ing to the government of that state; whatever object of gov ernment extends in its operation or effects beyond the bounds of a particular state should be considered as belonging to the government of the United States. To remove discretionary construction, the enumeration of particular instances in which the application of the principle ought to take place will be found to be safe, unexceptionable, and accurate. "To control the power and conduct of the legislature by an overruling constitution limiting and superintending the operations of legislative authority was an improvement in the science and practice of government reserved to the American states. Oft have I marked with silent pleasure and admiration the force and prevalence through the United States of the principle that the supreme power resides in the people, and that they never part with it. There can be no disorder in the community but may here receive a radical cure. Error in the legislature may be corrected by the constitution; error in the constitution, by the people. The streams of power run in different directions, but they all originally flow from one abundant fountain. In this constitution all authority is derived from the people." Already much had been gained for the friends of the constitution. "I am sensible," said John Smilie of Fayette county, "of the expediency of giving additional strength and energy to the federal head." The question became on the one side the adoption of the constitution as it came from the convention; on the other, with amendments. Smilie spoke against a system of precipitancy which would preclude deliberation on questions of the highest consequence to the happiness of a great portion of the globe. "Is the object,” he asked, "to bring on a hasty and total adoption of the constitution? The most common business of a legislative body is submitted to repeated discussion upon different days." Robert Whitehill of Carlisle, in Cumberland county, fearing a conveyance to the federal government of rights and liberties which the people ought never to surrender, asked a reference to a committee of the whole. He was defeated on the twenty-sixth, by a vote of forty-three to twenty-four; but each member obtained leave to speak in the house as often as he pleased. When it was ob served that the federal convention had exceeded the powers given to them by their respective legislatures, Wilson answered: "The federal convention did not proceed at all upon the powers given to them by the states, but upon original principles; and having framed a constitution which they thought would promote the happiness of their country, they have submitted it to their consideration, who may either adopt or reject it as they please." * On the twenty-seventh, Whitehill, acting in concert with the Virginia opposition and preparing the way for entering on the journals a final protest against the proceedings of the majority, proposed that upon all questions where the yeas and nays were called any member might insert the reason of his vote upon the journal of the convention. This was argued all the day long, and leave was refused by a very large majority.t The fiercest day's debate, and the only one where the decision of the country was finally in favor of the minority, took place on the twenty-eighth of November. There was a rising discontent at the omission of a declaration of rights. To prove that there was no need of a bill of rights, Wilson said: "The boasted Magna Charta of England derives the liberties of the inhabitants of that kingdom from the gift and grant of the king, and no wonder the people were anxious to obtain bills of rights; but here the fee simple remains in the people; and by this constitution they do not part with it. The preamble to the proposed constitution, 'We the people of the United States do establish,' contains the essence of all the bills of rights that have been or can be devised." The defence was imperfect both in sentiment and in public law. To the sentiment, Smilie answered: "The words in the preamble of the proposed system, however superior they may be to the terms of the great charter of England, must yield to the expressions in the Pennsylvania bill of rights and the memorable declaration of the fourth of July 1776." As a question of public law, the answer of Smilie was equally conclusive: "It is not enough to * Independent Gazetteer, 29 November 1787. + Independent Gazetteer for 3 December; and especially for 7 December 1787. Elliot's Debates, ii., 434-439. reserve to the people a right to alter and abolish government, but some criterion should be established by which it can easily and constitutionally ascertain how far the government may proceed and when it transgresses its jurisdiction." "A bill of rights," interposed McKean, "though it can do no harm, is an unnecessary instrument. The constitutions of but five out of the thirteen United States have bills of rights." The speaker was ill informed. South Carolina and Georgia had alone declined the opportunity of establishing a bill of rights; every state to the north of them had one except Rhode Island and Connecticut, which as yet adhered to their original charters, and New Jersey, which still adhered to its government as established just before the declaration of independence. New York had incorporated into its constitution the whole of that declaration. Wilson asserted that in the late convention the desire of "a bill of rights had never assumed the shape of a motion.” Here his memory was at fault; but no one present could correct him. "In civil governments," he proceeded, "bills of rights are useless, nor can I conceive whence the contrary notion has arisen. Virginia has no bill of rights." Smilie interrupted him to cite the assurance of George Mason himself that Virginia had a bill of rights; and he repeated the remark that Mason had made in the convention: "The laws of the general government are paramount to the laws and constitutions of the several states; and as there is no declaration of rights in the new constitution, the declarations of rights in the constitutions of the several states are no security. Every stipulation for the most sacred and invaluable privileges of man is left at the mercy of government." + On Saturday, the first of December, William Findley, the third leading member of the opposition, in a long and elaborate argument endeavored to prove that the proposed plan of government was not a confederation of states, but a consolidation of government. He insisted that the constitution formed a contract between individuals entering into society, not a *Gilpin, 1566; Elliot, 538. Independent Gazetteer, December 10, 13, 18, 20, 24, 27. Review of the Constitutions by De La Croix, English translation, ii., 386, note. union of independent states; that in the legislature it established the vote by individuals, not by states; that between two parties in the same community, each claiming independent sovereignty, it granted an unlimited right of internal taxation to the federal body, whose stronger will would thus be able to annihilate the power of its weaker rival; that it conceded a right to regulate and judge of elections; that it extended the judicial power as widely as the legislative; that it raised the members of congress above their states, for they were paid not by the states as subordinate delegates, but by the general government; and finally, that it required an oath of allegiance to the federal government, and thus made the allegiance to a separate sovereign state an absurdity.* Meantime the zeal of the majority was quickened by news from "the Delaware state," whose people were for the most part of the same stock as the settlers of Pennsylvania, and had grown up under the same proprietary. On the proposal for the federal convention at Philadelphia, its general assembly declared that "they had long been fully convinced of the necessity of revising the federal constitution," "being willing and desirous of co-operating with the commonwealth of Virginia and the other states in the confederation." + Now that an equality of vote in the senate had been conceded, the one single element of opposition disappeared. The legislature of Delaware met on the twenty-fourth of October, and following "the sense and desire of great numbers of the people of the state, signified in petitions to their general assembly," "adopted speedy measures to call together a convention.” ‡ The constituent body, which met at Dover in the first week of December, encountered no difficulty but how to find language strong enough to express their joy in what had been done. On the sixth "the deputies of the people of the Delaware state fully, freely, and entirely approved of, assented to, ratified, and confirmed the federal constitution," to which they all on the next day subscribed their names.# Independent Gazetteer, 6 December, 1787. + Laws of Delaware, page 892, in edition of 1797. #Journals of Congress, iv. Appendix, 46. When it became known that Delaware was leading the way at the head of the grand procession of the thirteen states, McKean, on Monday, the tenth of December, announced to the Pennsylvania convention that he should on the twelfth press the vote for ratification. On the next day Wilson summed up his defence of the constitution, and repeated: "This system is not a compact; I cannot discern the least trace of a compact; the introduction to the work is not an unmeaning flourish; the system itself tells you what it is, an ordinance, an establishment of the people." The opposition followed the line of conduct marked out by the opposition in Virginia. On the twelfth, before the question for ratification was taken, Whitehill presented petitions from seven hundred and fifty inhabitants of Cumberland county against adopting the constitution without amendments, and particularly without a bill of rights to secure liberty in matters of religion, trial by jury, the freedom of the press, the sole power in the individual states to organize the militia; the repeal of the executive power of the senate, and consequent appointment of a constitutional council; a prohibition of repealing or modifying laws of the United States by treaties; restrictions on the federal judiciary power; a confirmation to the several states of their sovereignty, with every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly delegated to the United States in congress assembled. In laboring for this end, he showed a concert with the measure which Mason and Randolph had proposed in the federal convention and Richard Henry Lee in congress, and which led the Virginia legislature on that very day to pass the act for communicating with sister states.+ The amendments which Whitehill proposed were not suffered to be entered in the journal. His motion was rejected by forty-six to twenty-three; and then the new constitution was ratified by the same majority. On Thursday the convention marched in a procession to the court-house, where it proclaimed the ratification. Returning to the place of meeting, the forty-six subscribed their names to their act. The opposition were invited to add their names as a fair and honorable acquiescence in the principle that the + Hening, xii., 463. *Elliot, ii., 497, 499. |