endeavour to secure the advantage of numbers in the formation of treaties, as could have been reconciled either with the activity of the public councils, or with a reasonable regard to the major sense of the community. If two-thirds of the whole number of members had been required, it would, in many cases, from the non-attendance of a part, amount in practice to a necessity of unanimity. And the history of every political establishment in which this principle has prevailed, is a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder. Proofs of this position might be adduced from the examples of the Roman tribuneship, the Polish diet, and the states general of the Netherlands; did not an example at home, render foreign precedents unnecessary.
To require a fixed proportion of the whole body, would not, in all probability, contribute to the advantages of a numerous agency, better than merely to require a proportion of the attending members. The former, by increasing the difficulty of resolutions disagreeable to the minority, diminishes the motives to punctual attendance. The latter, by making the capacity of the body to depend on a proportion which may be varied by the absence or presence of a single member, has the contrary effect. And as, by promoting punctuality, it tends to keep the body complete, there is great likelihood, that its resolutions would generally be dictated by as great a number in this case, as in the other; while there would be much fewer occasions of delay. It ought not to be forgotten, that under the existing confederation, two members may, and usually do, represent a state; whence it happens that congress, who now are solely invested with all the powers of the union, rarely consists of a greater number of persons than would compose the intended senate. If we add to this, that as the members vote by states, and that where there is only a single member present from a state, his vote is lost; it will justify a supposition that the active voices in the senate, where the members are to vote individually, would rarely fall short in number of the active voices in the existing congress. When, in addition to these considera-
