Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, ay, 6; Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, no, 3; Massachusetts, Georgia, divided.[1]
Mr. GERRY thought it would be proper to proceed to enumerate and define the powers to be vested in the general government, before a question on the report should be taken as to the rule of representation in the second branch.
Mr. MADISON observed, that it would be impossible to say what powers could be safely and properly vested in the government, before it was known in what manner the states were to be represented in it. He was apprehensive that, if a just representation were not the basis of the government, it would happen, as ii did when the Articles of Confederation were depending, that every effectual prerogative would be withdrawn or withheld, and the new government would be rendered as impotent and as short-lived as the old.
Mr. PATTERSON would not decide whether the privilege concerning money bills were a valuable consideration or not; but he considered the mode and rule of representation in the first branch as fully so; and that after the establishment of that point, the small states would never be able to defend themselves without an equality of votes in the second branch. There was no other ground of accommodation. His resolution was fixed. He would meet the large states on that ground, and no other. For himself, he should vote against the report, because it yielded too much.
Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. He had no resolution unalterably fixed except to do what should finally appear to him right. He was against the report because it maintained the improper constitution of the second branch. It made it another Congress, a mere whisp of straw. It had been said (by Mr. Gerry) that the new government would be partly national, partly federal; that it ought, in the first quality, to protect individuals; in the second, the states. But in what quality was it to protect the aggregate interest of the whole? Among the many provisions which had been urged, he had seen none for supporting the dignity and splendor of the American empire. It had been one of our greatest misfortunes that the great objects of the nation had been sacrificed constantly to local views; in like manner as the general interest of states had been sacrificed to those of the counties. What is to be the check in the Senate? None; unless it be to keep the majority of the people from injuring particular states. But particular states ought to be injured for the sake of a majority of the people, in case their conduct should deserve it. Suppose they should insist on claims evidently unjust, and pursue them in a manner detrimental to the whole body: suppose they should give themselves up to foreign influence: ought they to be protected in such cases? They were originally nothing more than colonial corporations. On the declaration of independence, a government was to be formed. The small states, aware of the necessity of preventing anarchy, and
- ↑ Several votes were given here in the affirmative, or were divided, because another final question was to be taken on the whole report.
