July. CHAP. their liberty and property. The suffrage was not as VI. yet regarded as a right incident to manhood, and 1787. could be extended only according to the judgment of those who were found in possession of it. When 1785. in 1785 an act providing for the gradual abolition of slavery within the state of New York, while it placed the children born of slaves in the rank of citizens, deprived them of the privileges of electors, the council of revision, Clinton and Sloss Hobart being present, and adopting the report of Chancellor Livingston, negatived the act, because, "in violation of the rules of justice and against the letter and spirit of the constitution," it disfranchised the black, mulatto, and mustee citizens who had heretofore been entitled to a vote. The veto prevailed; and in the state of New York the colored man retained his impartial right of suffrage till the constitution of 1821. Virginia, which continued to recognise free negroes 1788. as citizens, in the session in which it sanctioned the north-western ordinance, enacted that any person who should be convicted of stealing or selling any free person for a slave shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. This was the protection which Virginia, when the constitution was forming, extended to the black man. 1 Street's New York Council of Revision, 268, 269. 2 Hening, xii. 581. CHAPTER VII. THE CONSTITUTION IN DETAIL. THE POWERS OF CON GRESS. 6 AUGUST TO 10 SEPTEMBER, 1787. VII. Aug. THE twenty-three resolutions of the convention CHAP. were distributed by the committee of detail into as many articles, which included new subjects of the 1787. gravest moment. On the sixth of August every 6. member of the convention received a copy of this draft of a constitution, printed on broadsides in large type, with wide spaces and margin for minutes of amendments. The experience of more than two months had inspired its members with the courage and the disposition to make still bolder grants of power to the union. The instrument" opens with the new and sublime words: "We, the people of the states," enumerating New Hampshire and every other of the thirteen, "do ordain, declare, and establish the following constitu Of these copies six have been examined, including that of the president of the convention, and, as is believed, that of its secre- 2 Gilpin, 1226; Elliot, 376. CHAP. tion for the government of ourselves and our posterity."1 VII. 1787. Aug. 6. When "the good people" of thirteen colonies, each having an organized separate home government, and each hitherto forming an integral part of one common empire, jointly prepared to declare themselves free and independent states, it was their first care to ascertain of whom they were composed. The question they agreed to investigate and decide by a joint act of them all. For this end congress selected from its numbers five of its ablest jurists and most trusted statesmen: John Adams of Massachusetts, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and Robert R. Livingston of New York; the fairest representation that could have been made of New England, of the South, and of the central states. The committee thought not of embarrassing themselves with the introduction of any new theory of citizenship; they looked solely for existing facts. They found colonies with well-known territorial boundaries; and inhabitants of the territory of each colony; and their unanimous report, unanimously accepted by congress, was: "All persons abiding within any of the United Colonies, and deriving protection from the laws of the same, owe allegiance to the said laws, and are members of such colony." From "persons making a visitation or temporary stay," only a secondary allegiance was held to be due. 2 "We the people of Massachusetts-do-ordain and establish the following-constitution of civil government for ourselves and pos terity." Preamble to the first con- VII. Aug. 6. When the articles of confederation were framed CHAP. with the grand principle of intercitizenship, which gave to the American confederation a superiority over every one that preceded it, the same definition of membership of the community was repeated, except that intercitizenship was not extended to the pauper, or the vagabond, or the fugitive from justice, or the slave. And now these free inhabitants of every one of the United States, this collective people, proclaim their common intention, by their own innate life, to institute a general government, to whose existence they set no limit. For the name of the government they chose "The United States of America"; language, which expressed unity in plurality and was endeared by usage, being preferred to any new description. That there might be no room to question where paramount allegiance would be due, the second article declared: "The government shall consist of supreme legislative, executive, and judicial powers." 1 To maintain that supremacy, the legislature of the United States was itself authorized to carry into execution all powers vested by this new constitution in the government of the United States, or in any of its departments or offices. The name congress was adopted to mark the two branches of the legislature, which were now named the house of representatives and the senate; the house still taking precedence as the first branch. The executive was henceforward known as "the President." The scheme of erecting a general government on 1 Gilpin, 1226; Elliot, 377. 2 Gilpin, 1233; Elliot, 379. VII. Aug. 6. CHAP. the authority of the state legislatures was discarded; and the states were enjoined to prescribe for the elec1787. tion of the members of each branch, regulations subject to be altered by the legislature of the United States; but the convention itself, in its last days, unanimously reserved to the states alone the right to establish the places for choosing senators." 14. To ensure the continuous succession of the gov ernment, the legislature was ordered to meet on the first Monday in December in every year," "unless," added the convention, "congress should by law appoint a different day." To complete the independence of congress, provision needed to be made for the support of its members. The committee of detail left them to be paid for their services by their respective states; but this mode would impair the self-sustaining character of the government. Ellsworth, avowing a change of opinion, moved that they should be paid out of the Treasury of the United States. "If the general legisla ture," said Dickinson, "should be left dependent on the state legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room." The motion of Ellsworth was carried by nine states against Massachusetts and South Carolina. The compensation which he and Sherman would have fixed at five dollars a day, and the same for every thirty miles of travel, was left "to be ascertained by law.” In the distribution of representatives among the 1 Gilpin, 1229, 1279, 1281, 1282, 1546, 1608; Elliot, 377, 401, 402, 559. 2 Gilpin, 1227; Elliot, 377. 425. Gilpin, 931, 1326; Elliot, 226, Gilpin, 1329; Elliot, 427. 5 Gilpin, 1330; Elliot, 427. |