On the Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained
Madison: For the New York Packet , Friday, January 18, 1788.
To the People of the State of New York:
The second point to be examined is, whether the convention were authorized to frame and propose this mixed Constitution.
The powers of the convention ought, in strictness, to be determined by an inspection of the commissions given to the members by their respective constituents. As all of these, however, had reference, either to the recommendation from the meeting at Annapolis, in September, 1786, or to that from Congress, in February, 1787, it will be sufficient to recur to these particular acts.
The act from Annapolis recommends the “appointment of commissioners to take into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union ; and to report such an act for that purpose, to the United States in Congress assembled, as when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state, will effectually provide for the same.”
The recommendatory act of Congress is in the words following:
national government.
“Whereas, there is provision in the articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, for making alterations therein, by the assent of a Congress of the United States, and of the legislatures of the several states; and whereas experience hath evinced, that there are defects in the present Confederation; as a mean to remedy which, several of the states, and
particularly the State of New York
, by express instructions to their delegates in Congress, have suggested a convention for the purposes expressed in the following resolution; and such convention appearing to be the most probable mean of establishing in these states
a firm national government