most capable citizens. Arguing from experience, he concluded that it would. The legislature of Virginia would probably have been without many of its best members, if in that situation they had been ineligible to Congress, to the government, and other honorable offices of the state.

Mr. BUTLER thought characters fit for office would never be unknown.

Col. MASON. If the members of the legislature are disqualified, still the honors of the state will induce those who aspire to them to enter that service, as the field in which they can best display and improve their talents, and lay the train for their subsequent ad

vancement.

Mr. JENIFER remarked, that in Maryland the senators, chosen for five years, could hold no other office; and that this circumstance gained them the greatest confidence of the people.

On the question for agreeing to the motion of Mr. Madison,

Connecticut, New Jersey, ay, 2; New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 8; Massachusetts, divided.

Mr. SHERMAN moved to insert the words, "and incapable of holding" after the words "ineligible to," which was agreed to without opposition.

The word "established," and the words "under the national government," were struck out of the third resolution.

Mr. SPAIGHT called for a division of the question, in consequence of which it was so put as that it turned on the first member of it, on the ineligibility of members during the term for which they were elected - whereon the states were,

Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, ay, 8; Pennsylvania, Georgia, no, 2; Massachusetts, divided.

On the second member of the sentence, extending ineligibility of members to one year after the term for which they were elected, Col. MASON thought this esential to guard against evasions by resignations, and stipulations for office to be fulfilled at the expiration of the legislative term.

Mr. GERRY had known such a case.

Mr. HAMILTON. Evasions could not be prevented, as by proxies, by friends holding for a year, and then opening the way, &c. Mr. RUTLEDGE admitted the possibility of evasions, but was for contracting them as far as possible. On the question,

New York, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, ay, 4; Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, no, 6; Pennsylvania. divided.137

Adjourned.

In Convention.

MONDAY, June 25.

up,

The fourth resolution being taken Mr. PINCKNEY spoke as follows: The efficacy of the system will depend on this article. In order to form a right judgment in the case, it will be proper to examine the situation of this country more accurately than it has yet been done.

The people of the United States are perhaps the most singular of any we are acquainted with. Among them there are fewer distinctions of fortune, and less of rank, than among the inhabitants of any other nation. Every freeman has a right to the same protection and security; and a very moderate share of property entitles them to the possession of all the honors and privileges the public can bestow. Hence arises a greater equality than is to be found among the people of any other country; and an equality which is more likely to continue. I say, this equality is likely to continue; because in a new country, possessing immense tracts of uncultivated lands, where every temptation is offered to emigration, and where industry must be rewarded with competency, there will be few poor, and few dependent

Every member of the society almost will enjoy an equal power of arriving at the supreme offices, and consequently of directing the strength and sentiments of the whole community. None will be excluded by birth, and few by fortune, from voting for proper persons to fill the offices of government. The whole community will enjoy, in the fullest sense, that kind of political liberty which consists in the power the members of the state reserve to themselves of arriving at the public offices, or, at least, of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them.

If this state of things is true, and the prospect of its continuance probable, it is perhaps not politic to endeavor too close an imitation of a government calculated for a people whose situation is, and whose views ought to be, extremely different.

Much has been said of the constitution of Great Britain. I will confess that I believe it to be the best constitution in existence; but, at the same time, I am confident it is one that will not or cannot be introduced into this country for many centuries. If it were proper to go here into an historical dissertation on the British constitution, it might easily be shown that the peculiar excellence, the distinguishing feature, of that government cannot possibly be introduced into our system; that its balance between the crown and the people cannot be made a part of our Constitution; that we neither have nor can have the members to compose it, nor the rights, privileges, and properties, of so distinct a class of citizens to guard; that the materials for forming this balance or check do not exist, nor is there a necessity for having so permanent a part of our legislative, until the executive power is so constituted as to have something fixed and dangerous in its principle. By this I mean a sole, hereditary, though limited exec

utive.

That we cannot have a proper body for forming a legislative balance between the inordinate power of the executive and the people, is evident from a review of the accidents and circumstances which gave rise to the peerage of Great Britain. I believe it is well ascertained, that the parts which compose the British constitution arose immediately from the forests of Germany; but the antiquity of the establishment of nobility is by no means clearly defined. Some authors are of opinion that the dignity denoted by the titles of dux and comes, was derived from the old Roman, to the German, empire; while others are of opinion that they existed among the Germans long before the Romans were acquainted with them. The institution, however, of nobility is immemorial among the nations who may properly be termed the ancestors of Great Britain. At the time they were summoned in England to become a part of the national council, the circumstances which contributed to make them a constituent part of that constitution must be well known to all gentlemen who have had industry and curiosity enough to investigate the subject. The nobles, with their possessions and dependents, composed a body permanent in their nature, and formidable in point of power. They had a dis

tinct interest both from the king and the people, an interest which could only be represented by themselves, and the guardianship of which could not be safely intrusted to others. At the time they were originally called to form a part of the national council, necessity perhaps, as much as other causes, induced the monarch to look up to them. It was necessary to demand the aid of his subjects in personal and pecuniary services. The power and possessions of the nobility would not permit taxation from any assembly of which they were not a part and the blending of the deputies of the commons with them, and thus forming what they called their parler-ment, was perhaps as much the effect of chance as of any thing else. The commons were at that time completely subordinate to the nobles, whose consequence and influence seem to have been the only reasons for their superiority; a superiority so degrading to the commons, that in the first summons, we find the peers are called upon to consult, the commons to consent. From this time the peers have composed a part of the British legislature; and, notwithstanding their power and influence have diminished, and those of the commons have increased, yet still they have always formed an excellent balance against either the encroachments of the crown or the people.

I have said that such a body cannot exist in this country for ages; and that, until the situation of our people is exceedingly changed, no necessity will exist for so permanent a part of the legislature. To illustrate this, I have remarked that the people of the United States are more equal in their circumstances than the people of any other country; that they have very few rich men among them- by rich men I mean those whose riches may have a dangerous influence, or such as are esteemed rich in Europe- perhaps there are not one hundred such on the continent; that it is not probable this number will be greatly increased; that the genius of the people, their mediocrity of situation, and the prospects which are afforded their industry, in a country which must be a new one for centuries, are unfavorable to the rapid distinction of ranks. The destruction of the right of primogeniture, and the equal division of the property of intestates, will also have an effect to preserve this mediocrity; for laws invariably affect the manners of people. On the other hand, that vast extent of unpeopled territory, which opens to the frugal and industrious a sure road to competency and independence, will effectually prevent, for a considerable time, the increase of the poor or discontented, and be the means of preserving that equality of condition which so eminently distinguishes us.

If equality is, as I contend, the leading feature of the United States, where, then, are the riches and wealth whose representation and protection is the peculiar province of this permanent body? Are they in the hands of the few who may be called rich, in the possession of less than a hundred citizens? Certainly not. They are in the great body of the people, among whom there are no men of wealth, and very few of real poverty. Is it probable that a change