The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787/Volume 3/Appendix A/CCXXXVIII

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ⅭⅭⅩⅩⅩⅧ. Charles Pinckney to James Madison.[1]

Charleston March 28: 1789.

Are you not, to use a full expression, abundantly convinced that the theoretical nonsense of an election of the members of Congress by the people in the first instance, is clearly and practically wrong.[2]—that it will in the end be the means of bringing our councils into contempt & that the legislature are the only proper judges of who ought to be elected?——

Are you not fully convinced that the Senate ought at least to be double their number to make them of consequence & to prevent their falling into the same comparative state of insignificance that the state Senates have, merely from their smallness?—

  1. Documentary History of the Constitution, Ⅴ, 168–169.
  2. See ⅭⅭⅩⅩⅩⅦ above.