The Constitution and Slavery

The Constitution as originally was too squeamish to actually call a slave a slave. It used a variety of euphemisms like contrasting "free persons" with "other persons" or a "person held to service or labor" or even "such persons" as the states wished to import.  Without actually using the "S" word, the Constitution upholds slavery in three places:

1. The three-fifths compromise including all free persons and three-fifths of all "other persons" (i.e., slaves);
2. The ban on any Congressional interference in slave trade until 1808;
3. The Fugitive Slave Clause, guaranteeing the return of any "person held to service or labor" escaping to another state.

At least, this is what I had long believed.  In law school, our Constitutional Law professors claimed that actually the Constitution as originally written upheld slavery not three, but six times!  Conceding these three, what are the other three?  Looking it over, I think I have found two.

 Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: "No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."  Although the Constitution is normally written in remarkably clear and simple language, accessible to the layperson, and with very little legalese, this particular clause is a head-scratcher.  This is partly because it uses some obsolete terms and partly because it was deliberately written to obfuscate.  A "capitation" is a head tax.*  It was not usually charged on each individual "head," but on each adult male head of household.  A "direct" tax is a tax on individuals or property, as opposed to a "commercial" tax, which is a tax on a commercial transaction.  And "property" in these case would mean not just land, but all forms of wealth.  This appears to be a ban on a federal property tax, allowing Congress only commercial and head taxes.  But what about the census referred to?  That census is in Article I, Section 2, the section apportioning the House of Representatives, including the three-fifths compromise. A census is to be taken every ten years to establish population for purposes of representation and direct taxation.  This section says that "direct taxes" must be based on all free persons and three-fifths of all slaves, i.e., it forbids a burdensome property tax on slaves.

Article V.  This sets the amendment process.  Most of the Constitution is subject to amendment, but Article V makes a few exceptions.  The only one that is operative today is that no state may be deprived of equal representation in the Senate without its consent.  But it also provides that, "[N]o amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article."  This, too, is a bit of legalese designed to obfuscate the meaning.  Looking back at Article I, Section 9, one will see that the first clause is the one that forbids Congress from interfering with the slave trade until 1808, and Clause 4 is the word ticket quoted above that forbids any burdensome property tax on slaves.  This section, along with the protection of slave trade, became obsolete in 1808.

So, three parts of the Constitution directly uphold slavery and two uphold it indirectly by reinforcing other sections.  What the sixth protection of slavery is, I have not been able to determine.

_____________________________________________
*It is the same word as "per capita" and comes from Latin, caput, or head.

North-South Issues: Of Ships and Slaves

As the conflict between large and small states became increasingly intense, Madison tried to be conciliatory.  Don’t worry about combinations between large states, Madison reassured the small ones; the large states have no common interests that would lead them to combine.  The real difference in interests is not between large and small states, but between north and south.  At the time, Madison was simply trying to ease the controversy over representation. Controversy between north and south seemed a non-issue at the time.  To us today, knowing what lay ahead, this sounds very prescient, but not at all reassuring.  In any event, no sooner had the Convention agreed to proportional representation in one house, than north-south sectionalism reared its ugly head, with each section trying to get as many representatives in the House as possible.

When I was in school, I learned that there were several main north-south controversies at that Constitutional Convention, which were resolved by a series of compromises.  One was whether slaves would be counted in taxation and/or representation, and as a compromise the Constitution counted three-fifths of all slaves in both taxation and representation.  Another was the importation of slaves, which the parties agreed to allow for another 20 years (until 1808) but not after.  Another was an export tax, which was forbidden as a concession to the South, which produced most of the nation’s exports.  Finally, copies and commentaries of the Constitution showed that fugitive slaves, like fugitive criminals, must be extradited when they crossed state lines.  What my school textbooks never mentioned was perhaps the hottest north-south controversy of all – whether Congress could regulate foreign trade by a simple majority or a two-thirds vote.

Let us step back and survey the differences between the North and the South at the time of the Constitutional Convention.  The biggest difference, as the delegates generally acknowledged, was that the southern states had slaves and the northern states had no slaves.  But “no slaves” was not meant as literally then as it was in the years approaching the Civil War.  Saying that the northern states had “no slaves” did not actually mean that slavery was illegal in the North, or that there were no slaves there whatsoever; it was a generalization, liking saying (as delegates also did) that the South had no ships.  Ships were legal in the South, of course, and Southerners did own a few ships, but they did not own enough ships for Southern shipping to be considered an interest in national politics.  It was the same with Northern slaves.  By the time of the Constitutional Convention, slavery had been declared unconstitutional and totally ended in Massachusetts.  The other New England states and Pennsylvania were in the process of phasing it out.  New York and New Jersey would not even begin phasing out slavery until 1800, and in Delaware slavery was remained legal until the outbreak of the Civil War, although in practical terms it had almost completely died out by then.  Not everyone divided states into states “with slaves” and states “without slaves.”  Others divided states into carrying and non-carrying states, i.e., states with and without major shipping interests, which would carry imports and exports. 

States could also be further sub-divided than simply North and South.  Many people divided them into New England (“Eastern”), Mid-Atlantic (“Middle”) and Southern.  The South could be sub-divided into Upper South and Deep South.  Charles Pinckney divided the states as follows:

(1)                                       New England, whose major interest are fishing and shipping (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island);

(2)                                       New York, whose main interest was trade and commerce;

(3)                                       Mid-Atlantic states, whose main exports were wheat and flour (Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware);

(4)                                       The Upper South, whose main export was tobacco (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina);

(5)                                       The Deep South, whose main exports were rice and indigo (South Carolina and Georgia).  (Cotton did not become king until several years later).

The New England states were the biggest shipping states, transporting imports and exports.  One of the major imports they carried were slaves from Africa; the main exports they carried or hoped to carry was agricultural produce grown by slaves.  This gave New England a common interest with the South as the exporter of its produce, and a potential common interest with the Deep South, which was the main importer of slaves.  It also created a potential conflict between the Deep South and the Upper South.  South Carolina was a land of disease-infested rice swamps, where slaves died faster than they were born, while Georgia was a new state rapidly expanding.  Both areas were large importers of slaves and did not want to discuss the morality of slave trade.  The Upper South had worn-out soil from years of growing tobacco had a surplus of slaves it was happy to sell to the Deep South.  Virginians were eager to talk about the morality of slave trade and denounce it in strongest terms.  The Quaker state and its satellites, New Jersey and Delaware, had strong moral opposition to slave trade and no interest in upholding it.  Among New Englanders, moral sense vied with interest.

Extreme State Sovereignty: Luther Martin

Once the New York delegation went home and the Great Compromise was reached, Luther Martin of Maryland remained the lonely voice arguing in vain for state sovereignty, ignored by all the others.  He arrived on June 9, 1787, after the Virginia Plan had been debated for some time, but before the New Jersey Plan had been presented, and Madison believed that he participated in preparing the New Jersey Plan.  He did not speak in favor of the New Jersey Plan when it was first introduced, but once the Virginia Plan was adopted, he backed Lansing’s last-ditch motion to revive the New Jersey Plan by vesting all powers of the United States legislature in “Congress.” 

At the separation from the British Empire, the people of America preferred the establishment of themselves into thirteen separate sovereignties instead of incorporating themselves into one: to these they look up for the security of their lives, liberties & properties: to these they must look up.  The federal Gov’t they formed, to defend the whole agst foreign nations, in case of war, and to defend the lesser States agst the ambition of the larger: they are afraid of granting powers unnecessarily, lest they should defeat the original end of the Union; lest the powers should prove dangerous to the sovereignties of the particular States which the Union was meant to support; and expose the lesser to being swallowed up by the larger.

He also spoke against representation by population, against election by the people and against having two houses, all as weakening the sovereignty of states.  

His most extensive argument for state sovereignty took place on June 27-28, when he held forth on the subject at length.  The General Government, he said was meant merely to preserve the state governments, not to govern individuals (this is the clearest rejection anyone gave of the “national” principle of authority over individuals and in favor of the “federal” principle of legislating only for collective bodies).  If the central government was too weak, more powers could be added; if too powerful, powers could not be taken back.  (He has a point there).  He then went into more Lockean theory of the social contract than the other delegates ever used.  Just as individuals are equally free and independent in the state of nature, so are states equally free and independent in the state of nature, citing important social philosophers to prove his point.  Since the individual citizens of the states had formed their social contract to form state government, and since state governments had formed a social contract to create a federal government, to appeal directly to the people of the states to make a national government would throw them back into the state of nature (i.e., anarchy).  If representation became proportional to population, Virginia would have 16 representatives, and surely it would be easier for these 16 to combine against the small states than for the small states to combine against Virginia.  He feared representation by population would totally subordinate the other ten states to Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.  Reading Madison’s summary of this speech, with one argument against a national system piled on after another, one senses a note of panic there, a fear that state sovereignty was slipping away and that if he did not persuade the Convention now, all would be lost.  His colleagues sitting through the nearly two days of his speech may have gotten a different impression.  To them, the whole thing may simply have been long-winded and boring.

He kept up the argument.  Under the Articles of Confederation, the states were said to be equally sovereign and independent.  Why was that not now understood?  He would never agree to confederate except on “just” principles, i.e., equal representation by states.  Unlike Lansing and Yates, Martin did not walk out, but neither did he ever accept the new system.  When Morris and King proposed equal representation in the Senate so long as voting was by individuals instead of states, everyone else joined the general love-fest, but Martin resisted, saying that voting per capita departed from the idea of states being represented in the second branch.

Martin consistently supported state sovereignty on all issues but one.  He opposed having state officials take an oath to uphold federal laws lest it conflict with their oath to state laws.  He also opposed allowing the federal government to collect taxes from individuals directly; rather, when direct taxes were needed, it should have states raise them by quotas and favored having the states pay the Senate, since the Senate was to represent the states.  He opposed the creation of federal trial courts and, if they could not be prevented, wanted judges to be appointed by the Senate, as representatives of the states.  He opposed federal control of the state militia, favored a limit on the size of army the federal government could keep during peace time, and believed the consent of a state should be required before the federal government could intervene to suppress a rebellion.  Naturally, he thought a federal veto of state laws “improper and inadmissible”, although even he agreed to a strongly-worded statement federal law should be supreme, anything in state law notwithstanding.  He favored ratification of the Constitution by state legislatures, saying that an appeal to the people would lead to “commotions” and called for a unanimous ratification by all 13 states.  In any case, he was sure that the Constitution would be rejected, especially by the people and state government of Maryland, and that the only way it could ever pass would be if the people were rushed into it without proper chance to consider.

On one issue and one issue only did Martin support the central government over the states – the issue of western lands.  Maryland had no claims to western lands, and greatly resented the states (particularly Virginia) that did.  On this, Martin spoke more as a representative specifically of Maryland than as a states' rights man.  He opposed the provision that states could not be deprived of land without their consent – the western lands must be given up to the general government, a very important point to Maryland.  He mocked the large states’ resistance on the subject:

He wished Mr Wilson had thought a little sooner of the value of political bodies.  In the beginning, when the rights of the small sates were in question, they were phantoms, ideal beings.  Now when the great States were to be affected, political societies were of a sacred nature. 

Yet Martin undermined his own position in arguing for large states to give up their western claims.  In response to Wilson, who said that a state should be broken up only if the majority of people within the state wish to be divided, he replied that in Virginia, representation was by counties instead of by population. 

Even if they [the people wishing to separate] should become the majority, the majority of Counties, as in Virginia, may still hold fast the dominion over them.  Again, the majority may place the seat of Government entirely among themselves & for their own conveniency, and still keep the injured parts of the States in subjection, under the guaranty of the Gen’l Government agst domestic violence.(Ibid).

Martin does not seem to have realized what a strong argument this could have been against representation by states, as well as by counties!

One final comment on Martin and his irreconcilability.  He had left by the end of the Convention, and so did not have the opportunity to refuse to sign the Constitution, but he opposed it bitterly during the ratification debates in Maryland.  His opposition, as mentioned above, was in vain; the Maryland convention passed the Constitution 63-11 with only five days’ debate.  He would seen a natural follower of Thomas Jefferson, who after the Constitution was adopted led the party seeking to limit federal powers.  Yet Martin developed so deep a personal grudge against Jefferson that he ultimately joined Hamilton’s centralizing Federalists out of pure spite!

NEXT UP:  NORTH-SOUTH ISSUES AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

Extreme State Sovereignty: The New York Delegation

These were the few irreconcilables who held out to the last for a mere strengthening of the Articles of Confederation and never agreed to the Constitution, even after the Great Compromise was reached.  There were only three of these; Robert Yates and John Lansing of New York and Luther Martin of Maryland.[1]  Why were these three so irreconcilable?  Maryland and New York were both on the large end of the medium sized states, and both had major ports, which meant they stood to lose a source of revenue under a more centralized system.  Upstate New York, in particular, was able to keep land taxes low by taxing foreign trade from Connecticut and New Jersey that went through New York City and was reluctant to give up the privilege.  Maryland, on the other hand, had no claims to western land and wanted Virginia and other states with such claims to give them up.  During the ratification debates, there was little controversy in Maryland, and its convention ratified the Constitution 63-11.  (Martin strongly opposed it).  In New York, on the other hand, the Constitution was hotly controversial, and the state convention ended up ratifying only when it became clear that ten other states had ratified already and that New York was in danger of being left out of the United States altogether.  Indeed, the Federalist Papers were written in an attempt to sway New Yorkers in favor of the Constitution when it was a hotly contested issue.

Of these three, little needs to be said about Robert Yates.  He does not appear to have participated in debate at all, but he voted together with Lansing and against Hamilton (also of New York), and he walked out of the Convention at the same time as Lansing.

John Lansing (New York):  New York’s delegation participated in the Convention up through July 10, 1787 and was absent the next day, never to return.  Hamilton had already left after June 29, despairing of building strong enough government.  Lansing and Yates together consistently voted for state sovereignty and against the Virginia Plan.  By July 10, 1787, it was apparent that the Virginia Plan would be adopted and that representation would be by population in the lower house.  The debate by then was solely over equality in the Senate.  It was at this point that Lansing and Yates walked out, convinced that their influence was at an end.  They never came back.  Hamilton returned August 13 and took part in the debates, but New York remained without a vote because a single delegate was not allowed to represent an entire state.  Hamilton was the only representative from New York to sign the Constitution. 

John Lansing probably played a role in drafting the New Jersey Plan and, not too surprisingly, he supported it when it was introduced.  The Virginia Plan, he argued destroys the sovereignty of the states and absorbs all power except for “little local matters,” whereas the New Jersey Plan preserves state sovereignty and laws.  He also argued that the Convention did not have authority to propose an entire new system of government, and the people and states would never agree to it, especially to giving the general government a veto over all state laws.  Even after the Virginia Plan was adopted, Lansing made a last-ditch motion to vest all powers in “Congress,” i.e., the old Continental Congress, making much the same arguments as before.  He particularly objected to the federal veto of state laws, saying that it would burden Congress with an unbearable amount of work and involve people in the veto who had no knowledge of conditions in the states whose laws the were vetoing.  Not too surprisingly, he wanted to keep equal representation by states, since states would never voluntarily part with their sovereignty and saw little use in even sending the issue of representation to committee (the committee that proposed the Great Compromise).  Not long afterward, he returned to New York, and his participation was at an end.

---

[1] John Francis Mercer of Maryland might also fit into this category.  He was a member of the Convention who opposed the Constitution during ratification debates and favored state sovereignty, but he arrived late and left early and therefore did not have much chance to make his opinion known on the subject.

Other Moderate Advocates of State Sovereignty

David Brearly

Others in this category included David Brearley and Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey and no doubt others who did not speak up.  As commented before, Charles Pinckney was not impressed with their arguments.  “[T]he whole comes to this, as he conceived. Give N. Jersey an equal vote, and she will dismiss her scruples, and concur in the Nat’l system.”  Pinckney turned out to be right, as did Madison in his arguments that small states benefited most from strong central government because it would protect them from large states.  Once the Great Compromise was reached, Paterson and his followers dropped all resistance.  The hot-headed Bedford not only signed the Constitution, but proposed to expand Congress’s powers to all cases “in which the harmony of the U. States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation,” which even Edmund Randolph thought was going to far.  Paterson argued against a more centralized government by pointing out that the small states of New Jersey and Maryland had been the ones that most resisted the Articles of Confederation, but he undermined his own case by acknowledging that they resisted the Articles not because the central government under them was too powerful but because it was not powerful enough – New Jersey (lacking a major port) wanted to give Congress authority over foreign trade and Maryland wanted federal control of the western land.

John Langdon

John Langdon of New Hampshire is particularly revealing in this regard.  New Hampshire was absent during the fierce debate over representation, indeed, at one point the small state representatives; indeed, as the deadlock grew, small state delegates moved to contact New Hampshire and call for a delegation, which they expected to be an ally.  As it turned out, the New Hampshire delegation arrived on the very day the Convention settled on having two Senators for each state, and after that New Hampshire consistently voted to increase federal power.  Langdon favored a Congressional veto of state laws, federal authority over state militias, payment of the national legislature from the federal treasury,  and authorizing federal intervention in state rebellions without the invitation of the state legislature.  

The final proof, however, that Pinckney and Madison were right, was during the ratification debates in the states after the Constitution was presented.  Although Delaware and New Jersey offered the most resistance to the increase in federal authority in Convention, their state conventions were the first and third, respectively to ratify the Constitution, and both conventions ratified unanimously with little debate.  Connecticut, which consistently resisted increasing federal power in the Convention was fifth to ratify, and with very little controversy or resistance.  In the end, small states felt less threatened by a stronger central government than by their larger and more powerful neighbors.

Moderate Advocates of State Sovereignty

These were the advocates of the New Jersey Plan, who originally resisted the Virginia Plan even if given equality in the Senate, but dropped all resistance and supported the Constitution once the Great Compromise was reached.  On the whole, they played a less distinguished role than the moderates or compromisers.

William Paterson of New Jersey introduced the New Jersey Plan and was by for the most important member of this group.  Even before introducing the New Jersey Plan, he led a strong counter-attack against the Virginia Plan, particularly in establishing a government over individuals instead of states and representing states by population.  The Convention, he said, was merely authorized to strengthen the Articles of Confederation, not to establish a whole new government, and even if they had the authority, the people would never accept it.  There was no need for a national government (over individuals), merely a confederacy (of states).  “A confederacy supposes sovereignty in the members composing it & sovereignty supposed equality.”  He considered making representation proportional to population to be as unjust as giving a rich man greater votes in proportion to his greater stake in society.  Such a system would give the rich total domination and be unsafe for others; likewise, giving proportional representation to states would give all power to the three large states and be unsafe for the other states.  He also opposed having representatives elected by the people instead of state legislatures as unduly weakening the influence of states.  All that was needed, he said, was “to mark the orbits of the States with due precision, and provide for the use of coertion (sic.), which was the great point.”  He concluded with a challenge – let large states withdraw from the United States if  they chose, the small states would never agree to a plan that threatened to swallow them up.  “He had rather submit to a monarch, to a depot, than to such a fate.  He would not only oppose the plan here but on his return home to every thing in his power to defeat it there.”  

The New Jersey Plan was drawn up in a caucus of delegates from the states of Connecticut, New York (except for Hamilton, of course), New Jersey and Delaware, together with Luther Martin of Maryland, but it was William Paterson who introduced the plan and was most strongly associated with it.  Again, he argued that the Convention lacked authority to establish a new government and that the people would never agree to it.  He described the Articles of Confederation as a “treaty” among equal sovereigns, and in order to maintain their sovereignty, states must each have an equal vote and their representatives must be chosen by state legislatures instead of by the people.  He added that even if it was unjust for large states to agree to giving each state an equal vote, it had been done and could not be taken back.  The large states joined the confederacy eagerly; resistance came from the small states of New Jersey and Maryland.  Nor did he agree with the Virginians that his plan of allowing coercion would harm small states; there was no reason why coercion should be used against states instead of individuals.  Paterson served on the committee that proposed the Great Compromise, but did not agree with large state representatives that some other concession should be made in exchange for equality in the Senate; agreeing to proportional representation in the House was a considerable concession, and he would opposed the Compromise as giving too much by small states.  On July 16, 1787, the date of the final deadlock and breakthrough, when Edmund Randolph proposed adjournment, Paterson agreed and proposed that they break up the Convention and go home to their constituents.  When Randolph said he only meant adjournment for the day, Paterson agreed, “as an opportunity seemed to be wished by the larger States to deliberate further on conciliatory expedients.”  

Like other small state representatives, Paterson was more of a nationalist than large state representatives on one issue – the breakup of large states.  He proposed that if we were to become a single nation, the states must be thrown into the “hotchpot” and redivided to make them equal and challenged Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania to see if they would agree to it.  This was probably more an attempt to discourage large states from seeking greater centralization by warning them of the consequences that a serious proposal.

Gunning Bedford (Delaware):  Gunning Bedford’s role was much smaller than Paterson’s, but he made a few remarks worth noting.  He spoke against a Congressional veto of state laws, fearing that it would be dominated by large states.  Besides, the veto would swamp Congress with state laws to consider, create undue delay in states, and subject their laws to people who knew nothing about the local conditions under which laws were made.  He argued that there was no middle ground between complete consolidation and a mere confederation of states.  The large states hoped to dominate the system and the Deep Southern states supported them because they hoped to become large.  He went on to make a very rash remark, “The Large States dare not dissolve the Confederation.  If they do, the small ones will find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice.” Having made this threat, he then hastened to assure everyone that he was not threatening, but the damage had been done.  Rufus King, Edmund Randolph, James Madison, and Gouverneur Morris all roundly condemned the remark (sometimes in terms hot enough that some of their passion comes through Madison's otherwise rather sterile notes) and Paterson dissociated himself from it, although he said that Gouverneur Morris’ comments about the sword and gallows also deserved to be condemned.  Bedford apologized saying this was merely a prediction, not a threat, and was partly provoked by Morris’ comments about the sword uniting and Gorham suggesting that small states allow themselves to be annexed by large ones.  Once the Great Compromise was reached, Bedford largely dropped his opposition to a stronger central government, going so far as to propose to give Congress power to legislate "in all cases for the general interests of the Union, and also in those to which the States are separately incompetent," or in which the harmony of the U. States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual Legislation."  Moderate nationalist Edmund Randolph thought this was going too far.

Connecticut Compromisers: Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson

The other two significant compromisers were also from Connecticut -- Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson.

Roger Sherman

Roger Sherman appears to have originally favored a mere strengthening of the Articles of Confederation.  His first comment was that the Continental Congress needed more power, but making too great inroads in the system would just lead to rejection.  He regarded the general government’s only objects to be foreign and military affairs, foreign trade and resolving internal disputes, with all other matters in the hands of the states.  The day after the Virginia Plan had been adopted, Sherman seconded a motion to vest all federal powers in “Congress,” i.e., the old Continental Congress.  He ideally favored a unicameral legislature and saw no need to add “another” branch elected by the people to Congress; such a branch would merely get in the way.  He saw no reason for the election of representatives by the people unless states were to be abolished altogether.  States must participate in the central government to preserve harmony between them. 

Yet Sherman was apparently the second delegate after Dickinson to propose the Great Compromise.  On June 11, 1787, he proposed that suffrage in the first branch be according to the number of free inhabitants and each state have one vote in the second house.  Everything depended on the equal vote in the second house, or the small states would never agree to the system.  Again, even as he argued for keeping the old Continental Congress, Sherman also proposed the Great Compromise as an alternative.  Although he did not believe that the large states had been harmed by the equality of voting by states under the Articles, he would agree to proportionality in one house and voting by states in the other “[i]f the difficulty on the subject of representation could not be got over.”  Once the Great Compromise was suggested, Sherman became one of its strongest advocates.  He compared giving more votes to large states in proportion to their population to giving a rich man more votes in proportion to his greater stake in society; there would be no protection for the lesser members.  He also argued that giving each state an equal voice in the Senate would give government more “vigor” because small states were more vigorous than large ones. Equality in the Senate would require all measures passed to have the support of a majority of the states as well as of the people.  He further suggested that giving states equal representation in the Senate was necessary to ensure the survival of states, although he was willing to have voting in the Senate be by individuals instead of by states.

 Like Ellsworth, Sherman was generally skeptical of the power of the federal government even after the Great Compromise was adopted.  He proposed to give the national legislature authority to make laws “in all cases which may concern the common interests of the Union” but not to interfere in states’ internal affairs, and particularly not be able to tax individuals directly, preferred whenever possible to try federal cases in state courts, distrusted federal authority over bankruptcy, and opposed federal authority to cut canals on the grounds that to do so would tax to whole to benefit only a local area.  On the other hand, he disagreed with Morris, Pinckney and King who said that it was not necessary for the national legislature to meet every year; he believed there would be business enough to require “frequent” meetings.  This may have been driven more by Sherman's distrust of the executive than anything else.  He opposed a federal veto of state laws, saying that a state law contrary to federal law would necessarily be invalid and that the courts’ authority to strike down such laws was sufficient.  He maintained that states could not be dismembered without their consent.  With regard to state militias, he would allow the federal government to establish a uniform rule for all state militias, but leave the actual training and discipline to the states, saying that just as states retained concurrent tax power, they should have concurrent power of military defense and law enforcement.  And he strongly opposed federal appointment of generals with the sarcastic remark that, “[I]f the people should be so far asleep as to allow the most influential officer of the militia to be appointed by the Gen’l Government, every man of discernment  would rouse them by sounding the alarm to them.”

 When the issue of ratification was first discussed, Sherman favored ratification by state legislature instead of conventions, an indication that he saw the new system as based on states rather than individuals.  He favored requiring unanimous ratification by all the states, as a continuation of the old system.  When the Convention refused to require unanimity, he proposed requiring the consent of ten states.  Alternately, he was willing to agree to ratification by nine states (the number eventually agreed on), if the old Continental Congress first approved the new Constitution.  He believed that amendments to the Constitution should require the approval of “the several state,” i.e., apparently, unanimous consent of the states.  When the Convention decided on approval by three-fourths of the states instead, he proposed a qualification that no state could be affected in its internal police or deprived of equality in the Senate.*

William Samuel Johnson

William Samuel Johnson played a much smaller role in the Convention than either Ellsworth or Sherman, but he deserves to be mentioned anyhow because he brilliantly expressed the spirit of the Connecticut Compromise.  As the Virginia and New Jersey plans were being debated, he said that supporters of the New Jersey Plan feared that the Virginia Plan would destroy states altogether.  Since Wilson and the Virginians denied that this was their intention, “If this could be shewn in such a manner as to satisfy the patron of the N. Jersey propositions, many of their objections would no doubt be removed.”  After the Virginia Plan was adopted, Johnson argued for equality in the Senate, saying:

On the whole he thought that as in some respects the States are to be considered in their political capacity, and in others a district of individual citizens, the two ideas embraced on different sides, instead of being opposed, ought to be combined; that in one branch the people, ought to be represented; in the other the States. 

---

*"Internal police" is an 18th century expression, probably best "translated" as internal policy.  This provision was not adopted, but the guarantee of equal representation in the Senate was adopted, and remains the only unamendable portion of the Constitution.