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 250 "National" government. [i?87 called up again), to consider one declaring that a national government ought to be established, consisting of supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. The committee readily adopted the resolution, on May 30; six States voting for it, one, Connecticut, against it, and one, New York, being divided. The resolution, thus adopted by the committee of the whole House, came before the Convention on June 19. The debate, turning on the word "national," was opened by Wilson in favour of the resolution. He observed that, according to the meaning which he attached to the words "national government,' 1 the proposed government would not swallow up the State governments, as some of the delegates seemed to wish. He was strongly in favour of preserving the States. Contrary to what he had understood to be Hamilton's opinion, he thought that the States might not only subsist, but subsist on friendly terms with the national government. The States were necessary for purposes which the national government could not reach; all large governments must be divided into smaller jurisdictions. Hamilton, who also favoured the resolution, said that he had been misunderstood. He would do away with the States in the sense only of drawing no boundary between the national and the State legislatures; the former must therefore have indefinite authority. If it were limited at all, the States would gradually subvert it. Even as corporations, some of them would be formidable ; as States, he thought that they ought to be abolished. He admitted the need of them as subordinate jurisdictions. King conceived that the terms " States," " sovereignty," " national," and "federal" had been inaccurately used. The States were not sovereign in the sense contended for by some. They could not make war or peace, or alliances or treaties. They could not speak or listen to foreign sovereigns; they could not of themselves raise troops or equip vessels for war. If a union of the States comprised a confederation, it comprised also consolidation. Union of the States was a union of the men composing them; whence a national character. Congress (of the Confederacy) could act alone, without the States ; it could act against instructions from the States. If Congress declared war, war was de jure declared; the States could not change the situation. If then the States retained some portion of sovereignty, they had divested themselves of essential portions of it; if they formed a confederacy in some respects, they formed a nation in others. He doubted whether it were practicable to destroy the States, but thought that much of their power should be taken away. Martin considered that the separation from Great Britain put the former colonies in a state of nature towards each other ; that this would have continued but for the Confederation ; that they entered it on terms of equality; and that they were now to amend the articles