418

Bedford's ALARMING SPEECH.

from equality of voting in Congress. As the plan now stood, the Senate was made dependent on the States; and Madison pronounced it another edition of Congress.

The three large States, said Bedford, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, had a common interest to bind themselves together in commerce, but whatever form this interest took, the small States would be ruined. There was no middle way between a perfect consolidation and a new confederacy of the States. The smaller ones had been told that this was the last opportunity for securing a fair government, but there was no need of apprehension, as the large States would not dare to dissolve the Confederation; for if they did, the smaller ones would find some foreign ally with more honor and good faith, who would take them by the hand and do them justice. He did not wish to cause alarm, but to point out the natural consequences of annihilating, instead of enlarging, the federal powers.1

Whatever Bedford meant, whether to threaten or to expostulate, or merely to give utterance to his fears, his hint that the smaller States might seek foreign alliances startled the members and made a profound impression. Every member knew that there was danger of civil dissolution and possibly of foreign alliance, but there is no reason to doubt that the members, including Bedford himself, in his cooler moments, agreed with King that whatever might be the distress, no State would ever court relief from a foreign power. The attitude of the members toward the great question immediately before them was now shown in the equal vote, counted a negative under

1 Madison's version of Bedford's speech would intimate that it was much less vehement and objectionable than as reported by Yates. Compare Elliot, V, 268, with Yates, I, 471.

IN SEARCH OF A COMPROMISE.

419

the rules rejecting Ellsworth's suggestion, but allowing each State one vote in the Senate.1

This brought the Convention back to the plan of proportional representation in both House and Senate. Charles Pinckney declared it inadmissible in the Senate because of the industrial differences between the Northern and Southern States. As the Northern would outvote the Southern in the Senate on the basis of proportional representation, that would endanger their peculiar interests such as rice and indigo in the Carolinas and Georgia. The discrimination might be prevented, however, by allowing the larger States a proportion, but not a full proportion, of votes. To this end he would divide the States into classes and apportion the Senators among them. Some compromise was evidently necessary, and he proposed that a member from each State should be appointed to a committee to devise and report

As the Convention was now at a full stop, as Sherman said, and as no member intended that it should break up without doing something, he thought a committee most likely to hit upon some expedient.

Gouverneur Morris, who had now returned, agreed with him, not only because of the equal division of sentiments, but because the proposed mode of appointing the Senate, it seemed to him, would defeat the object which such a body was intended to secure, namely, to check the precipitation, excesses and changeableness of the House. His idea of the Senate was of a body of men having a personal interest in checking the House; having large personal estates; possessing independence and the permanency of a life membership. They should serve without pay, and

1 July 2. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland (Jenifer absent, Martin alone voting), aye; Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, no; Georgia, divided (Baldwin aye, Houston no).

420 should be elected without reference to their place of residence. The Senate should be independent of the States, and by its wealth, aristocracy and independence contribute to make a firm government. The general feeling was for a committee, and New Jersey and Delaware alone dissenting, it was chosen by ballot and consisted of Gerry, Ellsworth, Yates, Patterson, Franklin, Bedford, Martin, Mason, Davie, Rutledge and Baldwin. In order to give them ample time and also to enable the members to attend the celebrations in the city, on the eleventh anniversary of Independence, an adjournment was ordered until the fifth of July.

THE MATTER REFERRED TO A COMMITTEE.

As the delegates left the hall and mingled again with their fellow-citizens, they could not escape their own thoughts, more or less anxious for the fate of the work growing up under their hands. Naturally they considered the foundation of the whole plan they had been discussing. The duty they had imposed upon the Grand Committee carried with it, in large measure, the fate of the whole plan, for its acceptance or rejection by the people of the States would certainly depend upon its basis of repre

sentation.

CHAPTER V.

THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION.

The Grand Committee met on the third, and made Gerry its chairman. Its members were already nearly equally divided on the question before them and their appointment simply signified that there was more hope of compromise among eleven men than among fifty. Some were firmly convinced of the necessity of apportioning representation in the Senate on the basis of numbers and wealth, and others were equally convinced that the basis must be strictly federal. The choice of either basis would rest with the odd man in the committee. Its discussions seem to have gone over familiar ground.1 Lansing urged a general government on federal principles, and his remarks led Franklin to suggest a proposition, which, somewhat modified, was agreed to and made the basis of the committee's report. The suggestion was truly diplomatic. The committee should recommend two propositions to the Convention with the understanding that both should be adopted; in the first branch, each State in the Union should be entitled to one member for every forty thousand inhabitants, and by inhabitants should be understood all white persons and three-fifths of all others, excluding Indians not taxed. A State not containing a unit of population should be allowed one member. All revenue bills

1 This Chapter is based on the debates from July 5 to July 17; Madison's note in the Documentary History, III, 270-244; Elliot, V, 273-317; Journal, Documentary History, I, 79-96; Elliot, I, 193-206; Madison's Works (Gilpin), II, 1024-1110; Scott's Edition of the Madison Papers, 290-356. Yates and Lansing left the convention July 5, and Yates' Minutes include only a partial account of the work of the Grand Committee.

422

THE COMMITTEE REPORTS.

should originate in the House and should not be altered or amended in the Senate. Money should not be drawn out of the treasury except in pursuance of appropriations originating with the House, and each State should have an equal vote in the Senate.1

Gerry brought in the report as one made simply as a ground of compromise and with the understanding that no one was under obligation to support it. Wilson promptly declared that the committee had exceeded its powers, but Martin, who saw in its suggestions a substantial gain for the smaller States, wished an immediate division of the House on the whole report; this being too much like a leap in the dark, Wilson preferred a division on each proposition. Madison did not consider the privilege of originating money bills as any concession by the smaller States, for experience had proved that it had no effect. If the majority in the Senate desired a money bill, they would find some member of the House who would present it; so too, and of equally little value, were the restrictions of amendments, for these could be handed privately by the Senate to the House. Bills could be negatived only when sent up in an acceptable form, which would destroy the

1 Madison, speaking of this report, says: "It was barely acquiesced in by the members from the States opposed to an equality of votes in the two branches, and was evidently considered by the members on the other side as a gaining of their point. A motion was made by Sherman (who acted in the place of Ellsworth, who was kept away by indisposition) in the committee to the following effect: "That each State should have an equal vote in the second branch, provided that no decision therein should prevail, unless the majority of States concurring should also compose a majority of the inhabitants of the United States.' This motion was not much deliberated upon or approved in the committee. A similar proviso had been proposed in the debates on the Articles of Confederation in 1777 to the Articles giving certain powers to nine States." Documentary History, III, 270. Elliot, V, 274; also Journals of Congress, 1777, 462.

2 July 5.