Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/639

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Mr. Randolph's views were evidently based on the suggestions of Mr. Madison; for that gentleman, in a letter to Mr. Randolph, a few weeks previous, urged the same idea of a negative by the national government, "in all cases whatsoever, on the legislative acts of the states, as the king of Great Britain heretofore had."

The resolutions of Mr. Randolph became the basis on which the proceedings of the Convention commenced, and, as Mr. Madison says, "to the developments, narrations, and modifications of which the plan of government proposed by the Convention may be traced."

Let us, then, follow out the discussions of this body until the suggested joint revision by the executive and judiciary became altered to the single negative of the President. On the 4th of June, the first clause of Mr. Randolph's eighth resolution was taken up; but Mr. Gerry, from Massachusetts, doubting whether the judiciary ought to have any thing to do with it, moved to postpone the clause, and introduced the following amendment:—

Rufus King, from Massachusetts, seconded the motion, and the proposition of Mr. Grerry was taken up. Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, and Alexander Hamilton, of New York, wished to strike out the latter clause, so as to give the executive an absolute negative on the laws; but, though supported by these gentlemen, it was opposed by Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, Madison, Butler, of South Carolina, and Mason, of Virginia; and was therefore negatived.

Mr. Butler and Dr. Franklin then wished to give a suspending instead of a negative power; but this was overruled, and the blank of Mr. Gerry's resolution was filled up, sub silentio, with two thirds; and the question being taken on the motion, as thus stated, it received the votes of eight states, Connecticut and Maryland voting in the negative. On the 6th June, according to previous notice, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Madison moved to reconsider the vote excluding the judiciary from a share in the revision and negative of the executive, with the view of reënforcing the latter with the influence of the former. But though Mr. Madison urged the plan of associating the judges in the revisionary function of the executive, as thereby doubling the advantages and diminishing the dangers, and as enabling the judiciary better to defend itself against legislative encroachments, it was as eloquently opposed by Mr. Gerry, and others, who thought that the executive, while standing alone, would be more impartial than when he could be covered by the sanction and seduced by the sophistry of the judges; and it was finally rejected. Two days after, at the conclusion of an animated debate, the subject of giving the national legislature a negative on the several state laws, which was first suggested to the convention by Mr. Randolph's resolutions, and subsequently brought up for reconsideration by Mr. Pinckney and Mr. Madison, was also voted down,—three states in the affirmative, seven in the negative, Delaware divided.

On the 18th of June, Mr. Hamilton offered to the Convention a plan of government, in the fourth article of which the veto power was unqualifiedly conferred on the executive. The next day, Mr. Gorham, from Massachusetts, reported from the committee appointed to reconsider the various propositions before the Convention, and the tenth resolution of that report says: "That the national executive shall have a right to negative any legislative act, which shall not be afterwards passed, unless by two thirds of each branch of the national legislature." The Convention proceeded to take up the several articles and clauses of this report, and it was not till the 18th July, that the tenth resolution became the order of the day; it was then passed nem. con. On the 21st, however, Mr. Wilson, still entertaining his original views, as to the union of the judiciary with the executive on the veto power, moved an amendment to the