The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which framed the Constitution of USA Volume I Part 24

The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which framed the Constitution of USA Volume I Part 24

M^r Rutlidge, was for preserving the Legislature as pure as possible, by shutting the door against appointments of its own members to offices, which was one source of its corruption.

M^r Mason.[104] The motion of my colleague is but a partial remedy for the evil. He appealed to him as a witness of the shameful partiality of the Legislature of Virginia to its own members. He enlarged on the abuses & corruption in the British Parliament, connected with the appointment of its members. He c^d not suppose that a sufficient number of Citizens could not be found who would be ready, without the inducement of eligibility to offices, to undertake the Legislative service. Genius & virtue it may be said, ought to be encouraged. Genius, for aught he knew, might, but that virtue should be encouraged by such a species of venality, was an idea, that at least had the merit of being new.

[104] Yates gives Mason's speech more fully and a speech by Madison omitted here:

"Mr. Mason. I differ from my colleague in his proposed amendment. Let me state the practice in the state where we came from. There, all officers are appointed by the legislature. Need I add, that many of their appointments are most shameful. Nor will the check proposed by this amendment be sufficient. It will soon cease to be any check at all. It is a.s.serted that it will be very difficult to find men sufficiently qualified as legislators without the inducement of emolument. I do believe that men of genius will be deterred unless possessed of great virtues. We may well dispense with the first characters when dest.i.tute of virtue--I should wish them never to come forward--But if we do not provide against corruption, our government will soon be at an end; nor would I wish to put a man of virtue in the way of temptation. Evasions and caballing would evade the amendment. Nor would the danger be less, if the executive has the appointment of officers. The first three or four years we might go on well enough; but what would be the case afterwards? I will add, that such a government ought to be refused by the people--and it will be refused.

"Mr. Madison. My wish is that the national legislature be as uncorrupt as possible. I believe all public bodies are inclined, from various motives, to support its members; but it is not always done from the base motives of venality.

Friendship, and a knowledge of the abilities of those with whom they a.s.sociate, may produce it. If you bar the door against such attachments, you deprive the government of its greatest strength and support. Can you always rely on the patriotism of the members? If this be the only inducement, you will find a great indifferency in filling your legislative body. If we expect to call forth useful characters, we must hold out allurements; nor can any great inconveniency arise from such inducements. The legislative body must be the road to public honor; and the advantage will be greater to adopt my motion, than any possible inconvenience."--Yates, _Secret Proceedings_, etc., 158.

M^r King remarked that we were refining too much in this business; and that the idea of preventing intrigue and solicitation of offices was chimerical. You say that no member shall himself be eligible to any office. Will this restrain him from availing himself of the same means which would gain appointments for himself, to gain them for his son, his brother, or any other object of his partiality. We were losing therefore the advantages on one side, without avoiding the evils on the other.

M^r Wilson supported the motion. The proper cure he said for corruption in the Legislature was to take from it the power of appointing to offices. One branch of corruption would indeed remain, that of creating unnecessary offices, or granting unnecessary salaries, and for that the amendment would be a proper remedy. He animadverted on the impropriety of stigmatizing with the name of venality the laudable ambition of rising into the honorable offices of the Government; an ambition most likely to be felt in the early & most incorrupt period of life, & which all wise & free Gov^{ts} had deemed it sound policy, to cherish, not to check. The members of the Legislature have perhaps the hardest & least profitable task of any who engage in the service of the state. Ought this merit to be made a disqualification?

M^r Sherman observed that the motion did not go far enough. It might be evaded by the creation of a new office, the translation to it of a person from another office, and the appointment of a member of the Legislature to the latter. A new Emba.s.sy might be established to a new Court, & an amba.s.sador taken from another, in order to _create_ a vacancy for a favorite member. He admitted that inconveniences lay on both sides. He hoped there w^d be sufficient inducements to the public service without resorting to the prospect of desirable offices, and on the whole was rather ag^{st} the motion of M^r Madison.

M^r Gerry thought there was great weight in the objection of M^r Sherman. He added as another objection ag^{st} admitting the eligibility of members in any case that it would produce intrigues of ambitious men for displacing proper officers, in order to create vacancies for themselves.[105] In answer to M^r King he observed that although members, if disqualified themselves might still intrigue & cabal for their sons, brothers &c., yet as their own interests would be dearer to them, than those of their nearest connections, it might be expected they would go greater lengths to promote it.

[105] Yates gives Gerry's remarks: "This amendment is of great weight, and its consequences ought to be well considered. At the beginning of the war, we possessed more than Roman virtue. It appears to me it is now the reverse. We have more land and stock-jobbers than any place on earth. It appears to me that we have constantly endeavored to keep distinct the three great branches of government; but if we agree to this motion, it must be destroyed by admitting the legislators to share in the executive, or to be too much influenced by the executive, in looking up to them for offices."--Yates, _Secret Proceedings_, etc., 160.

M^r Madison had been led to this motion as a middle ground between an eligibility in all cases, and an absolute disqualification. He admitted the probable abuses of an eligibility of the members, to offices particularly within the gift of the Legislature. He had witnessed the partiality of such bodies to their own members, as had been remarked of the Virginia a.s.sembly by his colleague (Col. Mason). He appealed however to him, in turn to vouch another fact not less notorious in Virginia, that the backwardness of the best citizens to engage in the Legislative service gave but too great success to unfit characters. The question was not to be viewed on one side only. The advantages & disadvantages on both ought to be fairly compared. The objects to be aimed at were to fill all offices with the fittest characters, & to draw the wisest & most worthy citizens into the Legislative service. If on one hand, public bodies were partial to their own members; on the other they were as apt to be misled by taking characters on report, or the authority of patrons and dependents.

All who had been concerned in the appointment of strangers on those recommendations must be sensible of this truth. Nor w^d the partialities of such Bodies be obviated by disqualifying their own members.

Candidates for office would hover round the seat of Gov^t or be found among the residents there, and practise all the means of counting the favor of the members. A great proportion of the appointments made by the States were evidently brought about in this way. In the General Gov^t the evil must be still greater, the characters of distant states, being much less known throughout the U. States than those of the distant parts of the same State. The elections by Congress had generally turned on men living at the seat of the fed^l Gov^t or in its neighbourhood.--As to the next object, the impulse to the Legislative service, was evinced by experience to be in general too feeble with those best qualified for it.

This inconveniency w^d also be more felt in the Nat^l Gov^t than in the State Gov^{ts} as the Sacrifices req^d from the distant members, w^d be much greater, and the pecuniary provisions, probably, more disproportionate. It w^d therefore be impolitic to add fresh objections to the Legislative service by an absolute disqualification of its members. The point in question was whether this would be an objection with the most capable citizens. Arguing from experience he concluded that it would. The Legislature of Virg^a would probably have been without many of its best members, if in that situation, they had been ineligible to Cong^s to the Gov^t & other honorable offices of the State.

M^r Butler thought Characters fit for office w^d never be unknown.

Col. Mason. If the members of the Legislature are disqualified, still the honors of the State will induce those who aspire to them to enter that service, as the field in which they can best display & improve their talents, & lay the train for their subsequent advancement.

M^r Jenifer remarked that in Maryland, the Senators chosen for five years, c^d hold no other office & that this circ.u.mstance gained them the greatest confidence of the people.

On the question for agreeing to the motion of M^r Madison,

Ma.s.s^{ts} div^d. C^t ay. N. Y. no. N. J. ay. P^a no.

Del. no. M^d no. V^a no. N. C. no. S. C. no. Geo. no.

M^r Sherman mov^d to insert the words "and incapable of holding" after the words "eligible to offices" w^{ch} was agreed to without opposition.

The word "established" & the words "Nat^l Gov^t" were struck out of the Resolution 3^d.

M^r Spaight called for a division of the question, in consequence of which it was so put, as that it turned in the first member of it, "on the ineligibility of members _during the term for which they were elected_"--whereon the States were,

Ma.s.s^{ts} div^d. C^t ay. N. Y. ay. N. J. ay. P^a no.

Del. ay. M^d ay. V^a ay. N. C. ay. S. C. ay. Geo. no.

On the 2^d member of the sentence extending ineligibility of members to one year after the term for which they were elected Col. Mason thought this essential to guard ag^{st} evasions by resignations, and stipulations for office to be filled at the expiration of the legislative term. M^r Gerry, had known such a case. M^r Hamilton.

Evasions c^d not be prevented--as by proxies--by friends holding for a year, & then opening the way &c. M^r Rutlidge admitted the possibility of evasions, but was for contracting them as possible.

Ma.s.s. no. C^t no. N. Y. ay. N. J. no. P^a div^d. Del. ay.

Mar^d ay. V^a no. N. C. no. S. C. ay. Geo. no.

Adj^d.

MONDAY, JUNE 25. IN CONVENTION.

Resolution 4. being taken up.

M^r Pinkney spoke as follows--[106] The efficacy of the System will depend on this article. In order to form a right judgm^t in the case, it will be proper to examine the situation of this Country more accurately than it has yet been done. The people of the U. States are perhaps the most singular of any we are acquainted with. Among them there are fewer distinctions of fortune & less of rank, than among the inhabitants of any other nation. Every freeman has a right to the same protection & security; and a very moderate share of property ent.i.tles them to the possession of all the honors and privileges the Public can bestow: hence arises a greater equality, than is to be found among the people of any other Country, and an equality which is more likely to continue--I say this equality is likely to continue, because in a new Country, possessing immense tracts of uncultivated lands, where every temptation is offered to emigration & where industry must be rewarded with competency, there will be few poor, and few dependent--Every member of the Society almost, will enjoy an equal power of arriving at the supreme offices & consequently of directing the strength & sentiments of the whole Community. None will be excluded by birth, & few by fortune, from voting for proper persons to fill the offices of Government--the whole community will enjoy in the fullest sense that kind of political liberty which consists in the power the members of the State reserve to themselves, of arriving at the Public offices, or at least, of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them.

[106] Pinckney furnished Madison with a copy of this speech which he transcribed, but apparently not with the whole of it, as Madison's note at the end indicates. The original Pinckney draft is among the Madison papers, and shows Madison's copying to have been accurate.

If this State of things is true & the prospect of its continuing probable, it is perhaps not politic to endeavour too close an imitation of a Government calculated for a people whose situation is, & whose views ought to be extremely different.

Much has been said of the Const.i.tution of G. Britain. I will confess that I believe it to be the best Const.i.tution in existence; but at the same time I am confident it is one that will not or cannot be introduced into this Country, for many centuries.--If it were proper to go here into a historical dissertation on the British Const.i.tution, it might easily be shewn that the peculiar excellence, the distinguishing feature of that Governm^t cannot possibly be introduced into our System--that its balance between the Crown & the people cannot be made a part of our Const.i.tution,--that we neither have nor can have the members to compose it, nor the rights, privileges & properties of so distinct a cla.s.s of Citizens to guard,--that the materials for forming this balance or check do not exist, nor is there a necessity for having so permanent a part of our Legislative, until the Executive power is so const.i.tuted as to have something fixed & dangerous in its principle--By this I mean a sole, hereditary, though limited Executive.

That we cannot have a proper body for forming a Legislative balance between the inordinate power of the Executive and the people, is evident from a review of the accidents & circ.u.mstances which gave rise to the peerage of Great Britain--I believe it is well ascertained that the parts which compose the British Const.i.tution arose immediately from the forests of Germany; but the antiquity of the establishment of n.o.bility is by no means clearly defined. Some authors are of opinion that the dignity denoted by the t.i.tles of dux et comes, was derived from the old Roman to the German Empire; while others are of the opinion that they existed among the Germans long before the Romans were acquainted with them. The inst.i.tution however of n.o.bility is immemorial among the Nations who may properly be termed the ancestors of Britain.--At the time they were summoned in England to become a part of the National Council, the circ.u.mstances which contributed to make them a Const.i.tuent part of that const.i.tution, must be well known to all gentlemen who have had industry & curiosity enough to investigate the subject--The n.o.bles with their possessions & dependents composed a body permanent in their nature and formidable in point of power. They had a distinct interest both from the King and the people; an interest which could only be represented by themselves, and the guardianship could not be safely intrusted to others.--At the time they were originally called to form a part of the National Council, necessity perhaps as much as other cause, induced the Monarch to look up to them. It was necessary to demand the aid of his subjects in personal & pecuniary services. The power and possessions of the n.o.bility would not permit taxation from any a.s.sembly of which they were not a part: & the blending the Deputies of the Commons with them, & thus forming what they called their parlerment was perhaps as much the effect of chance as of any thing else. The Commons were at that time compleatly subordinate to the n.o.bles, whose consequence & influence seem to have been the only reasons for their superiority; a superiority so degrading to the Commons that in the first summons we find the peers are called upon to consult the commons to consent. From this time the peers have composed a part of the British Legislature, and notwithstanding their power and influence have diminished & those of the Commons have increased, yet still they have always formed an excellent balance ag^{st} either the encroachments of the Crown or the people.

I have said that such a body cannot exist in this Country for ages, and that untill the situation of our people is exceedingly changed no necessity will exist for so permanent a part of the Legislature. To ill.u.s.trate this I have remarked that the people of the United States are more equal in their circ.u.mstances than the people of any other Country--that they have very few rich men among them,--by rich men I mean those whose riches may have a dangerous influence, or such as are esteemed rich in Europe--perhaps there are not one hundred such on the Continent; that it is not probable this number will be greatly increased; that the genius of the people their mediocrity of situation & the prospects which are afforded their industry in a Country which must be a new one for centuries are unfavorable to the rapid distinction of ranks. The destruction of the right of primogeniture & the equal division of the property of Intestates will also have an effect to preserve this mediocrity; for laws invariably affect the manners of a people. On the other hand that vast extent of unpeopled territory which opens to the frugal & industrious a sure road to competency & independence will effectually prevent for a considerable time the increase of the poor or discontented, and be the means of preserving that equality of condition which so eminently distinguishes us.

If equality is as I contend the leading feature of the U. States, where then are the riches & wealth whose representation & protection is the peculiar province of this Permanent body. Are they in the hands of the few who may be called rich; in the possession of less than a hundred citizens? Certainly not. They are in the great body of the people, among whom there are no men of wealth, and very few of real poverty.--Is it probable that a change will be created, and that a new order of men will arise? If under the British Government, for a century no such change was probable, I think it may be fairly concluded it will not take place while even the semblance of Republicanism remains.--How is this change to be effected? Where are the sources from whence it is to flow? From the landed interest? No. That is too unproductive & too much divided in most of the States. From the Monied interest? If such exists at present, little is to be apprehended from that source. Is it to spring from commerce? I believe it would be the first instance in which a n.o.bility sprang from merchants. Besides, Sir, I apprehend that on this point the policy of the U. States has been much mistaken. We have unwisely considered ourselves as the inhabitants of an old instead of a new country. We have adopted the maxims of a State full of people & manufactures & established in credit. We have deserted our true interest, and instead of applying closely to those improvements in domestic policy which would have ensured the future importance of our commerce, we have rashly & prematurely engaged in schemes as extensive as they are imprudent. This however is an error which daily corrects itself & I have no doubt that a few more severe trials will convince us, that very different commercial principles ought to govern the conduct of these States.

The people of this Country are not only very different from the inhabitants of any State we are acquainted with in the modern world; but I a.s.sert that their situation is distinct from either the people of Greece or Rome, or of any State we are acquainted with among the antients.--Can the orders introduced by the inst.i.tution of Solon, can they be found in the United States? Can the military habits & manners of Sparta be resembled to our habits & manners? Are the distinction of Patrician & Plebeian known among us? Can the Helvetic or Belgic confederacies, or can the unwieldy, unmeaning body called the Germanic Empire, can they be said to possess either the same or a situation like ours? I apprehend not.--They are perfectly different, in their distinctions of rank, their Const.i.tutions, their manners & their policy.

Our true situation appears to me to be this,--a new extensive Country containing within itself the materials for forming a Government capable of extending to its Citizens all the blessings of Civil & religious liberty--capable of making them happy at home. This is the great end of Republican Establishments. We mistake the object of our Government, if we hope or wish that it is to make us respectable abroad. Conquest or superiority among other powers is not or ought not ever to be the object of republican Systems. If they are sufficiently active & energetic to rescue us from contempt & preserve our domestic happiness & security, it is all we can expect from them,--it is more than almost any other Government ensures to its citizens.

I believe this observation will be found generally true:--that no two people are so exactly alike in their situation or circ.u.mstances as to admit the exercise of the same Government with equal benefit; that a system must be suited to the habits & genius of the People it is to govern, and must grow out of them.

The people of the U. S. may be divided into three cla.s.ses--_Professional men_ who must from their particular pursuits always have a considerable weight in the Government while it remains popular--_Commercial men_, who may or may not have weight as a wise or injudicious commercial policy is pursued.--If that commercial policy is pursued which I conceive to be the true one, the merchants of this Country will not or ought not for a considerable time to have much weight in the political scale.--The third is the _landed interest_, the owners and cultivators of the soil, who are and ought ever to be the governing spring in the system.--These three cla.s.ses, however distinct in their pursuits are individually equal in the political scale, and may be easily proved to have but one interest. The dependence of each on the other is mutual. The merchant depends on the planter. Both must in private as well as public affairs be connected with the professional men; who in their turn must in some measure depend on them. Hence it is clear from this manifest connection, & the equality which I before stated exists, & must for the reasons then a.s.sign, continue, that after all there is one, but one great & equal body of Citizens composing the inhabitants of this Country among whom there are no distinctions of rank, and very few or none of fortune.

For a people thus circ.u.mstanced are we then to form a Government & the question is what sort of Government is best suited to them.

Will it be the British Gov^t? No. Why? Because G. Britain contains three orders of people distinct in their situation, their possessions & their principles.--These orders combined form the great body of the Nation.

And as in national expences the wealth of the whole community must contribute, so ought each component part to be properly & duly represented.--No other combination of power could form this due representation, but the one that exists.--Neither the peers or the people could represent the royalty, nor could the Royalty & the people form a proper representation for the Peers.--Each therefore must of necessity be represented by itself, or the sign of itself; and this accidental mixture has certainly formed a Government admirably well balanced.

But the U. States contain but one order that can be a.s.similated to the British Nation,--this is the order of Commons. They will not surely then attempt to form a Government consisting of three branches, two of which shall have nothing to represent. They will not have an Executive & Senate (hereditary) because the King & Lords of England are so. The same reasons do not exist and therefore the same provisions are not necessary.

We must as has been observed suit our Governm^t to the people it is to direct. These are I believe as active, intelligent & susceptible of good Governm^t as any people in the world. The Confusion which has produced the present relaxed State is not owing to them. It is owing to the weakness & (defects) of a Gov^t incapable of combining the various interests it is intended to unite, and dest.i.tute of energy.--All that we have to do then is to distribute the powers of Gov^t in such a manner, and for such limited periods, as while it gives a proper degree of permanency to the Magistrate, will reserve to the people, the right of election they will not or ought not frequently to part with.--I am of opinion that this may easily be done; and that with some amendments the propositions before the Committee will fully answer this end.

No position appears to me more true than this; that the General Gov^t cannot effectually exist without reserving to the States the possession of their local rights. They are the instruments upon which the Union must frequently depend for the support & execution of their powers, however immediately operating upon the people, and not upon the States.

Much has been said about the propriety of abolishing the distinction of State Governments, & having but one general System. Suffer me for a moment to examine this question.[107]

[107] The residue of this speech was not furnished, like the above, by Mr. Pinckney.--Madison's Note.

Yates' report of the speech is meagre. The closing paragraph, apparently the part lacking in Madison's report, is: