Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/200

174 substituted on any other basis than that of a proportional suffrage. If the large states possessed the avarice and ambition with which they were charged, would the small ones in their neighborhood be more secure when all control of a general government was withdrawn?

Mr. BUTLER was vehement against the negative in the proposed extent, as cutting off all hope of equal justice to the distant states. The people there would not, he was sure, give it a hearing.

On the question for extending the negative power to all cases, as proposed by Mr. Pinckney and Mr. Madison,—

Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, (Mr. Randolph and Mr. Mason, no; Mr. Blair, Dr. M'Clurg, and Mr. Madison, ay; Gen. Washington not consulted,) ay, 3; Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 7; Delaware, divided, (Mr. Read and Mr. Dickinson, ay; Mr. Bedford and Mr. Basset, no.)$98$

On motion of Mr. GERRY and Mr. KING, to-morrow was assigned for reconsidering the mode of appointing the national executive; the reconsideration being voted for by all the states except Connecticut and North Carolina.

Mr. PINCKNEY and Mr. RUTLEDGE moved to add to the fourth resolution, agreed to by the committee, the following, viz.: "that the states be divided into three classes; the first class to have three members, the second two, and the third one member, each; that an estimate be taken of the comparative importance of each state at fixed periods, so as to ascertain the number of members they may from time to time be entitled to." The committee then rose, and the House adjourned. 

, June 9.

Mr. Luther Martin, from Maryland, took his seat.

In Committee of the Whole.—Mr. GERRY, according to previous notice given by him, moved "that the national executive should be elected by the executives of the states, whose proportion of votes should be the same with that allowed to the states in the election of the Senate." If the appointment should be made by the national legislature, it would lessen that independence of the executive which ought to prevail; would give birth to intrigue and corruption between the executive and legislature previous to the election, and to partiality in the executive afterwards to the friends who promoted him Some other mode, therefore, appeared to him necessary. He proposed that of appointing by the state executives, as most analogous to the principle observed in electing the other branches of the national government: the first branch being chosen by the people of the states, and the second by the legislatures of the states, he did not see any objection against letting the executive be appointed by the executives of the states. He supposed the executives would be most likely to select the fittest men, and that it would be their interest to support the man of their own choice.

Mr. RANDOLPH urged strongly the inexpediency of Mr. Gerry's mode of appointing the national executive. The confidence of the 