Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/186

160 establishment of inferior tribunals would cost infinitely less than the appeals that would be prevented by them.

On this question, as moved by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Madison,—

Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, ay, 8; Connecticut, South Carolina, no, 2; New York, divided.$94$ (In the printed Journal, New Jersey, no.)

The committee then rose, and the house adjourned. 

, June 6.

In Committee of the Whole.—Mr. PINCKNEY, according to previous notice, and rule obtained, moved, "that the first branch of the national legislature be elected by the state legislatures, and not by the people;" contending that the people were less fit judges in such a case, and that the legislatures would be less likely to promote the adoption of the new government if they were to be excluded from all share in it.

Mr. RUTLEDGE seconded the motion.

Mr. GERRY. Much depends on the mode of election. In England, the people will probably lose their liberty from the smallness of the proportion having a right of suffrage. Our danger arises from the opposite extreme. Hence, in Massachusetts, the worst men get into the legislature. Several members of that body had lately been convicted of infamous crimes. Men of indigence, ignorance, and baseness, spare no pains, however dirty, to carry their point against men who are superior to the artifices practised. He was not disposed to run into extremes. He was as much principled as ever against aristocracy and monarchy. It was necessary, on the one hand, that the people should appoint one branch of the government, in order to inspire them with the necessary confidence; but he wished the election, on the other, to be so modified as to secure more effectually a just preference of merit. His idea was, that the people should nominate certain persons, in certain districts, out of whom the state legislatures should make the appointment.

Mr. WILSON. He wished for vigor in the government, but he wished that vigorous authority to flow immediately from the legitimate source of all authority. The government ought to possess, not only, first, the force, but second, the mind or sense, of the people at large. The legislature ought to be the most exact transcript of the whole society. Representation is made necessary only because it is impossible for the people to act collectively. The opposition was to be expected, he said, from the governments, not from the citizens, of the states. The latter had parted, as was observed by Mr. KING, with all the necessary powers; and it was immaterial to them by whom they were exercised, if well exercised. The state officers were to be the losers of power. The people, he supposed, would be rather more attached to the national government than to the state governments as being more important in itself, and more flattering to their pride. 