When
James Madison left New York for Philadelphia on May 2nd, 1787 he
carried with him not the proposed amendments to the Articles of Confederation
which was the mandate of the convention but an entirely new idea for a
constitution that would make the “National” government supreme with the states
nothing but subdivisions of the central government structure. His proposal would
grant the national government veto power over all state laws. Madison’s plan was
totally contrary to the results of the recent war with England which gave
primary power to the states with the central government only allowed the powers
the states saw fit to provide. Madison’s plan called for a consolidated union
that would virtually annihilate the states. The states would only be maintained
as long as they could be “subordinately useful.”
In
opposition to this proposed form of government, New York delegate John Lansing
would most astutely observe that the states would never have consented to select
delegates to attend a convention that would lead to their destruction.
