Every student of the proceedings and discussions in the national Convention should, however, be careful not to extend this principle of general interpretation to the views, opinions, or arguments expressed or employed by individuals in that assembly. The line of argument or illustration adopted by different members may be more or less important, as tending to explain the scope or purpose of a particular decision arrived at by a vote of the Convention; and occasionally, as will be seen in reference to the arrangements which were finally entered into as mutual concessions or compromises between different interests, the discussions will be found to be of great significance and importance. But it is, after all, to the results themselves, and to the principles involved in the various decisions of the Convention, as indicated by the votes taken, that we are to look for the landmarks that are to guide our inquiries into the fundamental changes, improvements, and additions proposed by the Convention to the country, and afterwards adopted by the people of the States.
CHAPTER II.
Construction of a Legislative Power.—Basis of Representation, and Rule of Suffrage.—Powers of Legislation.
The Convention having been organized, Governor Randolph of Virginia[10] submitted a series of resolutions, embracing the principal changes that ought to be proposed in the structure of the federal system.
Mr. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina also submitted a plan of government, which, with Governor Randolph's resolutions, was referred to a committee of the whole. It is not necessary here to state the details of these several systems; for although that introduced by Randolph gave a direction to the deliberations of the committee, the results arrived at were in some respects materially different.
The first distinct departure that was made from the principles of the Confederation was involved in one of the propositions brought forward by Governor Randolph, "that a National government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary"; and as this proposition was affirmed in the committee by a vote of six States, it is important to understand the sense in which it was understood by them.[11]
Most of the framers of the Constitution seem to have considered that a compact between sovereign States, which rested for its efficacy on the good faith of the parties, and had no other compulsory operation than a resort to arms against a delinquent member, was a "federal" government. This was the principle of the Confederation. At this early stage of their deliberations, the idea which was intended by those who favored a change of that principle, when they spoke of a "national" government, was one that would be a supreme power with respect to certain national objects committed to it, and that would have some kind of direct compulsory action upon individuals. This distinction was understood by all to be real and important. It led directly to the question of the powers of the Convention, and formed the early line of division between those who desired to adhere to the existing system, and those who aimed at a radical change. The former admitted the necessity for a more effective government, and supposed that the Confederation could be made so by distributing its powers into the three great departments of a legislative, executive, and judiciary; but they did not suggest any mode by which those powers could be made supreme over the authority of the separate States. The latter contended, that there could be no such thing as government unless it were a supreme power, and that there could be but one supreme power over the same subjects in the same community; that supreme power could not from the nature of things act on the States collectively, in the usual and peaceful mode in which the operations of government ought to be conducted, but that it must be able to reach individuals; and that, as the Confederation could not operate in this way, the distribution of its powers into distinct departments would be no improvement upon the present condition of things.
But when the distinction between a national and a federal government had been so far developed, the subject was still left in a great degree vague and indeterminate. What was to mark this distinction as real, and give it practical effect? By what means was the government, which was now, as all admitted, a mere federal league between sovereign States, to become, in any just sense, national? The idea of a nation implies the existence of a people united in their political rights, and possessed of the same political interests. A national government must be one that exercises the political rights, and protects the political interests, of such a people. But, hitherto, the people of the United States had been divided into distinct sovereignties; and although by the Articles of Confederation some portion of the sovereign power of each of the separate States had been vested in a general government, that government had been found inefficient, and incapable of resisting the great power that had been reserved to the respective States, and was constantly exerted by them. The difficulty was, that the constituent parties to the federal union were themselves political governments and sovereigns; the people of the States had no direct representation, and no direct suffrage, in the general legislature; and as in a republican government the representation and the suffrage must determine its character, it became obvious that, in order to establish a national government that would embrace the political rights and interests of the people inhabiting the States, the basis of representation and the rule of suffrage must be changed.