On the question on the first part of the section, down to "publish them," inclusive,—it was agreed to, nem. con.
On the question on the words to follow, to wit, "except such parts thereof as may in their judgment require secrecy,"—
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, ay, 6; Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, no, 4; New Hampshire, divided.
The remaining part, as to yeas and nays, was agreed to, nem. con.
Article 6, sect. 8, was then taken up.
Mr. KING remarked, that the section authorized the two Houses to adjourn to a new place. He thought this inconvenient. The mutability of place had dishonored the federal government, and would require as strong a cure as we could devise. He thought a law, at least, should be made necessary to a removal of the seat of government.
Mr. MADISON viewed the subject in the same light, and joined with Mr. King in a motion requiring a law.
Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS proposed the additional alteration by inserting the words, "during the session," &c.
Mr. SPAIGHT. This will fix the seat of government at New York. The present Congress will convene them there in the first instance, and they will never be able to remove; especially, if the President should be a northern man.
Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. Such a distrust is inconsistent with all government.
Mr. MADISON supposed that a central place for the seat of government was so just, and would be so much insisted on by the House of Representatives, that, though a law should be made requisite for the purpose, it could and would be obtained. The necessity of a central residence of the government would be much greater under the new than old government. The members of the new government would be more numerous. They would be taken more from the interior parts of the states; they would not, like members of the present Congress, come so often from the distant states by water. As the powers and objects of the new government would be far greater than heretofore, more private individuals would have business calling them to the seat of it; and it was more necessary that the government should be in that position from which it could contemplate with the most equal eye, and sympathize most equally with, every part of the nation. These considerations, he supposed, would extort a removal, even if a law were made necessary. But, in order to quiet suspicions both within and without doors, it might not be amiss to authorize the two Houses, by a concurrent vote, to adjourn at their first meeting to the most proper place, and to require thereafter the sanction of a law to their removal.
The motion was accordingly moulded into the following form:—
vol. v.5235
