Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/57

 CH. IX.] three states voted in the affirmative and eight in the negative. At a subsequent period a motion, that the representatives should be appointed in such manner as the legislature of each state should direct, was negatived, six states voting in the affirmative, three in the negative, and one being divided; and the final vote in favour of an election by the people was decided by the vote of nine states in the affirmative, one voting in the negative, and one being divided. The result was not therefore obtained without much discussion and argument; though at last an entire unanimity prevailed. It is satisfactory to know, that a fundamental principle of public liberty has been thus secured to ourselves and our posterity, which will for ever indissolubly connect the interests of the people with the interests of the Union. Under the confederation, though the delegates to congress might have been elected by the people, they were, in fact, in all the states except two, elected by the state legislature. 7