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THE GREEN BAG

of the whole. He urged that the journal of Congress should be published; and it may be pertinent while on this point to remark that as a member of the Continental Con gress he had been opposed to secret sessions, asserting that the people of the Union had a right to know what their deputies were doing. He desired a provision in the Constitution, declaring that the contracts of the Confederation would be fulfilled, and advocated a guarantee to the states of republican institutions, and of protection from foreign and domestic violence. He objected to a prohibition against taxing exports. His professional pride caused him to regard a provision in the Constitution forbidding ex post facto laws as wholly unnecessary; he declared that "the insertion of such a thing, will bring reflections on the Constitution and proclaim that we are ignorant of the first principles of legislation or are constituting a government that will be so." He strongly opposed a proposition to allow states to appoint to national offices. He doubted if the writ of habeas corpus should ever be suspended, and desired an absolute prohibition on the states relative to paper money, and a guarantee against laws interfering with the obligation of contracts. He urged that the territorial rights of the United States and of the individual states should be left by the Constitution in statu quo, asserting that he "knew nothing that would cause greater or juster alarm then the doctrine that a political society is to be torn asunder without its own consent." He demanded a provision that Congress should have power to declare the effect which judgments obtained in one state should have in another, and asserted that without such power, each state would be in the same position as independent nations are. He urged that the House of Repre sentatives should be united with the Senate in making treaties, declaring that "as treaties are to have the operation of laws, they ought to have the sanction of the laws also." He objected to a two-thirds vote in the Senate on treaties, because it would put

it "into the power of a minority to control the will of a majority," and showed that, in case of an existing war, "if two-thirds was necessary to make peace the minority may perpetuate war against the sense of the majority." He opposed the appointment of Judges by Congress and proposed that the appoint ments should be made by the President. He urged a national judiciary and argued that the admiralty jurisdiction should be given to the national government exclu sively, "as it related to cases not within the jurisdiction of particular states." He desired the Judges to remain in office during good behavior and opposed a provision permitting their removal by the President on application of the Senate and House of Representatives, declaring that "the Judges would be in a bad situation if made to depend on any gust of faction which might prevail in the two branches of our govern ment." He thought unanimity among the states unnecessary in order to put the new Constitution into operation. Madison records that Wilson took occasion early in the convention to lead it "by a train of observations to the idea of not suffering a disposition in the plurality of states to confederate anew on better principles, to be defeated by the inconsiderate or selfish opposition of a few states." He hoped the provision for ratifying would be put on such a footing as to admit of such a partial union, with a door open for the accession of the rest. He desired the new Constitu tion to be ratified by a majority vote of the people and of the states. According to Wilson's theories, future amendments should be adoptable by a majority vote of the people, but, on it being moved that no amendments should be binding until con sented to by all the states, he proposed that two-thirds only should be necessary, and being defeated in this immediately advocated three-fourths as the next best thing attain able and secured it. After the great principles and much of the mechanism of the new government had