Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/488

462 Mr. RUTLEDGE, from the committee to whom were referred, on the 18th and 20th instant, the propositions of Mr. Madison and Mr. Pinckney, made the report following:—

"The committee report, that, in their opinion, the following additions should De made to the report now before the Convention, namely:—

"At the end of the first clause of the first section of the seventh article, add, 'for payment of the debts and necessary expenses of the United States; provided that no law for raising any branch of revenue, except what may be specially appropriated for the payment of interest on debts or loans, shall continue in force for more than ——— years.'

"At the end of the second clause, second section, seventh article, add, 'and with Indians, within the limits of any state, not subject to the laws thereof.'

"At the end of the sixteenth clause of the second section, seventh article, add, 'and to provide, as may become necessary from time to time, for the well managing and securing the common property and general interests and welfare of the United States in such manner as shall not interfere with the government of individual states, in matters which respect only their internal police, or for which their individual authority may be competent.'

"At the end of the first section, tenth article, add, 'he shall be of the age of thirty-five years, and a citizen of the United States, and shall have been an inhabitant thereof for twenty-one years.'

"After the second section, of the tenth article, insert the following as a third section: 'The President of the United States shall have a privy council, which shall consist of the president of the Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the principal officer in the respective departments of foreign affairs, domestic affairs, war, marine, and finance, as such departments of office shall from time to time be established; whose duty it shall be to advise him in matters, respecting the execution of his office, which he shall think proper to lay before them; but their advice shall not conclude him, nor affect his responsibility for the measures which he shall adopt.'

"At the end of the second section of the eleventh article, add, 'the judges of the Supreme Court shall be triable by the Senate, on impeachment by the House of Representatives.'

"Between the fourth and fifth lines of the third section of the eleventh article, after the word 'controversies,' insert, 'between the United States and an individual state, or the United States and an individual person.'"

A motion to rescind the order of the House, respecting the hours of meeting and adjourning, was negatived.

Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, ay, 4; New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no, 7.

Mr. GERRY and Mr. M'HENRY moved to insert, after the second section, article 7, the clause following, to wit:—

"The legislature shall pass no bill of attainder, nor any ex post facto law."

Mr. GERRY urged the necessity of this prohibition, which, he said, was greater in the national than the state legislature; because, the number of members in the former being fewer, they were on that account the more to be feared.

Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS thought the precaution as to ex post facto laws unnecessary, but essential as to bills of attainder.

Mr. ELLSWORTH contended, that there was no lawyer, no civilian, who would not say that ex post facto laws were void of themselves. It cannot, then, be necessary to prohibit them.