very appeal as to law from the State courts, which he was willing to allow. It is fortunate that Mr. Henry did not succeed.

The cotemporaneous expositions of the Constitution are so contradictory, that no reliance can be placed upon them. With our best endeavours to collect from the speeches in the Virginia Convention, whether their authors understood the appellate jurisdiction to be what is now contended for, we are at a loss what to conjecture. There are often dicta in the same speech, which it is difficult to reconcile with each other. The truth is, the subject was only glanced at. The debate hinged upon the evil of the inferior tribunals and the appeal as to fact. But if we go to the Convention we shall find no such excitement to prevail there. The majority of the Virginia delegation was always for inferior Federal tribunals, as necessary for the government. By the journals, a resolution passed on the 4th of June, in committee of the whole, without a division, that there should be " "a supreme and one or more inferior tribunals." The next day it was moved to strike out the "inferior tribunals," which was carried, five States to four, and two divided, but this was evidently done for the purpose of varying the phraseology, so as to exclude the idea of the States appointing the inferior tribunals, as was the case under the Confederation; for immediately after that vote was taken, a resolution was offered to add to the same clause, these words, "that the national legislature be empowered to appoint the inferior tribunals:"-carried, seven States to three. There is, therefore, no doubt, that there were members in the Convention, who at the time were opposed to inferior federal tribunals. Mr. Luther Martin tells us that there was an opposition to this power in Congress, on the ground "that the State judiciaries would be competent to and sufficient, in the first instance, of all cases that should arise under the law of the General Government. That by giving an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, the General Government would have a sufficient check over their decisions, and a sufficient security for the enforcing of their laws." (Yates Debates, 58.) The opposition alluded to by Mr. Martin was on the 5th of June, and came only from the above three States, who voted in the negative. But it must be remembered, that there was a reason for an opposition at that time, and which afterwards ceased to exist. The Convention had decided, without a division, only a few days before (31st May) that the government should be national and not federal, and had invested Congress with a "supreme power of constructing the articles of Union" by a negative upon all State laws. As the

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Federal form was therefore to be dispensed with, and a supremacy given over the States, there could be no objection to an appeal from the State courts, whilst the advantage of having all the business still transacted in those Courts was a great object. But as the Convention progressed in its deliberations, many delegates began to fall off from the idea of a National Government, and on the 7th of July, the federal party so increased, that an equality of suffrage in the Senate was carried after a hard-fought battle, and on the 17th of July, the supremacy given on the 31st May was revoked. And hence it is, that the next day (18th July) when the resolution as to the judiciary was again called up, the vote was unanimous, that Congress should appoint the inferior tribunals. The committee of detail, accordingly, in their draft of the Constitution, restored the original clause, that the judicial power should consist of one Supreme Court, and of such Inferior Courts as Congress should establish. An appeal from the State courts at the time it was contemplated, was, we repeat, not only harmless, but beneficial under a national form of government; but when the federal form was substituted and State independence secured by an equal suffrage in the Senate, and by revoking the supremacy previously given, it would, indeed, have been strange, that the appeal should be desired. But Mr. Martin's words are very important in one view. They shew, that he, at least, did not think, that, under the present phraseology, there existed an appeal from the State courts, for he thought all the objection to their being Courts of first instance might be obviated by giving an appeal to the Supreme Court. On another occasion, (15th June) a proposition was made by Mr. Paterson, that the State tribunals should be the Courts of first instance, with appeal to one Supreme tribunal of the United States, (Jour. 124,) and had it been adopted, it could not in any respect have affected the sovereignty of the States, for Mr. Paterson's plan of government was no more than the old Confederation, with an additional power to lay imposts, and the stamp and postage duties; and for the reasons already urged by us, under such a government, there could not be the same objection to a dependant State judiciary as now exists. It is only under a form completely national or completely federal, that the power is harmlesswhere it is both federal and national, and there is a co-ordination of authorities, a rejection of the power is essential to State independence. Mr. Paterson's plan, was, however, submitted to the Convention, and rejected in a committee of the whole on the 19th of June. On the 24th of July, it was again referred to the "Committee of Detail," who, on that day, were

appointed to report a draft of a Constitution. The Committee in reporting their draft on the 6th of August, used no words, implying that there was to be an appeal, in any case, from a State court. The word State court is not to be found in the Constitution. Under these circumstances, we are constrained to believe that the omission, in the reported draft of the Constitution, of the appeal proposed by Mr. Paterson-the substitution. and adoption of a clause in which the State tribunals are not even alluded to—and the rejection again of an amendment, afterwards proposed, so indefinitely expressed as to leave room that such an appeal might possibly be implied, are circumstances wholly unsusceptible of explanation, if the Convention did really intend to make the State courts inferior to the federal judiciary.

But fortunately the case does not rest herc. As we are now in the gallery of the Convention, we cannot be better employed than in contemplating, at more leisure, the picture of the Constitution. We may here learn from the best authority, the artists themselves, the history of the painting, the number of sittings which were requisite, the improvements which were suggested, and alterations which were made from the time its first outline was sketched, until it received the finishing touch of the master's pencil. It is to the proceedings of the Convention that we are to look for the explanation of what may appear ambiguous in the phraseology of the federal compact; and here too, we will discover the rise, progress and present condition of that enlarged construction of the Constitution, which, at this moment, occasions so much disquietude. From the first meeting of that body, until it finished its labours, there were two parties distinctly marked. The object of one was to annihilate gradually all the State sovereignties, by introducing a national form of government, and by conferring on that government supreme legislative, executive and judiciary powers. Mr. Randolph's words, on proposing his resolutions, were, that "he candidly confessed that they were not intended for a federal government-he meant a strong consolidated union, in which the idea of States should be nearly annihilated." (Yates' Debates, 97.) The other party desired a Federal Constitution remedying, as far as was consistent with the independence of the States, its palpable defects. The Journals of the Convention, together with Yates' Secret Debates of that body, and Luther Martin's Report to the Legislature of Maryland, constitute an interesting history of the Constitution, and furnish conclusive evidence of the fact we have just stated. And it is here that we would invite the attention of our readers, to that excellent work prefixed to this

article, "The New Views of the Constitution of the United States, by John Taylor of Caroline, Virginia,”—a volume which we have perused with considerable care and pleasure, and certainly with not less profit. The value we attach to these "Views," is not from the style in which they are expressed, which we regret to say is affected and otherwise defective, but rather for the body of facts and original reasoning, which he has submitted for the purpose of proving that there existed in the Convention, on the part of its most distinguished members, an early and a deliberate design to make the government national and not federal; and though these gentlemen failed as to their object, yet no one can rise from the perusal of the volume before us without being satisfied, that this very failure was the cause of those efforts which were subsequently made by the cotemporaneous exposition of the "Federalist," and in the first administrations of the government, to supply, by extended construction, what was conceived to be the radical defects or omissions in the plan finally adopted. It was perfectly natural that these gentlemen should have retained their first impressions, and have taken this course, when they were called to take a share in the administration of public affairs. There never existed, as we believe, in any country, gentlemen of a loftier spirit of patriotism and love of liberty than the advocates of a national government in the General Convention. Many Southern delegates were amongst them, and Mr. Madison very conspicuous. As their purposes were honest, in the same proportion was their zeal augmented, for what they deemed so essential to their country's prosperity and safety. But time has shewn that they were all mistaken when they conceived, that, without greater powers, the Federal Government could not resist the encroachments of the State Legislatures. Forty years experience has falsified all their prophecies and dissipated their apprehensions, and shewn us, that so far from the General Government being in danger from the States, the converse of the proposition is, unfortunately for us in the South, too true.

A national government was contemplated by some, earlier than is generally imagined. This appears, as our author thinks, from the word "national" being introduced into the preamble of the resolution of the old Congress which called the Convention. It expressed an opinion "that a Convention was the most probable mean of establishing in these States a firm national government." The body of the resolution, however, contemplates a "Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government, and the preservation of the Union." This recommendation of Congress, comprising "a national govern

ment-a federal Constitution-the preservation of the Union, and a Convention for the sole purpose of revising the articles of the Confederation," our author properly regards:

"As recommending things at discord with each other, a national and a federal form of government, not being the same form, and altogether practised as an expedient of complexity, to flatter the opinion of the States, and yet to supply a text for the advocates of a national government. By planting the word 'national' among them, as a scion to he watered up to a tree, a concert between individuals unfriendly to the political existence of the States, appears at this period to have existed." p. 14.

Our author here introduces extracts from the credentials of the deputies of the twelve States, which were represented in the Convention, to shew that the States unanimously rejected the recommendation of a "national" government, and by excluding the word national from their credentials, and inserting the term "federal," demonstrated that they well understood the difference between a federal and national uniou.

"The Convention was no sooner organized, than there seemed to be a concert between individuals, to disregard the unanimous opinion of the States. On the 29th May, Governor Randolph of Virginia, offered sundry resolutions, resuming the word 'national', though it had been rejected by all the States, and proposing that a national legislature shall have the right to legislate in all cases, in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation, and to negative all laws passed by the several States, contravening, in the opinion of the national legislature, the articles of the Union, or any treaty under the Union.' The resolations also proposed ‘a national executive, and a national judiciary; that the executive and a convenient number of the national judiciary ought to compose a council of revision, with authority to examine every act of a particular legislature, before a negative thereon shall be final, and that the dissent of the said council, shall amount to a rejection, unless the act of the national legislature be again passed, or that of a particular legislature be again negatived by of the members of each branch." p. 17.

"On the same day, Mr. Pinckney offered a draft for a Federal 'Constitution,' in which it was proposed, 'that the legislative power should be vested in a Congress to be chosen by the people of the several States, and that the Legislature of the United States should have power to revise the laws of the several States that may be supposed to infringe the powers exclusively delegated to Congress, and to negative and annul such as do." p. 19.

"On the 30th May, Mr. Randolph moved, 'that an union of States, merely federal, will not accomplish the objects proposed by the articles of Confederation, namely, common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare.' And by Mr. Butler, seconded by Mr. Randolph, 'that