Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/199

 creature of the President, as the system enables a senator to be appointed to offices, and, without the nomination of the President, no appointment can take place; as such, he will favor the wishes of the President, and concur in his measures; who, if he has no ambitious views of his own to gratify, may be too favorable to the ambitious views of the large States, who will have an undue share in his original appointment, and on whom he will be more dependent afterwards than on the States which are smaller. If the senator places his future prospects in that State where the seat of empire is fixed, from that time he will be, in every question wherein its particular interest may be concerned, the representative of that State, not of his own.

[] But even this provision, apparently for the security of the State governments, inadequate as it is, is entirely left at the mercy of the general government; for, by the fourth section of the first article, it is expressly provided, that the Congress shall have a power to make and alter all regulations concerning the time and manner of holding elections for senators; a provision expressly looking forward to, and, I have no doubt designed for, the utter extinction and abolition of all State governments; nor will this, I believe, be doubted by any person, when I inform you, that some of the warm advocates and patrons of the system, in convention, strenuously opposed the choice of the senators by the State legislatures, insisting, that the State governments ought not to be introduced in any manner, so as to be component parts of, or instruments for carrying into execution, the general government. Nay, so far were the friends of the system from pretending that they meant it, or considered it as a federal system, that on the question being proposed, “that a union of the States, merely federal, ought to be the sole object of the exercise of the powers vested in the convention,” it was negatived by a majority of the members, and it was resolved “that a national government ought to be formed.” Afterwards the word “national” was struck out by them, because they thought the word might tend to alarm; and although, now, they who advocate the system pretend to call themselves federalists, in convention the distinction was quite the reverse; those who opposed the system were there considered and styled the federal party, those who advocated it, the antifederal.

[] Viewing it as a national, not a federal government, as calculated and designed not to protect and preserve, but to abolish and annihilate the State governments, it was opposed for the following reasons. It was said, that this continent was much too extensive for one national government, which should have sufficient power and energy to pervade and hold in obedience and subjection all its parts,