Circa1865

The following highlights Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson’s remarks during the debates on adopting a new Constitution, as that State was to secede from the existing Articles of Confederation. He argued that the new governing document would not consolidate all States under one potentially despotic government.

A Government Best Suited to America

The delegates of the Pennsylvania Convention at Philadelphia assented to and ratified the Constitution of the United States of America, on the 12^th day of December 1787.

“No allusion is made to the character of the instrument or of the understanding of the members of the Convention of it, farther than their styling it a “Constitution for the United States of America.” That is, a Constitution for States United, and not for the whole mass of the people of these States in the aggregate. This of itself is quite enough to show that they considered it Federal or Federative in its character!

But we are not left in doubt or to inference on this point. The debates in the Convention of Pennsylvania have in part been preserved. The speeches of Mr. [James] Wilson . . . throw much light upon the subject. What he said in the State Convention, touching the character, or nature of the Constitution, which was finally agreed upon, is entitled to great weight, and particularly all his disclaimers, as to its being a Consolidation of the whole people of the country into one single grand National Republic.

On the one hand, it is suggested, that given the United States contains an immense extent of territory and a despotic government is best adapted to that extent. On the other hand, however, the citizens of the United States would reject with indignation the fetters of despotism. What, then, was to be done? The idea of a Confederate Republic presented itself.

Its description is ‘a Convention, by which several States agree to become members of a larger one, which they intend to establish. It is kind of an assemblage of societies that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of further association.’ (Montesquieu, b. ix, c.1) The expanding quality of such Government is peculiarly fitted for the United States, the greatest part of whose territory is yet uncultivated.

In another speech, on 1^st December 1787, as the discussion progressed, he said: “We have heard much about the Consolidated Government.  I wish the honorable gentlemen would condescend to give us a definition of what is meant by it. It may be said, and I believe it has been said, that a consolidated Government is such as will absorb and destroy the Governments of the several States.

As to the belief that the proposed Constitution is a Consolidated Government which puts the thirteen United States into one – if it is meant that the General Government will destroy the Governments of the States, I will admit that such a government would not suit the people of America.”

(A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, Alexander H. Stephens. Sprinkle Publications, 1994 (Original: S.A. George, Printers, 1868), pp. 209-221)