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1787] The resolutions reported. First resolution. 249 afterwards worked out in detail by Hamilton, and given by him to Madison towards the close of the Convention, as a constitution for the United States which he would have wished the Convention to adopt. The Virginia and the New Jersey plans of government were now considered together, for one day, in their entirety. Debate ran mostly upon the power of the Convention, under the action of Congress in proposing it, and the commissions of the deputies issued in virtue of Acts of the State legislatures, to depart radically from the Articles of Confederation. But the friends of the Virginia plan pointed out that the action to be taken would only be a proposal ; it could compel no one ; the people could reject it. And then the dangers of the country were urged as calling upon the Convention to do whatever should be deemed necessary for the public welfare. The States had sent them there, said Hamilton, " to provide for the exigencies of the Union " ; to propose any plan not adequate to these exigencies, merely because it was not within their powers, would be to sacrifice the end to the means. The committee voted to adhere to the report already made. The Randolph resolutions as amended and reported were now before the House in Convention, and the serious business of framing the Con- stitution was taken up and prosecuted to the end. The first result was the adoption of a new series of twenty-three similar resolutions, declaring the sense of the Convention in regard to what the Con- stitution should contain. These resolutions were then given, on July 26, to a committee of detail, to prepare and report a draft of the Constitution. The draft Constitution was reported by the committee on August 6 ; on the next day it was taken up by the Convention and considered, as the original Randolph resolutions had been considered, point by point, until September 10. The work was now given to a committee of style and arrangement ; the committee reported a revised draft of the Constitution on September 13 ; and the Convention, having made a few small changes, adopted the Constitution in its final form on the 17th of the same month. The original Randolph resolutions will now be taken up in order and carried through their various stages until, excepting such as disappear on the way, they find lodgment in the Constitution. All the greater and most of the minor theories of government, advocated or proposed in the Convention, will in course of the survey come before the reader. (1) "NATIONAL" GOVERNMENT. The first of the Randolph resolutions proposed that the Articles of Confederation ought to be so corrected and enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by them, namely, common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare. This resolution was postponed (and not CH. VIII.