«York, New-Jersey, Delaware. Against it, Massachusetts, Penn❝sylvania, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, Georgia. "Maryland divided." Even yet, only eleven states had appeared, and five refused their concurrence to a national government, which now began to totter.

June 23. The deputies of New-Hampshire first appeared, and New-York never afterwards seems to have given a vote in the convention.

June 25. "It was proposed and seconded to erase the word "national, and to substitute the words United States in the "fourth resolution, which passed in the affirmative." Thus we see an opinion expressed by the convention, that the phrase "United States" did not mean "a consolidated American peo'ple or nation," and all the inferences in favour of a national government from the style "We, the people of the United "States," are overthrown, as that style was adopted, not to establish the idea of an American people, but to defeat it.

July 23. "The proceedings of the convention for the esta "blishment of a national government, except what respects "the supreme executive, were referred to a committee, and the "next day the propositions of Mr. C. Pinckney, and of Mr. Patterson, were referred to the same committee.”

August 18. It was proposed to empower the legislature of the United States, (the word national is now dropt,) "to grant char"ters of incorporation in cases where the publick good may re"quire them, and the authority of a single state may be incom"petent; to establish a university; to encourage, by proper pre"miums and provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge "and discoveries; to establish seminaries for the promotion of "literature and the arts and sciences; to grant charters of incor"poration; to establish institutions, rewards, and immunities, "for the promotion of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; "and to regulate stages on the post-roads," which, with other propositions, were referred to the committee of July 23d.

August 27. It was moved and negatived, that "in all other "cases before mentioned, the judicial power shall be exercised “in such manner as the legislature may direct.”

September 14. "Question. To grant letters of incorporation "for canals, et cetera; negatived. To establish a university; "negatived."

The propositions of August the 18th, seem to have been the last considerable struggle for a national government; but the residue of the journal is so concise and imperfect, that their rejection is only discoverable by a reference to the constitution, in which not a single one of them is to be found.

Their rejection was a necessary consequence of substituting a federal for the national government zealously contended for, from the 29th of May to the 14th of September. It was obvious that powers to establish corporations, prescribe the mode of edu cation, patroniso local improvements, and bestow rowards and immunities for the promotion of agriculturo, commerce, and ma nufactures, would certainly swallow up a federal, and introduce a national government. When, therefore, a fedoral system obtained the preferenco, it would have been inconsistent with the high degree of intelligence possessed by the members of the convention, to have permitted their determination to be defeated by these indirect attempts. This intelligence was assailed by the soothing but insidious restriction, that the powers to incorporate, grant exclusive privileges, and exerciso every species of patronage, were only to be exercised in cases where the publick "good may require it." The same soothing but insidious argument is now addressed to the intelligence of the publick, to jus tify an exercise of the very powers which the intelligence of the convention withheld from a federal government; and whether the promise of publick good, has been fallacious or fulfilled by the monopolies of currency, of manufactures, and the extension of federal patronage, the publick can decido. Yet, whatever may have been their temporary eflect, it is obvious that the enlightened framers of the constitution considered the condition of publick good, as an enlargement and not a restriction of power; and that it would defont all the limitations of the constitution, by which a federal government could be formed or sustained. It was a pretext which would fit every encroachment or usurpation; and no powers could be more indefinite and sovereign than those of granting exclusive privileges, bestowing rewards and immunities.

upon the three comprehensive interests of society, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, and patronising capitalists, paupers, knowledge, and ignorance. Such a nest of powers, though exhibited as sleeping in the bed of publick good, bore so strong a resemblance to the old bed of justice in France, which was the repository of evil as well as good, that they were all rejected. It was evident that they would be sufficient to re-hatch the strangled national form of government; and the convention having finally preferred the federal form, thought that no good to the publick could result from such powers, which would recompenso it for the evils it would sustain from the subversion of that form. The convention saw, that if Congress could exercise such powers, for the publick good, it might, upon the same ground, usurp any powers whatsoever, and in rejecting the propositions, decided between investing that body with a general or a limited federal authority. Hence the power to regulate commerce wast intended to revive the rejected proposition to empower Congress to bestow rewards upon agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. Hence the rejected proposition, to empower Congress to direct the exercise of the judicial power, cannot enable it to extend the jurisdiction of the supreme court. And for the same reason, a power to make war, cannot revive the reJected power to make canals, or to perform any of those et ceteras, whatever they were, referred to by the journal. If these sweeping and indefinite sovereign powers, or all powers thought by those who exercise them to be necessary for the publick good, with an et cetera besides, though proposed and rejected, do yet pass to Congress under the constitution; then the battle between the national and federal parties in the convention, terminated quite contrary to the usual course of things; the vanquished were victorious, and the victorious were vanquished ; and if they were now alive, one party would be as much sur prised to discover, that it had carried the consolidating proposi tions which it had lost, as the other, that it had lost the federal principles which it carried. The spectacle of the slain rising up alive, and the living falling down dead, could not have been expected by either.

No powers can be more sovereign and arbitrary, than those of deciding and doing whatever may administer to the public good, and of pilfering private property by privilegos, partialitios, promiums, monopolies, rewards, and immunities; nor more capable of reaching any end. Had the rejection of such powers been unnecessary for the security of a federal form of government, the convention might have still been justifiable for the act, as deeming them tyrannical, fraudulent, and oppressive. Did the convention reject them in fact, and re-plant them in masquerade? I discern no evidence in the journal to excite such a suspicion. Colonel Hamilton, far from discerning the supposed 'ingenuity of sinking a national form of government in a lake of obscurity, to be fished up by a long line of constructions, when it might be safer to avow the intention, seems to have quitted the convention in despair, soon after the failure of his project. Mr. Randolph, undoubtedly influenced by having lost his plan also refused to sign the constitution. And though Mr. Madisond Colonel Hamilton both signed it, and Mr. Randolph supported it in the Virginia convention, they must have been influenced by the patriotick motivo of effecting some good, though they could not accomplish all which they attempted. These are strong reasons to prove, that the gentlemen who had contended for a supreme national government, and of whose propositions for that purpose, not one was adopted by the constitution, did not imagine they had succeeded.

The journal of the convention states that the constitution 4 was transmitted to Congress, and by it to the state legislatures;

that these legislatures, by separato laws, appointed stato con"ventions for the consideration of the constitution; and that it "was ratified by the delegates of the people of each state." Every step in its progress, from beginning to end, defines it to bo a federal and not a national act. The deputies who framed it were federal and not national deputies. They transmitted it to Congress, because the assent of that body was required by the federal union of 1777. It was transmitted by Congress to the state legislatures, because the federal principle required it. And it was ratified by each state, because each state was sovereign and independent.

4 Tho conventions of each state, reported to Congress their ratifications. That of South-Carolina subjoined to theirs a de "claration, that no section or paragraph of the constitution war rants a construction, that the states do not retain every power, « not expressly relinquished by them, and vested in the general "government of the union ;" and the conventions of other states subjoined declarations of the samo import, or still more explicit, to their ratifications. The various efforts in the convention to invest a federal government, or some department thereof, with a negativo upon state laws, though generally unknown, wero known to its members. It was natural that the obstinacy with which they had been persevered in, and the vehement desire to establish a national government, unequivocally disclosed, should inspiro a jealousy, lest the same design should be attempted by constructions. The great talents and weight of character by which it was advocated, probably increased this apprehension, and suggested the necessity for these declarations to those members who know the fact, and could estimate the danger. They were a contemporaucous federal construction of the constitution, intended to counteract and defont any future construction, by which the rejected national government might be reinstated. A negativo in the government of the union, or in some of its departments, upon stato legislation, had been strenuously urged and resisted in the convention, on the same ground; by one party, because it would establish a national government; by the other, because it would destroy a federal government.

The convention of New-York prophetically declared “that "the jurisdiction of the supreme court of the United States, or "of any other court to be instituted by Congress, is not in any "case to be increased, enlarged, or extended, by any fiction, col❝lusion, or more suggestion."

These contemporary constructions of the states, produced the amendment, made by the parties to the union, reserving to the states or to the people, the powers not delegated to the United States. No negative upon state laws was delegated to the federal government, or any department thereof, and the absence of such a power had been enforced by its rejection. The right of state legislation without being subject to this negative, not being pro