Let us now retrace our steps and see what took place in the convention that made the Constitution, and what those that made it intended. Fortunately we have the journals of the convention that framed the Constitution; the minutes, until he left, of Mr. Yates, a delegate from the State of New York; and Madison’s full and careful report of all the proceedings, debates, and votes. From these sources we shall see that the makers intended, and that they considered they had made, a perpetual, consolidated, National Government. The convention was called to amend the articles of the confederacy, and to it were sent most of the distinguished men of the country. The State of Virginia took an early and important part in the formation of the new government. Before the meeting of the convention, Madison wrote to Edmund Randolph, one of the delegates, that it would be well for him to prepare some propositions from Virginia, he in his letter suggesting what they should be. Immediately after the organization of the convention after the choice of Washington as the presiding officer and the establishing of standing rules, Randolph introduced a series of resolutions, which had been considered by his colleagues and were known in the convention as those of Virginia. They were in substance, that the articles of confederation should be corrected and enlarged; that the rights of suffrage in the national Legislature ought to be proportioned to the quotas of contribution, or to the number of free inhabitants; that the Legislature should consist of two branches, the first branch to be elected by the people of every State; that the Legislature should have supreme rights with coercive power against any member failing to perform its duty, and that there should be a national Executive and Judiciary.