Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [224]
With great respect,
We have the honor to be.
SIR,
Your EXCELLENCY most
Obedient and humble Servants,
GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT.
By unanimous Order of the CONVENTION.
HIS EXCELLENCY
The President of Congress.
A MORE PERFECT UNION
James Madison: Letter to George Washington (September 30, 1787)
PAGE 415
Alexander Hamilton: Conjectures About the Constitution (September 1787)
PAGE 417
Richard Henry Lee: Letter to George Mason (October 1, 1787)
PAGE 420
James Wilson: Speech on the Constitution (October 6, 1787)
PAGE 422
George Mason: Objections to the Constitution (October 7, 1787)
PAGE 428
ONCE THE CONSTITUTION REACHED Congress, it faced an early challenge from Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Lee felt the Constitution needed amendment, and he wanted Congress to propose appropriate changes before sending it on to the states. But Madison and other framers who had returned to Congress argued that this would make the Constitution the work of Congress, not the convention. That in turn meant that it would have to be ratified according to the rule of the Confederation requiring approval by all thirteen state legislatures. This objection prevailed, and the Constitution went out to the states as the Convention had intended.
Beyond the immediate task of securing the approval of nine states lay the greater challenge of organizing a new government and adopting the right policies. One Federalist leader who was already looking ahead was Alexander Hamilton. Well before any of the states had acted on the Constitution, he was already speculating about the additional steps that would be needed for the new government to succeed.
Meanwhile, the public debate on the Constitution got under way At the outset, statements from two former members of the convention played a key role in framing the debate. On October 6 James Wilson, the leading Pennsylvania Federalist, gave a public speech explaining why Americans should not be troubled by the omission of a bill of rights from the Constitution. Because this speech was public, Wilson’s argument was taken to be an authoritative statement of the Federalist position, and it soon became a lightning rod for Anti-Federalist criticism. George Mason’s reputation as a distinguished patriot similarly gave his objections to the Constitution greater authority than they would have enjoyed had he simply published them anonymously.
—James Madison:
LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON
SEPTEMBER 30, 1787
I FOUND oN MY arrival here that certain ideas unfavorable to the Act of the Convention which had created difficulties in that body, had made their way into Congress. They were patronised chiefly by Mr. R.H.L.65 and Mr. Dane of Massts. It was first urged that as the new Constitution was more than an Alteration of the Articles of Confederation under which Congress acted, and even subverted these articles altogether, there was a Constitutional impropriety in their taking any positive agency in the work. The answer given was that the Resolution of Congress in Feby. had recommended the Convention as the best mean of obtaining a firm national Government; that as the powers of the Convention were defined by their Commissions in nearly the same terms with the powers of Congress given by the Confederation on the subject of alterations, Congress were not more restrained from acceding to the new plan, than the Convention were from proposing it. If the plan was within the powers of the Convention it was within those of Congress; if beyond those powers, the same necessity which justified the Convention would justify Congress; and a failure of Congress to Concur in what was done, would imply either that the Convention had done wrong inexceeding their powers, or that the Government proposed was in itself liable to insuperable objections ; that such an inference would be the more natural, as Congress had never scrupled to recommend measures foreign