Political convention

“ Accordingly the efforts of the Constitutional Convention were directed to the task of devising a system of government which was just popular enough not to excite general opposition and which at the same time gave to the people as little as possible of the substance of political power. ”

“ We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional doctrines and traditions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teachings and examples of a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and embodied in the platform of the last national convention of the party. ”

“ The national legislature will be the first to perceive, and will be most sensible to, the necessity of amendments; and ought also to be empowered, whenever two-thirds of each branch should concur, to call a convention. ”

“ Ever since modern systems of government have been thought of, the truest and most enlightened friends of liberty and progress have believed that the meeting of representatives of the people as law-makers, freely to exchange their opinions and deliberate upon the public affairs, was the institutional embodiment of the people's rights and the main safeguard of their interests, and that not only the power to resolve, but the freedom, aye, the duty, to speak and deliberate,—not only to act, but to give reasons for so acting,—was one of the essential virtues of the system. ”

“ The prevailing apprehension among thinking men is, that the Convention, from the fear of shocking the popular opinion, will not go far enough. They seem to be convinced, that a strong, well-mounted government will better suit the popular palate, than one of a different complexion. ”

“ If there is a constitution in that kingdom, which settles the mode of election, and that constitution is an act of the people, paramount to the power of the Parliament, and unchangeable by them, a convention of the people must be called to make an alteration which would be as well made in Parliament. ”

“ The convention not only is not a fact, but individuals have no authority without society, to meet in convention, and enter into the alleged compact, because they are not independent, sovereign individuals. ”

“ But what must be the mutual rights of the people and of the government in order that they might balance? We have just explained that. On the people's side there should be the four rights of election, recall, initiative, and referendum. On the government's side there must be five powers.... If the four governing powers of the people control the five administrative powers of the government, then we shall have a perfect political-democratic machine....277 ”

“ I repeat, we cannot safely or wisely change our leader in the midst of the great events which will not wait for conventions. Such is the instinctive, nearly universal judgment of the people. Let, then, the convention meet and ratify the choice which the people have already so clearly indicated. ”

“ Persons confessedly not constituting the body politic, or all the inhabitants, but merely a party of the inhabitants, and without law, have undertaken to summon a convention for the purpose of transforming the territory into a state, and have framed a constitution, adopted it, and under it elected a governor and other officers, and a representative to congress. ”

“ It is our business to lay down certain principles and propositions of policy, and we have to present to the suffrage of the people, men for the highest offices of the Republic, who, if elected, are to carry those principles and propositions into a living reality. ”

“ They go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy, as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative, is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is the sine qua non to all political conclusions. How can a nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with certain organic political principles? ”

“ The Framing of the Constitution Problems Involved.—The great problems before the convention were nine in number: (1) Shall the Articles of Confederation be revised or a new system of government constructed? (2) Shall the government be founded on states equal in power as under the Articles or on the broader and deeper foundation of population? (3) What direct share shall the people have in the election of national officers? ”

“ The necessity of supreme legislative authority over the seat of government was forcibly impressed upon the members of the constitutional convention by occurrences which took place near the close of the revolutionary war. ”

“ In our complex system of polity, the public will, as a source of authority, may be the will of the people as composing one nation; or the will of the States in their distinct and independent capacities; or the federal will, as viewed, for example, through the Presidential electors, representing, in a certain proportion, both the nation and the States. ”

“ If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed. ”

“ In the exercise of these natural rights, it has been supposed, men with a view to their general interest established political society. From that establishment is derived both the system of rights and obligations maintained by law as between man and man, and the right of the state to the submission of its subjects. ”

“ If it had been intended by the members of the convention which framed the present constitution and government, to make any essential change, either in the relation of the States to each other, or the basis of their union, they would, by retaining the style which designated them under the preceding governments, have practised a deception, utterly unworthy of their character, as sincere and honest men and patriots. ”

“ The first two resolutions of the honorable member affirm these propositions, viz.:--
1. That the political system under which we live, and under which Congress is now assembled, is a compact, to which the people of the several States, as separate and sovereign communities, are the parties.
2. That these sovereign parties have a right to judge, each for itself, of any alleged violation of the Constitution by Congress; and, in case of such violation, to choose, each for itself, its own mode and measure of redress. ”

“ It is in such states, perhaps, as in a fabric of a large dimension, that we can perceive most distinctly the several parts of which a political body consists; and observe that concurrence or opposition of interests, which serve to unite or to separate different orders of men, and lead them, by maintaining their several claims, to establish a variety of political forms. ”

“ Although well persuaded that nothing but a good national government could oppose and divert the tide of evils that was flowing in upon us, yet those gentlemen met in Convention with minds perfectly unprejudiced in favor of any particular plan. ”

“ The political system of this Republic rests upon the right of the people to control their local concerns in their several States by the operations of self-government, subject to certain restrictions imposed by the National Constitution, and in the right to coöperate with one another in the government of the whole. ”

“ The party convention is now the all important portion of the machinery for the election of the president, and the safeguard provided by the constitution for the choice of the best man is a mere nullity. ”

“ At the impending National election various questions of great importance will be submitted to our judgment. The settlements of the civil war as Constitutionally fixed must be conscientiously maintained, and at the same time the Government strengthened in general confidence by the strict observance of Constitutional principles, and the old brotherhood of the people revived by a policy of mutual justice and conciliation. ”

“ There is not a member on this floor who does not know that the Convention is nearly equally divided on that question. Now, if we may, with propriety, refer to the people one question, why may we not, with equal propriety, refer another? And, sir, with how much greater propriety may we refer those questions, concerning which we know there is a great diversity of opinion, as well here as amongst the people? I conceive, Mr. President, that the duty we have to perform is a very plain one. It is to frame a Constitution to the best of our ability, and then submit it to the people. ”

“ Our lawmakers must be made law proposers, who shall construct law to be submitted to the people for their approval, in the same manner as our public conventions appoint committees to draft resolutions, which are afterward adopted or rejected by the convention itself. ”

“ These were the ideas and principles of leading consolidationists and radicals in Congress who were politicians of ability, had studied the science of government, and were from conviction opponents of reserved rights and State sovereignty and of a mere confederation or Federal Union, based on the political equality and reserved sovereignty of the States, but insisted that the central Government should penetrate further and act directly on the people. ”

“ That the people have a right peaceably to assemble together to consult for the common good, or to instruct their representatives; and that every freeman has a right to petition or apply to the legislature for redress of grievances. ”

“ That when any such state shall have acquired 20,000 free inhabitants, on giving due proof thereof to Congress, they shall receive from them authority, with appointments of time and place, to call a convention of [Pg 487] representatives to establish a permanent constitution and government for themselves. ”

“ It is, therefore, for those who believe in the worth and use of freedom and of mutual tolerance and respect, in political discussion and action, to work for some method 307of selection of political representatives of the people which will make our legislative bodies more truly official sections of the thought and moral ideal of the whole life of the body politic. ”

“ The political principles of the landed interest, constituting an immense majority of their people, have prevailed in the administration of their State governments, save in regard to the ratification of the Federal Constitution, from the recognition of our Independence to the present day. ”

“ I doubt, too, whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution. For, when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. ”

“ We have from the first affirmed, and unvaryingly kept in view, the coequal importance of two great requisites of government—responsibility to those for whose benefit political power ought to be, and always professes to be, employed ”

“ Not as a matter of theory, but as a matter of plain and proved experience, we find that the convention system, while it often records the popular will, is also often used by adroit politicians as a method of thwarting the popular will. ”

“ Our extra-constitutional party conventions, short-lived and poor in power as they are, constitute our only machinery for that sort of control of the executive which consists in the award of personal rewards and punishments. ”

“ How grateful, then, should we be, that, at this important period,—a period important, not to us alone, but to the general rights of mankind,—so much harmony and concession should prevail throughout the states; that the public opinion should be so much actuated by candor, and an attention to their general interests; that, disdaining to be governed by the narrow motives of state policy, they have liberally determined to dedicate a part of their advantages to the support of that government from which they received them! ”

“ Resolved, That we invite the affiliation and co-operation of the men of all parties, however differing from us in other respects, in support of the principles herein declared; and believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all proscriptive legislation affecting their security. ”

“ Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of a national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so marvellously loaded with con-fusion, as to appear at first sight, almost impossible to be reformed. ”

“ The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights. ”

“ As the constitution stood when the convention assembled it was in the power of the legislature-of any legislature-at any time, under the pressure of any influence, to release the lien of the State on the roads, or to make any other compromise of the claim of the State. ”

“ This Convention, composed of men who possessed the confidence of the people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished by their patriotism, virtue, and wisdom, in times which tried the minds and hearts of men, undertook the arduous task. ”

“ In the political history of our country since the adoption of the constitution, there have been ever present two great constitutional questions, in the conflicting answers to which we must seek the origin and creeds of our great political parties. ”

“ If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interests, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution in favour of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law in preference to all private and partial considerations. ”