and never returned, with the
exception of Hamilton, who occasionally attended subsequent sessions.
Such was the great concession that was made to secure the Constitution;
and the only respect in which the Constitution to-day cannot be amended
is that by express provision the equality of representation in the
Senate shall never be disturbed. Thus it is that to-day some States,
which have less population than some of the wards in the city of New
York, have as many votes in the Senate as the great State of New York.
It is unquestionably a palpable negation of majority rule, for as no
measure can become a law without the concurrence of the Senate--now
numbering ninety-six Senators--a combination of the little States, whoso
aggregate population is not a fifth of the American people, can defeat
the will of the remaining four-fifths. Pennsylvania and New York, with
nearly one-sixth of the entire population of the United States, have
only four votes in ninety-six votes in the Senate.

Fortunately, political alignments have rarely been between the greater
and the smaller States exclusively. Their equality in the Senate was a
big price to pay for the Union, but, as the event has shown, not too
great.

The convention next turned its attention to the Executive and the manner
of its selection, and upon this point there was the widest contrariety
of view, but, fortunately, without the acute feeling that the relative
power of the States had occasioned.

Then the judiciary article was taken up, and there was much earnest
discussion as to whether the new Constitution should embody the French
idea of giving to the judiciary, in conjunction with the Executive, a
revisory power over legislation. Three times the convention voted upon
this dangerous proposition, and on one occasion it was only defeated by
a single vote. Fortunately, the good sense of the convention rejected a
proposition, that had caused in France constant conflicts between the
Executive and the Judiciary, by substituting the right of the President
to veto congressional legislation, with the right of Congress, by a
two-thirds vote of each House, to override the veto, and secondly by an
implied power in the Judiciary to annul Congressional or State
legislation, not on the grounds of policy, but on the sole ground of
inconsistency with the paramount law of the Constitution. In this
adjustment, the influence of Montesquieu was evident.

These and many practical details had