6

Convention

CHAPTER 6|Document 7

Edmund Randolph to James Madison

I have turned my mind somewhat to the business of may next: but am hourly interrupted. At present I conceive

1. that the alterations shd. be grafted on the old confederation

2. that what is best in itself, not merely what can be obtained from the assemblies, be adopted.

3. that the points of power to be granted be so detached from each other, as to permit a state to reject one part, without mutilating the whole.

With these objects, ought not some general propositions to be prepared for feeling the pulse of the convention on the subject at large? Ought not an address to accompany the new constitution?

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 1, Chapter 6, Document 7
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch6s7.html
The University of Chicago Press

The Papers of John Marshall. Edited by Herbert A. Johnson et al. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, in association with the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1974--.