Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/296

 256 states, as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that, which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected. And thus the constitution, which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession, which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable."

§ 277. Congress, having received the report of the convention on the 28th of September, 1787, unanimously resolved, "that the said report, with the resolutions and letter accompanying the same, be transmitted to the several legislatures in order to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof, in conformity to the resolves of the convention, made and provided in that case."

§ 278. Conventions in the various states, which had been represented in the general convention, were accordingly called by their respective legislatures; and the constitution having been ratified by eleven out of the twelve states, congress, on the 13th of September, 1788, passed a resolution appointing the first Wednesday in January following, for the choice of electors of