Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 2.djvu/529

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KECOl?DS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION S2? Tl?ur.?day MADISON $?pt?raber 6 powers are all blended in one branch of the Government. The power of making Treaties involves the case of subsidies, and here as an additional evil, foreign influence is to be dreadedM According to the plan as it now stands, the President will not be the man of the people as he ought to be, but the Minion of the Senate. He cannot even appoint a tide-waiter without the Senate-- He had always thought the Senate too numerous a body for making appointments to office. The Senate, will moreover in all probability be in constant Session. They will have high salaries. And with all those powers, and the President in their interest, they will depress the other branch of the Legislature, and aggrandize themselves in pro- portion. Add to all this, that the Senate sitting in Conclave, can by holding up to their respective States various and im- probable candidates, contrive so to scatter their votes, as to bring the appointment of the President ultimately before themselves-- Upon the whole, he thought the new mode of appointing the President, with some amendments, a valuable improvement; but he could never agree to purchase it at the price of the ensuing parts of the Report, nor befriend a sys- tem of Which they make a part --?* Mr. Govr. Morris expressed his wonder at the observations of Mr. Wilson so far as they preferred the plan in the printed Report to the new modification of it before the House, and entered into a comparative view of the two, with an eye to the nature of Mr. Wilsons objections to the last. By the first the Senate he observed had a voice in appointing the Presi- dent out of all the Citizens of the U.S.- by this they were limited to five candidates previously nominated to them, with a probability of being barred altogether by the successful bal- lot of the Electors. Here surely was no increase of power. They are now to appoint Judges nominated to them by the President. Before they had the appointment without any agency whatever of the President. Here again was surely no additional power. If they are to make Treaties as the plan now stands, the power was the same in the printed plan B See Appendix A, CXLIX.