Chapter III: The Constitutional Convention Intended Nationality 51

Convention called to amend the articles of Confederacy--First
resolution passed: the government should be supreme and
national--The national plan offered by the Virginia delegation
preferred and considered--The New Jersey plan of a confederacy of
the States with coercive power to compel obedience--Hamilton’s
plan--The Virginia plan again adopted. The United States adopted
as the title--Resolutions passed that there should be two
branches of the legislature, the first to be chosen by the
people--Long controversy as to representation in Senate, settled
by an equal representation of the States, the vote to be per
capita--This compromise of representation in Senate does not
affect the supremacy of the granted powers--Resolution of
Elbridge Gerry referring the plan of a _national_ government to
the committee of detail unanimously passed--Government called
national in many of the referred votes--Committee of detail
report votes passed; the preamble declaring the government to be
for posterity--Article against treason again debated and passed
unanimously--Constitution committed to committee of style and
arrangement--New draft considered at length, adopted, and signed
by delegates--Diversity of opinion as to durability, no
suggestion that a State had a right to leave the Union--Yates and
Lansing left convention because the Constitution made a national
government--Satisfaction with it of Southern States--Washington’s
service--Franklin’s happy speech at close--George Mason did not
sign, though efficient in making it--Constitution submitted by
State legislatures in each State to a convention of the
people--Its acceptance considered in long sessions of the
conventions held in the several States--Everywhere announced as a
national government--Ratified as national in Massachusetts and
Virginia--Unanimous opinion of convention of New York of its
perpetuity--Amendments of Constitution, passed to quiet
apprehension as to its excessive powers--Early laws show a
liberal construction of the powers of the government--The right
of individuals to sue States taken away, but jurisdiction over
States and disputes between States retained--Insurrection in
Pennsylvania against excise law suppressed--Opinion of Washington
as to power of government--Alien and sedition laws passed.