the view taken of the subject while the Constitution was under the consideration of the people. It was this view of it which dictated the clause declaring that the Constitution and laws of the United States should be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any of the States to the contrary notwithstanding.[1] It was the same view which specially prohibited certain powers and acts to the States, among them any laws violating the obligation of contracts, and which dictated the appellate provision in the judicial act passed by the first Congress under the Constitution.[2]
CCCXCIX. James Madison to Joseph Wood.[3]
Feby 27, 1836.
I have received, sir, your letter of the 16th instant, requesting such information as I might be able to give pertaining to a biography of your father-in-law, the late Chief Justice Ellsworth.
… In the Convention which framed the Constitution of the U. States he bore an interesting part, and signed the instrument in its final shape, with the cordiality verified by the support he gave to its ratification.
CCCC. James Madison to ——— ———[4]
March, 1836.
It is well known that the equality of the States in the Federal Senate was a compromise between the larger and the smaller States, the former claiming a proportional representation in both branches of the Legislature, as due to their superior population; the latter an equality in both, as a safeguard to the reserved sovereignty of the States, an object which obtained the concurrence of members from the larger States. But it is equally true, though but little reverted to as an instance of miscalculating speculation, that, as soon as the smaller States had secured more than a proportional share in the proposed Government, they became favourable to augmentations of its powers, and that, under the administration of the Government, they have generally, in contests between it and the State governments, leaned to the former.…
Nothing is more certain than that the tenure of the Senate was meant as an obstacle to the instability, which not only history, but the experience of our country, had shown to be the besetting infirmity of popular governments.…
