Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] II
Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Virginia), February 27, 1788
Following are excerpts from James Iredell’s responses to George Mason’s “Objections” to the Constitution:
“IVth. Objection. The Judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended, as to absorb and destroy the Judiciaries of the several States (more…)
Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] I
Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Virginia), February 20, 1788
Following are excerpts from James Iredell’s responses to George Mason’s “Objections” to the Constitution:
“IIId. [George Mason’s] Objection. ‘The Senate have the power of altering all money bills, and of originating appropriations of money, and the salaries of the officers of their own appointment, in conjunction with the President of the United States (more…)
Reply to Mason’s “Objections”: “Civis Rusticus”
Virginia Independent Chronicle (Richmond), January 30, 1788
Following are excerpts of an article written in response to George Mason’s article listing the objections to the Constitution:
“5th. Had the convention left the executive power indivisible, I am free to own it would have been better, than giving the senate a share in it (more…)
George Mason, “Objections to the Constitution”
Circulated early October 1787, published in full in the Virginia Journal (Alexandria), November 22, 1787
Following are excerpts from George Mason’s article, articulating objections to the Constitution, as submitted to the states for ratification:
“Gentlemen, At this important crisis when we are about to determine upon a government which is not to effect us for a month, for a year, or for our lives: but which, it is probable, will extend (more…)
Looking to the state governments’ creation of their respective senates, as explained in The Birth of the Senate, the creation of the Senate in the Constitution was a given, when the Constitutional Convention began. See Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 553.
A bill of rights was not contemplated at the Constitutional Convention, until George Mason mentioned it in the last days of the Convention. Every state ruled it out. Rufus King, however, suggested that “as the fundamental rights of individuals are secured by express provisions in the State Constitutions; why may not a like security be provided for the Rights of the States in the National Constitution?” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 536 quoting Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention, II, 375-76, 378-79, I, 492-93.
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