Citizen or subject?

by Francis X. Hennessy

At the very outset, it is well for us Americans to know and to remember the extraordinary nature of the recommendation which had come from Annapolis and of the very assembling of that Philadelphia Convention. The suggestion and the Convention were entirely outside any written law in America. Every one of the thirteen colonies was then an independent nation. These nations were united in a federation. Each nation had its own constitution. The federation had its federal constitution. In none of those constitutions was there any provision whatever under which any such convention as that of Philadelphia could be suggested or held. The federal Constitution provided the specific mode in which ability to amend any of its federal Articles could be exercised. Such provision neither suggested nor contemplated any such convention as that to be held at Philadelphia. For these reasons, Madison and Wilson of Pennsylvania and other leading delegates at that Convention stoutly insisted that the Philadelphia Convention had not exercised any power whatever in making a proposal.

“The fact is, they have exercised no power at all; and, in point of validity, this Constitution, proposed by them for the government of the United States, claims no more than a production of the same nature would claim, flowing from a private pen.” (Wilson, Pennsylvania State Convention in 1787, 2 Ell. Deb. 470.)

“It is therefore essential that such changes [in government] be instituted by some informal and unauthorized propositions, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens.” (Madison, Fed. No. 40.)

But there was a development even more remarkable on the second day of this unauthorized Convention.

The Convention was presided over by Washington. Among the other delegates were Hamilton of New York, Madison and Randolph and Mason of Virginia, Franklin and Wilson and Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, and the two Pinckneys of South Carolina. Madison himself, speaking of the delegates in his Introduction to his report of the Debates, says that they were selected in each state “from the most experienced and highest standing citizens.” The reader will not forget that each of these men came under a commission from the independent government of a sovereign and independent nation, twelve such independent governments and nations being represented in that Convention. In the face of this important fact, it is amazing to realize the startling proposition offered for consideration, on May 30, 1787. On that day, the Convention having gone into a Committee of the Whole, Randolph, commissioned delegate from the independent government and nation of Virginia, moved, on the suggestion of Gouverneur Morris, commissioned delegate from another independent government and nation, that the assembled delegates consider the three following resolutions:

“1. That a union of the states merely federal will not accomplish the objects proposed by the Articles of Confederation—namely, common defense, security of liberty, and general welfare.

“2. That no treaty or treaties among the whole or part of the states, as individual sovereignties, would be sufficient.

“3. That a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary.” (5 Ell. Deb. 132.)

If we wish to realize the sensational nature of those resolutions, let us assume for a moment a similar convention of delegates assembled in the City of New York. Let us assume that the delegates have been commissioned respectively by the governments of America, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium and other nations. Let us assume that the ostensible and proclaimed purpose of the convention, stated in the commissions of the delegates, is that it frame a set of federal Articles for a league or federation of the independent nations represented and report the drafted Articles to the respective governments for ratification or rejection. Let us then assume that, on the second day of the convention, Lloyd George, on the suggestion of Charles E. Hughes, calmly proposes that the convention, as a Committee of the Whole, consider three resolutions, exactly similar to those proposed by Randolph on May 30, 1787. Imagine the amazement of the world when it found that the resolutions were to the effect that the convention should draft and propose a constitution of government which would create an entirely new nation out of the human beings in all the assembled nations, and create a new national government for the new nation, and destroy forever the independence and sovereignty of each represented nation and its government and subordinate them to the new national and supreme government.

This was exactly the nature of the startling resolutions of Randolph. Moreover, before that one day closed, the Committee of the Whole actually did resolve “that a national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislative, executive and judiciary.” The vote was six to one. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina voted “aye.” From that day on, the Convention continued to prepare a proposal involving the destruction of the complete independence of the existing nations and of the governments which respectively commissioned the delegates to the Convention. From that day on, the Convention concerned itself entirely with the drafting of constitutional Articles which would create a new nation, America, the members thereof to be all the American people, and would constitute a national government for them, and give to it national powers over them, and make it supreme, in its own sphere, over all the existing nations and governments.