good, might from education or habit or local situation reason very differently on topics, which this convention were called to decide. As the condition of affairs, which rendered some modification of the existing government necessary, was traced to one or another set of causes, so unquestionably would be considered the propriety of erecting a new building, or endeavouring to repair the tottering fabric, which had become wholly unsuited to the times.

Among the delegates in convention were many, who had been practically sensible with what limping steps the measures of congress had proceeded in the days of revolution, and how imperfectly its want of authority had been aided by such auxiliary motives as could be brought to bear on the people. They had felt the wastefulness and ruin produced by the negligence or the obstinacy of those, on whom the government were obliged to rely without the power to command. They had beheld the army at one time almost disbanded, because there existed no coercive power to fill its ranks; and famishing and freezing at another, because there was no lawful way of appropriating to its use the resources of the country. They had seen the credit of the country exhausted in war, when yet it was rich in those means on which credit might properly be based; and in peace they had found commerce languishing, industry paralyzed, and the character of the nation

degraded, because no concentrated power could direct its natural spirit of enterprise, or arrange with its rivals a fair competition in proportion to its means. These members might naturally enough consider the weakness of the public arm as the cause of general distress, and be expected to place their dependence for future prosperity only on a government strong enough to secure obedience to its will.

On the other side were many among the delegates at Philadelphia, who in the appropriate walks of civil life had first been called to withstand the encroachments of established authority; who had commenced their labours in the public service by investigating and explaining the rights of the people in opposition to the claims of the government; who had learned as an axiom in politics, that power, by its own appropriate energy, however obtained, or by whomsoever possessed, will increase and extend and perpetuate itself; and tracing to this principle all the misery and desolation of the recent war, and all the sufferings and sacrifices, which had been required to bring it to a close, might very reasonably entertain a jealousy of every depositary of political power and rely for the security of public liberty on the inability of invading it.

With too little power in the government, it was obvious that neither independence nor tranquillity could be-preserved; with too much, a battery

would be erected hostile to liberty. Where was the exact point in which the advantages of authority could be realized without its dangers, and freedom preserved without the hazard of anarchy? On this great question the records of history were silent; the memorials of former ages were those of licentiousness or despotism. Rulers and people were so constantly in conflict that hostility between them seemed an unavoidable condition of human society.

On such a debateable field it is not surprising that the members of the American convention could at first find no neutral ground. In addition to the difficulties already enumerated others existed in the condition of the country, scarcely less perplexing. The delegates who assembled were representatives of sovereign states, met together in confederacy, each of whose members was equal to either of the others. In its integral character, each state exercised all the powers of an independent political body, and the new sovereignty, if one was to be created, could obtain no other authority than what was shorn from these separate parts. But the equality existing among these parts was that of rights, and not of strength. They differed among themselves in territory, population, wealth, physical and moral resources, and in whatever other means of advancement one people could have over another. If a contribution to the common head was to be made in proportion

to the relative condition of the parts, they would retain after the existence of the new government, all their original inequality, and the smaller having an inferior share of power, could not be expected very cordially to accede to the plan. If any other principle was adopted, a sacrifice would be exacted of the larger, in which it was against all the analogies of human conduct to expect they would readily concur.

Concession and compromise became therefore indispensable; but whatever is thus produced, though it may have the support of all, rarely possesses the approbation of any.

When the common good is to be purchased by individual sacrifice, he whose former rights are curtailed finds it often very difficult to realize that he has received an equivalent in exchange. There will naturally be a struggle to make the substraction as little as possible, and a reluctance both in demanding and yielding, which may destroy the beneficial purposes of the original design. The inconvenience of this state of things was fully felt by the delegates at Philadelphia.

A question of authority early presented itself for the consideration of the convention, and might by one form of decision have been fatal to the hopes of the country. The resolve of the continental congress authorized the assembling of delegates for the sole and express purpose of revising the articles of the confederation and reporting

amendments. The commission to the Massachusetts members, and to all others appointed by a state legislature under the operation of this act, expressly or by necessary implication confined their authority to this exact object. The members from Virginia and some others had been appointed in pursuance of the recommendation made by the former convention at Annapolis, independent of any resolve of congress, and were not therefore absolutely bound by its terms. Notwithstanding this difference, was it not the expectation of the whole people that the confederation should be revised merely and not destroyed; that amendments should be made to the old system and not that a new one should be formed, and would the adoption of either of the plans proposed conform to the authority of the delegates?

This question, which is not without plausibility on either side, was of primary importance in an assembly which could not consistently begin a system of free government in an act of usurpation, or expect the confidence of the people while they transgressed their authority. It was seized upon with masterly skill by some members of the convention who found that the majority were likely to adopt a system, which they could not approve, and who hoped by the practice of legislative tactics of this sort to defeat what they could not in any other way successfully oppose. But the con