Moderate Nationalists: James Wilson of Pennslyvania

Moderate nationalists were mostly from the large states of Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.  The ones from Virginia having been covered, let us move on to Pennsylvania.  The leading delegate from Pennsylvania was James Wilson.  Wilson was a nationalist, but at the same time he sought to reassure states

that a strong central government would not mean the end of state governments.  So long as the states were properly restrained, there would be no danger of their being devoured.  If the general government did start encroaching on states, all, large and small, would join together in resisting the encroachment.  In order to conciliate advocates of state sovereignty, Wilson as willing to second a motion forbidding the general government form interfering with a state's internal affairs.

Wilson also supported a Congressional veto of state laws, saying that since it was not practical to define cases in which a federal veto was proper, it was safer to allow the federal government to decide when it was proper than the states.  He called the federal veto, "key-stone wanted to compleat (sic) the wide arch of Government, we are raising."

Like other large state delegates, Wilson to a states' rights view on the division of states. No state should be divided without its consent. If a majority in the state wished to divide, it should be allowed, but not if only a minority wished to divide. Allowing a political society to be "torne (sic) assunder without its consent" outraged him. He favored giving Congress the power to establish federal trial courts, cut canals, and charter corporations. Although the record is somewhat unclear, he appears to have favored federal authority to suppress insurrections against state governments.

But above all else, Wilson was the fiercest opponent of giving each state equal representation in the Senate. He believed nothing less than majority rule was at stake. Since all authority derived from the people, equal numbers of people ought to have equal numbers of representatives. "Are not the Citizens of Pena. equal those of N. Jersey? does it require 150 of the former to balance 50 of the latter?"  To the argument that all states are equal as sovereigns, he replied  that all people were equal and, in the state of nature, equally sovereign.  Just as the people gave up their sovereignty in submitting to a government, the states gave up their  sovereignty in submitting to a federation.  He even called unequal representation a "poison," contaminating every other branch of government.  Wilson's reason for opposing representation by states was that it would allow a minority to thwart the will of the majority.  To say that allowing the larger states to dominate carried the danger of aristocracy was absurd -- what danger of aristocracy could there be in government by the majority?  "Can we forget for whom we are forming a Government? Is it for men, or for the imaginary beings called States?"  He was even ready to see the Union split over this issue, saying it could never happen on better grounds.  As a compromise, he was willing to set the ratio of Senators at 1 per 100,000 population with the guarantee that each state would have at least one Senator.  Alternately, he proposed a system  like Massachusetts of the day, which increased representation by population, but gave less than the full proportion.  He even opposed sending the matter to committee and opposed the Great Compromise when it was proposed.  Although Madison does not say, one assumes that on the day the Great Compromise was reached, Wilson was one of the irreconcilables opposed to it.