The Constitutional Convention rejected the absolute federal negative on June 8. Only the delegates from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia unanimously supported it. Delaware’s votes were evenly divided, and the other states voting (CT, NY, NJ, MD, NC, SC, and GA) all disapproved.
This defeat, however, was not the end of the debate over the federal negative at the Convention. The limited version of the negative lived on in the working draft of the Constitution, which granted Congress the power “to negative all laws passed by the several States contravening, in the opinion of the national Legislature the articles of union, or any treaties subsisting under the authority of the Union.” This clause came under attack on June 20, when John Lansing (NY) questioned whether “the members of the general Legislature be competent Judges,” and asserted that if the federal government were to have a veto, “the States must be entirely abolished.” The Convention debated the clause again on July …show more content…
In a letter to Madison written June 20, 1787, Thomas Jefferson expressed distaste for the negative because it granted Congress too much power. “Not more than 1 out of 100 state-acts concern the confederacy,” he wrote, “This proposition then, in order to give them 1 degree of power which they ought to have, gives them 99 more which they ought not to have, upon a presumption that they will not exercise the 99.” He preferred that issues arising from problematic state laws should be handled in federal courts. Madison responded on October 24 with a long defense of the negative, reiterating his findings from “Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies” and his arguments in “Vices of the Political System of the United States.” With regard to the judicial check on state laws, Madison insisted “that it is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it is
This defeat, however, was not the end of the debate over the federal negative at the Convention. The limited version of the negative lived on in the working draft of the Constitution, which granted Congress the power “to negative all laws passed by the several States contravening, in the opinion of the national Legislature the articles of union, or any treaties subsisting under the authority of the Union.” This clause came under attack on June 20, when John Lansing (NY) questioned whether “the members of the general Legislature be competent Judges,” and asserted that if the federal government were to have a veto, “the States must be entirely abolished.” The Convention debated the clause again on July …show more content…
In a letter to Madison written June 20, 1787, Thomas Jefferson expressed distaste for the negative because it granted Congress too much power. “Not more than 1 out of 100 state-acts concern the confederacy,” he wrote, “This proposition then, in order to give them 1 degree of power which they ought to have, gives them 99 more which they ought not to have, upon a presumption that they will not exercise the 99.” He preferred that issues arising from problematic state laws should be handled in federal courts. Madison responded on October 24 with a long defense of the negative, reiterating his findings from “Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies” and his arguments in “Vices of the Political System of the United States.” With regard to the judicial check on state laws, Madison insisted “that it is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it is