Col. Mason. This amendment removes all the objections urged agst the section as it stood at first. By specifying purposes of revenue, it obviated the objection that the section extended to all bills under which money might incidentally arise. By authorizing amendments in the Senate it got rid of the objections that the Senate could not correct errors of any sort, & that it would introduce into the House of Reps the practice of tacking foreign matter to money bills. These objections being removed, the arguments in favor of the proposed restraint on the Senate ought to have their full force. 1. the Senate did not represent the people, but the States in their political character. It was improper therefore that it should tax the people. The reason was the same agst their doing it; as it had been agst Congs doing it. Nor was it in any respect necessary in order to cure the evils of our Republican system. He admitted that notwithstanding the superiority of the Republican form over every other, it had its evils. The chief ones, were the danger of the majority oppressing the minority, and the mischievous influence of demagogues. The Genl Government of itself will cure them. As the States will not concur at the same time in their unjust & oppressive plans, the General Govt will be able to check & defeat them, whether they result from the wickedness of the majority, or from the misguidance of demagogues. Again, the Senate is not like the H. of Reps chosen frequently and obliged to return frequently among the people. They are to be chosen by the Sts for 6 years, will probably settle themselves at the seat of Govt will pursue schemes for their own aggrandisement–will be able by wearyg out the H. of Reps and taking advantage of their impatience at the close of a long Session, to extort measures for that purpose. If they should be paid as he expected would be yet determined & wished to be so, out of the Natl Treasury, they will particularly extort an increase of their wages. A bare negative was a very different thing from that of originating bills. The practice in Engld was in point. The House of Lords does not represent nor tax the people, because not elected by the people. If the Senate can originate, they will in the recess of the Legislative Sessions, hatch their mischievous projects, for their own purposes, and have their money bills ready cut & dried (to use a common phrase) for the meeting of the H. of Reps. He compared the case to Poyning's law–and signified that the House of Reps might be rendered by degrees like the Parliament of Paris, the mere depository of the decrees of the Senate. As to the compromise so much had passed on that subject that he would say nothing about it. He did not mean by what he had said to oppose the permanency of the Senate. On the contrary he had no repugnance to an increase of it–nor to allowing it a negative, though the Senate was not by its present constitution entitled to it. But in all events he would contend that the purse-strings should be in the hands of the Representatives of the people.
Mr Wilson was himself directly opposed to the equality of votes granted to the Senate by its present Constitution. At the same time he wished not to multiply the vices of the system. He did not mean to enlarge on a subject which had been so much canvassed, but would remark that as an insuperable objection agst the proposed restriction of money bills to the H. of Reps that it would be a source of perpetual contentions where there was no mediator to decide them. The Presidt here could not like the Executive Magistrate in England interpose by a prorogation, or dissolution. This restriction had been found pregnant with altercation in every State where the Constitution had established it. The House of Reps will insert other things in money bills, and by making them conditions of each other, destroy the deliberate liberty of the Senate. He stated the case of a Preamble to a money bill sent up by the House of Commons in the reign of Queen Anne, to the H. of Lords, in which the conduct of the displaced Ministry, who were to be impeached before the Lords, was condemned; the Com̃ons thus extorting a premature judgmt without any hearing of the Parties to be tried, and the H. of Lords being thus reduced to the poor & disgraceful expedient of opposing to the authority of a law, a protest on their Journals agst its being drawn into precedent. If there was anything like Poynings law in the present case, it was in the attempt to vest the exclusive right of originating in the H. of Reps and so far he was agst it. He should be equally so if the right were to be exclusively vested in the Senate. With regard to the purse strings, it was to be observed that the purse was to have two strings, one of which was in the hands of the H. of Reps the other in those of the Senate. Both houses must concur in untying, and of what importance could it be which untied first, which last. He could not conceive it to be any objection to the Senate's preparing the bills, that they would have leisure for that purpose and would be in the habits of business. War, Commerce, & Revenue were the great objects of the Genl Government. All of them are connected with money. The restriction in favor of the H. of Represents would exclude the Senate from originating any important bills whatever—
Mr Gerry considered this as a part of the plan that would be much scrutinized. Taxation & representation are strongly associated in the minds of the people, and they will not agree that any but their immediate representatives shall meddle with their purses. In short the acceptance of the plan will inevitably fail, if the Senate be not restrained from originating money bills.
Mr Governr Morris. All the arguments suppose the right to originate & to tax, to be exclusively vested in the Senate.–The effects commented on may be produced by a Negative only in the Senate. They can tire out the other House, and extort their concurrence in favorite measures, as well by withholding their negative, as by adhering to a bill introduced by themselves.
Mr Madison thought If the substitute offered by Mr Randolph for the original section is to be adopted it would be proper to allow the Senate at least so to amend as to diminish the sums to be raised. Why should they be restrained from checking the extravagance of the other House? One of the greatest evils incident to Republican Govt was the spirit of contention & faction. The proposed substitute, which in some respects lessened the objections agst the section, had a contrary effect with respect to this particular. It laid a foundation for new difficulties and disputes between the two houses. The word revenue was ambiguous. In many acts, particularly in the regulation of trade, the object would be twofold. The raising of revenue would be one of them. How could it be determined which was the primary or predominant one; or whether it was necessary that revenue shd be the sole object, in exclusion even of other incidental effects. When the Contest was first opened with G. B. their power to regulate trade was admitted. Their power to raise revenue rejected. An accurate investigation of the subject afterwards proved that no line could be drawn between the two cases. The words amend or alter form an equal source of doubt & altercation. When an obnoxious paragraph shall be sent down from the Senate to the House of Reps, it will be called an origination under the name of an amendment. The Senate may actually couch extraneous matter under that name. In these cases, the question will turn on the degree of connection between the matter & object of the bill and the alteration or amendment offered to it. Can there be a more fruitful source of dispute, or a kind of dispute more difficult to be settled? His apprehensions on this point were not conjectural. Disputes had actually flowed from this source in Virga where the Senate can originate no bill. The words, "so as to increase or diminish the sum to be raised," were liable to the same objections. In levying indirect taxes, which it seemed to be understood were to form the principal revenue of the new Govt the sum to be raised, would be increased or diminished by a variety of collateral circumstances influencing the consumption, in general, the consumption of foreign or of domestic articles–of this or that particular species of articles and even by the mode of collection which may be closely connected with the productiveness of a tax.–The friends of the section had argued its necessity from the permanency of the Senate. He could not see how this argumt applied. The Senate was not more permanent now than in the form it bore in the original propositions of Mr Randolph and at the time when no objection whatever was hinted agst its originating money bills. Or if in consequence of a loss of the present question, a proportional vote in the Senate should be reinstated as has been urged as the indemnification the permanency of the Senate will remain the same.–If the right to originate be vested exclusively in the House of Reps either the Senate must yield agst its judgment to that House, in which case the Utility of the check will be lost–or the Senate will be inflexible & the H. of Reps must adapt its money bill to the views of the Senate, in which case, the exclusive right will be of no avail.–As to the Compromise of which so much had been said, he would make a single observation. There were 5 States which had opposed the equality of votes in the Senate, viz, Massts. Penna Virga N. Carolina & South Carola. As a compensation for the sacrifice extorted from them on this head, the exclusive origination of money bills in the other House had been tendered. Of the five States a majority viz. Penna Virga & S. Carola have uniformly voted agst the proposed compensation, on its own merits, as rendering the plan of Govt still more objectionable. Massts has been divided. N. Carolina alone has set a value on the compensation, and voted on that principle. What obligation then can the small States be under to concur agst their judgments in reinstating the section?
Mr Dickenson. Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not Reason that discovered the singular & admirable mechanism of the English Constitution. It was not Reason that discovered or ever could have discovered the odd & in the eye of those who are governed by reason, the absurd mode of trial by Jury. Accidents probably produced these discoveries, and experience has given a sanction to them. This is then our guide. And has not experience verified the utility of restraining money bills to the immediate representatives of the people. Whence the effect may have proceeded he could not say: whether from the respect with which this privilege inspired the other branches of Govt to the H. of Com̃ons, or from the turn of thinking it gave to the people at large with regard to their rights, but the effect was visible & could not be doubted–Shall we oppose to this long experience, the short experience of 11 years which we had ourselves, on this subject. As to disputes, they could not be avoided any way. If both Houses should originate, each would have a different bill to which it would be attached, and for which it would contend.–He observed that all the prejudices of the people would be offended by refusing this exclusive privilege to the H. of Repress and these prejudices shd never be disregarded by us when no essential purpose was to be served. When this plan goes forth it will be attacked by the popular leaders. Aristocracy will be the watchword; the Shiboleth among its adversaries. Eight States have inserted in their Constitutions the exclusive right of originating money bills in favor of the popular branch of the Legislature. Most of them however allowed the other branch to amend. This he thought would be proper for us to do.
Mr Randolph regarded this point as of such consequence, that as he valued the peace of this Country, he would press the adoption of it. We had numerous & monstrous difficulties to combat. Surely we ought not to increase them. When the people behold in the Senate, the countenance of an aristocracy; and in the president, the form at least of a little monarch, will not their alarms be sufficiently raised without taking from their immediate representatives, a right which has been so long appropriated to them.–The Executive will have more influence over the Senate, than over the H. of Reps Allow the Senate to originate in this Case, & that influence will be sure to mix itself in their deliberations & plans. The Declaration of War he conceived ought not to be in the Senate composed of 26 men only, but rather in the other House. In the other House ought to be placed the origination of the means of war. As to Commercial regulations which may involve revenue, the difficulty may be avoided by restraining the definition to bills, for the mere or sole, purpose of raising revenue. The Senate will be more likely to be corrupt than the H. of Reps and should therefore have less to do with money matters. His principal object however was to prevent popular objections against the plan, and to secure its adoption.
Mr Rutlidge. The friends of this motion are not consistent in their reasoning. They tell us that we ought to be guided by the long experience of G. B. & not our own experience of 11 years; and yet they themselves propose to depart from it. The H. of Com̃ons not only have the exclusive right of originating, but the Lords are not allowed to alter or amend a money bill. Will not the people say that this restriction is but a mere tub to the whale. They cannot but see that it is of no real consequence; and will be more likely to be displeased with it as an attempt to bubble them, than to impute it to a watchfulness over their rights. For his part, he would prefer giving the exclusive right to the Senate, if it was to be given exclusively at all. The Senate being more conversant in business, and having more leisure, will digest the bills much better, and as they are to have no effect, till examined & approved by the H. of Reps there can be no possible danger. These clauses in the Constitutions of the States had been put in through a blind adherence to the British model. If the work was to be done over now, they would be omitted. The experiment in S. Carolina, where the Senate can originate or amend money bills, has shewn that it answers no good purpose; and produces the very bad one of continually dividing & heating the two houses. Sometimes indeed if the matter of the amendment of the Senate is pleasing to the other House they wink at the encroachment; if it be displeasing, then the Constitution is appealed to. Every Session is distracted by altercations on this subject. The practice now becoming frequent is for the Senate not to make formal amendments; but to send down a schedule of the alterations which will procure the bill their assent.
Mr Carrol. The most ingenious men in Maryd are puzzled to define the case of money bills, or explain the Constitution on that point, tho it seemed to be worded with all possible plainness & precision. It is a source of continual difficulty & squabble between the two houses.
Mr McHenry [24] mentioned an instance of extraordinary subterfuge, to get rid of the apparent force of the Constitution.