Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [322]
Eighthly, In civil actions between Citizens of different States every issue of fact arising in Actions at common law shall be tried by a Jury if the parties or either of them request it.
Ninthly, Congress shall at no time consent that any Person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall accept of a title of Nobility or any other title or office from any King, Prince or Foreign State.
And the Convention do in the name & in behalf of the People of this Commonwealth enjoin it upon their Representatives in Congress at all times until the alterations & provisions aforesaid have been considered agreeably to the Fifth article of the said Constitution to exert all their influence & use all reasonable & legal methods to obtain a ratification of the said alterations & provisions in such manner as is provided in the said Article.
And that the United States in Congress Assembled may have due notice of the Assent & Ratification of the said Constitution by this Convention it is, Resolved, that the Assent & Ratification aforesaid be engrossed on Parchment together with the recommendation & injunction aforesaid & with this resolution & that His Excellency John Hancock Esqr. President & the Honble. William Cushing Esqr. Vice President, of this Convention transmit the same, countersigned by the Secretary of the Convention under their hands & seals to the United States in Congress Assembled.
George Richards Minot, Secretary.
John Hancock President
Wm Cushing Vice President
Pursuant to the Resolution aforesaid WE the President & Vice President abovenamed Do hereby transmit to the United States in Congress Assembled, the same Resolution with the above Assent and Ratification of the Constitution aforesaid for the United States, And the recommendation & injunction above specified.
In Witness whereof We have hereunto set our hands & seals at Boston in the Commonwealth aforesaid this Seventh day of February Anno Domini one thousand Seven Hundred & Eighty eight, and in the Twelfth year of the Independence of the United States of America.
John Hancock President
Wm Cushing Vice President
VIRGINIA RATIFICATION CONVENTION
JUNE 27, 1788
DEBATES
[Another engrossed form of the ratification agreed to on Wednesday last, containing the proposed Constitution of Government, as recommended by the Federal Convention on the seventeenth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, being prepared by the Secretary, was read, and signed by the President in behalf of the Con [ven] tion.
On motion, Ordered, That the said ratification be deposited by the Secretary of this Convention in the archives of the General Assembly of this State.
Mr. Wythe reported, from the Committee appointed, such amendments to the proposed Constitution of Government for the United States, as were by them deemed necessary to be recommended to the consideration of the Congress which shall first assemble under the said Constitution, to be acted upon according to the mode prescribed in the fifth article thereof; and he read the same in his place, and afterwards delivered them in at the Clerk’s table, where the same were again read, and are as followeth:
That there be a Declaration or Bill of Rights asserting and securing from encroachment the essential and unalienable rights of the people in some such manner as the following:
1st. That there are certain natural rights of which men when they form a social compact cannot deprive or divest their posterity, among which are the enjoyment of life, and liberty, with the means of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
2d. That all power is naturally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates therefore are their trustees, and agents, and at all times amenable to them.
3d. That Government ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people; and that the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive to the good