M^r Dickinson considered it essential that one branch of the Legislature sh^d be drawn immediately from the people; and as expedient that the other sh^d be chosen by the Legislatures of the States. This combination of the State Gov^{ts} with the national Gov^t was as politic as it was unavoidable. In the formation of the Senate we ought to carry it through such a refining process as will assimilate it as nearly as may be to the House of Lords in England. He repeated his warm eulogiums on the British Constitution. He was for a strong National Gov^t but for leaving the States a considerable agency in the System. The objection ag^{st} making the former dependent on the latter might be obviated by giving to the Senate an authority permanent & irrevocable for three, five or seven years. Being thus independent they will check & decide with becoming freedom. M^r Read. Too much attachment is betrayed to the State Govern^{ts}. We must look beyond their continuance. A national Gov^t must soon of necessity swallow all of them up. They will soon be reduced to the mere office of electing the National Senate. He was ag^{st} patching up the old federal System: he hoped the idea w^d be dismissed. It would be like putting new cloth on an old garment. The confederation was founded on temporary principles. It cannot last: it can not be amended. If we do not establish a good Gov^t on new principles, we must either go to ruin, or have the work to do over again. The people at large are wrongly suspected of being averse to a Gen^l Gov^t. The aversion lies among interested men who possess their confidence. M^r Pierce[69] was for an election by the people as to the 1^{st} branch & by the States as to the 2^d branch; by which means the Citizens of the States w^d be represented both _individually_ & _collectively_. [69] "My own character I shall not attempt to draw, but leave those who may choose to speculate on it, to consider it in any light that their fancy or imagination may depict. I am conscious of having discharged my duty as a Soldier through the course of the late revolution with honor and propriety; and my services in Congress and the Convention were bestowed with the best intention towards the interest of Georgia, and towards the general welfare of the Confederacy. I possess ambition, and it was that, and the flattering opinion which some of my Friends had of me, that gave me a seat in the wisest Council in the World, and furnished me with an opportunity of giving these short Sketches of the Characters who composed it."--Pierce's Notes, _Amer. Hist. Rev._, iii., 334.