The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which Framed the Constitution of the United States, May-September 1787. Volume 1Madison, James
History
The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which Framed the Constitution of the United States, May-September 1787. Volume 1
Madison, James
Constitutional law -- United States; Constitutions -- United States; United States. Constitution
defensive power were necessary, it ought to be mutually given to these
two interests. He was so strongly impressed with this important truth
that he had been casting about in his mind for some expedient that would
answer the purpose. The one which had occurred was that instead of
proportioning the votes of the States in both branches, to their
respective numbers of inhabitants computing the slaves in the ratio of 5
to 3, they should be represented in one branch according to the number
of free inhabitants only; and in the other according to the whole n^o
counting the slaves as free. By this arrangement the Southern Scale
would have the advantage in one House, and the Northern in the other. He
had been restrained from proposing this expedient by two considerations:
one was his unwillingness to urge any diversity of interests on an
occasion where it is but too apt to arise of itself--the other was, the
inequality of powers that must be vested in the two branches, and which
w^d destroy the equilibrium of interests.
M^r Elseworth assured the House that whatever might be thought of the
Representatives of Connecticut the State was entirely federal in her
disposition. He appealed to her great exertions during the war, in
supplying both men & money. The muster rolls would show she had more
troops in the field than Virg^a. If she had been Delinquent, it had been
from inability, and not more so than other States.
M^r Sherman. M^r Madison had animadverted on the delinquency of the
States, when his object required him to prove that the Constitution of
Cong^s was faulty. Cong^s is not to blame for the faults of the States.
Their measures have been right, and the only thing wanting has been, a
further power in Cong^s to render them effectual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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