1737] Steps to the Convention of 1787. 243 vested in a single governor or president, to whose office was attached, or not, as has been seen, a Council to " assist " or to "advise""; in Pennsylvania the executive power was vested, as has been stated already, in an executive Council, presided over by a president. The executive was elected by the people or, in two or three States, by the legislature. The judiciary department was vested in Courts having judges appointed by the executive, or by the executive "and" or "with advice of" the Council, or elected by the legislature. All officers concerned with government, in all the States, were to hold office for definite terms less than for life, or during good be- haviour; only the higher judicial officers holding in the latter way. Salaries were generally to be provided for the governor and judges and other superior officers, without allowance of fees. Delegates to Congress were to be elected by the State legislatures. Thus, in the separation, perfect or imperfect, of the departments, in the division of the legislature, and in the establishment of fixed terms of service for officers and the substitution of salaries for fees, the States for the first time applied, more or less completely, on their own behalf the theory of good government evolved by them. (iii) THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. What led to the Convention may be shortly told. The Confed- eration was an utter failure, and now was sinking, a helpless hulk, amidst general contempt. Meanwhile, a few of the States, such as Rhode Island and New York, which had harbours suitable for foreign commerce, were making spoil in their day. Free in fact from all ex- ternal restraint, they sat at the seat of custom, laying heavy tribute upon those of their neighbours whose wares must pass through their avaricious gateways. Connecticut, New Jersey, and North Carolina suffered much. Connecticut was drained on one side by Rhode Island, on the other by New York ; New Jersey, lying between New York and Pennsylvania, was "a cask tapped at both ends"; North Carolina, between Virginia and South Carolina, was " a patient bleeding at both stumps." The state of the country was alarming, and was growing worse and worse every day. Even the dry language of legal documents was eloquent of the fact. "Whereas," ran the commission of the New Hampshire deputies to the Constitutional Convention, "the limited powers, which, by the Articles of Confederation, are vested in the Congress of the United States, have been found far inadequate to the enlarged purposes" in view; "and whereas Congress hath, by repeated and most urgent representations, endeavoured to awaken this and other States of the Union to a sense of the truly critical and alarming situation in which they may inevitably be involved, unless timely CH. vin. 16 2
