HKB
proposition, but only to give a more correct view of his ideas.
"Mr. Patterson regularly proposed a plan which was discussed & voted on."--Madison to John Quincy Adams, Montpellier, Nov. 2, 1818, Dept. of State MSS., Miscellaneous Letters.
Committee rose & the House Adjourned.
TUESDAY JUNE 19^{TH} IN COMMITTEE OF WHOLE ON THE PROPOSITIONS OF M^R PATTERSON,--[90]
[90] This was the last session of the Convention in Committee of the Whole.
The substitute offered yesterday by M^r Dickenson being rejected by a vote now taken on it; Con. N. Y. N. J. Del. ay. Mass. P^a V. N. C. S. C. Geo. no. Mary^d divided M^r Patterson's plan was again at large before the Committee.
M^r Madison. Much stress has been laid by some gentlemen on the want of power in the Convention to propose any other than a federal plan. To what had been answered by others, he would only add, that neither of the characteristics attached to a federal plan would support this objection. One characteristic, was that in a federal Government, the power was exercised not on the people individually; but on the people collectively, on the States. Yet in some instances as in piracies, captures &c. the existing Confederacy, and in many instances the amendments to it proposed by M^r Patterson, must operate immediately on individuals. The other characteristic was, that a federal Gov^t derived its appointments not immediately from the people, but from the States which they respectively composed. Here too were facts on the other side. In two of the States, Connect^t & Rh. Island, the delegates to Cong^s were chosen, not by the Legislatures, but by the people at large; and the plan of M^r P. intended no change in this particular.