might have been devised for constituting this branch of the government, that which has been proposed by the convention is probably the most congenial with the public opinion. It is recommended by the double advantage of favouring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government, as must secure the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.
3. The equality of representation in the senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small states, does not call for much discussion.
ⅭⅬⅩⅩⅩⅨ. The Landholder [Oliver Ellsworth], Ⅹ.[1]
To the Honourable Luther Martin, Esq,
- Sir,
I have just met with your performance in favour of the Honourable Mr. Gerry, published in the Maryland Journal of the 18th January, 1788.[2] As the Public may be ignorant of the Sacrifice you have made of your resentments on this occasion, you will excuse me for communicating what your extreme modesty must have induced you to conceal. You, no doubt, remember that you and Mr. Gerry never voted alike in Convention, except in the instances I shall hereafter enumerate. He uniformly opposed your principles, and so far did you carry your abhorrence of his politics, as to inform certain members to be on their guard against his wiles, so that, he and Mr. Mason held private meetings, where plans were concerted “to aggrandise, at the expence of the small States, Old Massachusetts and the Ancient Dominion.” After having thus opposed him and accused him, to appear his Champion and intimate acquaintance, has placed you beyond the reach of ordinary panegyric. Having done this justice to your magnanimity, I cannot resist drawing the veil of the Convention a little farther aside; not, I assure you, with any intention to give pain to your Constituents, but merely to induce them to pity you for the many piercing mortifications you met with in the discharge of your duty. The day you took your seat must be long remembered by those who were present; nor will it be possible for you to forget the astonishment your behaviour almost instantaneously produced. You had scarcely time to read the propositions which had been agreed to after the
