Author: Philip Alexander Bruce

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-01-11

Total Pages: 536

ISBN-13: 9780428826215

Excerpt from Virginia, Vol. 2 of 5: Rebirth of the Old Dominion The debate in the Constitutional Convention of 1788, led, on one side, by Madison and Marshall, and on the other, by Henry and Mason, with backers hardly less able or less well-informed than themselves, disclosed the wide gulf which existed between those who favored the adeption of the great instrument drafted at Philadelphia in 1787 and those who opposed it. Some mem bers, like George Mason, for instance, refused to sign the final resolution approving that instrument, on the ground that it failed to offer enough safeguards for the protection of the rights of the Southern Commonwealths. In the end, the ratification by the Virginia Convention only took place when important amend ments had been submitted and accepted. One of the most significant of these amendments contained the declaration that the State reserved the right to secede when ever the powers of the National Constitution should be perverted to the Oppression and injury of the American people. Virginia was not the only State which expressly retained this right. South Carolina, New York, and Massachusetts adopted a similar provision. It is true that no such provision was imbedded permanently in the phraseology of the National Constitution, but the document distinctly affirmed that all rights not plainly delegated to the Central Government were reserved by the States, and among these rights, Virginia, along with the other Southern Commonwealths, claimed that the right of secession was the foremost. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.