hold in the Senate the countenance of an aristocracy, and in the President the form at least of a little monarch, will not their alarms be sufficiently raised without taking from their immediate representatives a right which has been so long appropriated to them? The Executive will have more influence over the the Senate, than over the House of Representatives. Allow the Senate to originate in this case, and that influence will be sure to mix itself in their deliberations and plans. The declaration of war, he conceived, ought not to be in the Senate, composed of twenty-six men only, but rather in the other House. In the other House ought to be placed the origination of the means of war. As to commercial regulations which may involve revenue, the difficulty may be avoided by restraining the definition to bills for the mere or sole purpose of raising revenue. The Senate will be more likely to be corrupt than the House of Representatives, and should therefore have less to do with money matters. His principal object, however, was to prevent popular objections against the plan, and to secure its adoption.

Mr. RUTLEDGE. The friends of this motion are not consistent in their reasoning. They tell us that we ought to be guided by the long experience of Great Britain, and not our own experience of eleven years; and yet they themselves propose to depart from it. The House of Commons not only have the exclusive right of originating, but the Lords are not allowed to alter or amend a money bill. Will not the people say that this restriction is but a mere tub to the whale? They cannot but see that it is of no real consequence; and will be more likely

to be displeased with it as an attempt to bubble them than to impute it to a watchfulness over their rights. For his part, he would prefer giving the exclusive right to the Senate, if it was to be given exclusively at all. The Senate being more conversant in business, and having more leisure, will digest the bills much better, and as they are to have no effect, till examined and approved by the House of Representatives, there can be no possible danger. These clauses in the Constitutions of the States had been put in through a blind adherence to the British model. If the work was to be done over now, they would be omitted. The experiment in South Carolina, where the Senate cannot originate or amend money bills, has shown that it answers no good purpose; and produces the very bad one of continually dividing and heating the two Houses. Sometimes, indeed, if the matter of the amendment of the Senate is pleasing to the other House, they wink at the encroachment; if it be displeasing, then the Constitution is appealed to. Every session is distracted by altercations on this subject. The practice now becoming frequent is for the Senate not to make formal amendments, but to send down a schedule of the alterations which will procure the bill their

assent.

Mr. CARROLL. The most ingenious men in Maryland are puzzled to define the case of money-bills, or explain the Constitution on that point; though it seemed to be worded with all possible plainness and precision. It is a source of continual difficulty and squabble between the two Houses.

Mr. MCHENRY mentioned an instance of extraor

dinary subterfuge, to get rid of the apparent force of the Constitution.

On the question on the first part of the motion, as to the exclusive originating of money-bills in the House of Representatives,—

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, (Mr. BLAIR and MADISON, no; Mr. RANDOLPH, Colonel MASON, and General WASHINGTON,* aye;) North Carolina, aye-4; Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, no-7.

On the question on originating by the House of Representatives, and amending by the Senate, as reported, Article 4, Sect. 5,

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia,† North Carolina, aye-4; Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, no--7.

On the question on the last clause of Article 4, Sect. 5, viz., "No money shall be drawn from the public treasury, but in pursuance of appropriations that shall originate in the House of Representatives," it passed in the negative,

Massachusetts, aye-1; New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no-10, 306

Adjourned.

*He disapproved, and till now voted against, the exclusive privilege. He gave up his judgment, he said, because it was not of very material weight with him, and was made an essential point with others, who, if disappointed, might be less cordial in other points of real weight.

In the printed Journal, Virginia, no.

TUESDAY, AUGust 14th.

In Convention,-Article 6, Sect. 9, was taken up. Mr. PINCKNEY argued that the making the members ineligible to offices was degrading to them, and the more improper as their election into the Legislature implied that they had the confidence of the people; that it was inconvenient, because the Senate might be supposed to contain the fittest men. He hoped to see that body become a school of public ministers, a nursery of statesmen. That it was impolitic, because the Legislature would cease to be a magnet to the first talents and abilities. He moved to postpone the section, in order to take up the following proposition, viz., "the members of each House shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States, for which they, or any others for their benefit, receive any salary, fees, or emoluments of any kind; and the acceptance of such office shall vacate their seats respectively."

General MIFFLIN Seconded the motion.

Colonel MASON ironically proposed to strike out the whole section, as a more effectual expedient for encouraging that exotic corruption which might not otherwise thrive so well in the American soil; for completing that aristocracy which was probably in the contemplation of some among us; and for inviting into the legislative service those generous and benevolent characters, who will do justice to each other's merit, by carving out offices and rewards for it. In the present state of American morals and manners, few friends, it may be thought, will be lost to

the plan, by the opportunity of giving premiums to a mercenary and depraved ambition.

Mr. MERCER. It is a first principle in political science, that whenever the rights of property are secured, an aristocracy will grow out of it. Elective governments also necessarily become aristocratic, because the rulers being few can and will draw emoluments for themselves from the many. The governments of America will become aristocracies. They are so already. The public measures are calculated for the benefit of the governors, not of the people. The people are dissatisfied, and complain. They change their rulers, and the public measures are changed, but it is only a change of one scheme of emolument to the rulers, for another. The people gain nothing by it, but an addition of instability and uncertainty to their other evils. Governments can only be maintained by force or influence. The Executive has not force-deprive him of influence, by rendering the members of the Legislature ineligible to Executive offices, and he becomes a mere phantom of authority. The aristocratic part will not even let him in for a share of the plunder. The Legislature must and will be composed of wealth and abilities, and the people will be governed by a junto. The Executive ought to have a Council, being members of both Houses. Without such an influence, the war will be between the aristocracy and the people. He wished it to be between the aristocracy and the Executive. Nothing else can protect the people against those speculating Legislatures, which are now plundering them throughout the United States.