The Fathers of the Constitution [42]
who was acquainted with most of the members of the Convention, wrote his "Autobiography," which was published in 1802, he declared that for his part he considered the government established by the Constitution to be "the best in the world, and as perfect as any human form of government can be." But he prefaced that declaration with a statement that some of the best informed members of the Federal Convention had told him "they did not believe a single member was perfectly satisfied with the Constitution, but they believed it was the best they could ever agree upon, and that it was infinitely better to have such a one than break up without fixing on some form of government, which I believe at one time it was expected they would have done." One of the outstanding characteristics of the members of the Federal Convention was their practical sagacity. They had a very definite object before them. No matter how much the members might talk about democracy in theory or about ancient confederacies, when it came to action they did not go outside of their own experience. The Constitution was devised to correct well-known defects and it contained few provisions which had not been tested by practical political experience. Before the Convention met, some of the leading men in the country had prepared lists of the defects which existed in the Articles of Confederation, and in the Constitution practically every one of these defects was corrected and by means which had already been tested in the States and under the Articles of Confederation.
CHAPTER VIII. THE UNION ESTABLISHED The course of English history shops that Anglo-Saxon tradition is strongly in favor of observing precedents and of trying to maintain at least the form of law, even in revolutions. When the English people found it impossible to bear with James II and made it so uncomfortable for him that he fled the country, they shifted the responsibility from their own shoulders by charging him with "breaking the original Contract between King and People." When the Thirteen Colonies had reached the point where they felt that they must separate from England, their spokesman, Thomas Jefferson, found the necessary justification in the fundamental compact of the first settlers "in the wilds of America" where "the emigrants thought proper to adopt that system of laws under which they had hitherto lived in the mother country"; and in the Declaration of Independence he charged the King of Great Britain with "repeated injuries and usurpations all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." And so it was with the change to the new form of government in the United States, which was accomplished only by disregarding the forms prescribed in the Articles of Confederation and has been called, therefore, "the Revolution of 1789." From the outset the new constitution was placed under the sanction of the old. The movement began with an attempt, outwardly at least, to revise the Articles of Confederation and in that form was authorized by Congress. The first breach with the past was made when the proposal in the Virginia Resolutions was accepted that amendments made by the Convention in the Articles of Confederation should be submitted to assemblies chosen by the people instead of to the legislatures of the separate States. This was the more readily accepted because it was believed that ratification by the legislatures would result in the formation of a treaty rather than in a working instrument of government. The next step was to prevent the work of the Convention from meeting the fate of all previous amendments to the Articles of Confederation, which had required the consent of every State in the Union. At the time the committee of detail made its report, the Convention was ready to agree that the consent of all the States was not necessary, and it eventually decided that, when ratified by the conventions of nine States, the Constitution should go into effect between the States so ratifying. It was not within the province of the Convention to determine
CHAPTER VIII. THE UNION ESTABLISHED The course of English history shops that Anglo-Saxon tradition is strongly in favor of observing precedents and of trying to maintain at least the form of law, even in revolutions. When the English people found it impossible to bear with James II and made it so uncomfortable for him that he fled the country, they shifted the responsibility from their own shoulders by charging him with "breaking the original Contract between King and People." When the Thirteen Colonies had reached the point where they felt that they must separate from England, their spokesman, Thomas Jefferson, found the necessary justification in the fundamental compact of the first settlers "in the wilds of America" where "the emigrants thought proper to adopt that system of laws under which they had hitherto lived in the mother country"; and in the Declaration of Independence he charged the King of Great Britain with "repeated injuries and usurpations all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." And so it was with the change to the new form of government in the United States, which was accomplished only by disregarding the forms prescribed in the Articles of Confederation and has been called, therefore, "the Revolution of 1789." From the outset the new constitution was placed under the sanction of the old. The movement began with an attempt, outwardly at least, to revise the Articles of Confederation and in that form was authorized by Congress. The first breach with the past was made when the proposal in the Virginia Resolutions was accepted that amendments made by the Convention in the Articles of Confederation should be submitted to assemblies chosen by the people instead of to the legislatures of the separate States. This was the more readily accepted because it was believed that ratification by the legislatures would result in the formation of a treaty rather than in a working instrument of government. The next step was to prevent the work of the Convention from meeting the fate of all previous amendments to the Articles of Confederation, which had required the consent of every State in the Union. At the time the committee of detail made its report, the Convention was ready to agree that the consent of all the States was not necessary, and it eventually decided that, when ratified by the conventions of nine States, the Constitution should go into effect between the States so ratifying. It was not within the province of the Convention to determine