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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CCXXXVIII.: Charles Pinckney to James Madison. 3 - The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

CCXXXVIII.: Charles Pinckney to James Madison. 3 - Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3 [1911]

Edition used:

The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 3 vols.

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CCXXXVIII.

Charles Pinckney to James Madison.3

Are you not, to use a full expression, abundantly convinced that the theoretical nonsense of an election of the members of Congress by the people in the first instance, is clearly and practically wrong.4 — that it will in the end be the means of bringing our councils into contempt & that the legislature are the only proper judges of who ought to be elected? — —

Are you not fully convinced that the Senate ought at least to be double their number to make them of consequence & to prevent their falling into the same comparative state of insignificance that the state Senates have, merely from their smallness? —

[3 ]Documentary History of the Constitution, V, 168-169.

[4 ]See CCXXXVII above.