Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/410

384 so quickly, and without the least necessity. He thought one annual meeting ought to be required; but did not wish to make two unavoidable.

Col. MASON thought the objections against fixing the time insuperable; but that an annual meeting ought to be required as essential to the preservation of the Constitution. The extent of the country will supply business; and if it should not, the legislature, besides legislative, is to have inquisitorial powers, which cannot safely be long kept in a state of suspension.

Mr. SHERMAN was decided for fixing the time, as well as for frequent meetings of the legislative body. Disputes and difficulties will arise between the two houses, and between both and the states, if the time be changeable. Frequent meetings of parliament were required, at the revolution in England, as an essential safeguard of liberty. So also are annual meetings in most of the American charters and constitutions. There will be business enough to require it. The western country, and the great extent and varying state of our affairs in general, will supply objects.

Mr. RANDOLPH was against fixing any day irrevocably; but as there was no provision made any where in the Constitution for regulating the periods of meeting, and some precise time must be fixed, until the legislature shall make provision, he could not agree to strike out the words altogether. Instead of which, he moved to add the words following: "unless a different day shall be appointed by law."

Mr. MADISON seconded the motion; and, on the question,—

Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, ay, 8; New Hampshire, Connecticut, no, 2.

Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS moved to strike out "December," and insert "May." It might frequently happen that our measures ought to be influenced by those in Europe, which were generally planned during the winter, and of which intelligence would arrive in the spring.

Mr. MADISON seconded the motion. He preferred May to December, because the latter would require the travelling to and from the seat of government in the most inconvenient seasons of the year.

Mr. WILSON. The winter is the most convenient season for business.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. The summer will interfere too much with private business, that of almost all the probable members of the legislature being more or less connected with agriculture.

Mr. RANDOLPH. The time is of no great moment now, as the legislature can vary it. On looking into the constitutions of the states, he found that the times of their elections (with which the elections of the national representatives would no doubt be made to coincide) would suit better with December than May, and it was advisable to render our innovations as little incommodious as possible.

On the question for "May" instead of "December,"—