as if it had been expressly specified. No practical object could be answered by a Convention, in respect of this, unless to prohibit the establishment of a bank by Congress, which your Committee cannot recommend, impressed as they are with a strong sense of the utility and importance of a National Bank, to every portion of the Union.

Eighthly, That the practice of appropriating money for works of internal improvement, may be either sanctioned by an express delegation of power, or restrained by express inhibition."

If the Constitution were now to be framed, your Committee will not deny that it might be expedient to insert in it an explicit provision upon this vexed question. They are aware that grave differences of opinion have obtained among the most distinguished statesmen of the country, as to the power of Congress to make appropriations of money for objects of internal improvement, so called, within the limits of any of the States. Under the power to establish post roads, to regulate commerce, and to raise moneys to provide for the general welfare, Congress has repeatedly authorized the execution, at the charge of the United States, in part or in whole, of public works of this description; and whatever questions have been, or may hereafter be raised, concerning the extent of this power, your Committee believe that the opinions and practice of the two Houses of Congress and the Executive, in their discussion and action upon the subject, will ere long have provided a safe construction of the Constitution in this respect, as they have done in others, where doubt once existed as to the meaning of that instrument. However this may be, your Committee do not think it is a matter which demands the call of a Convention; and that if the Constitution needs amendment in that particular, it should be provided by means of Congress, under the provisions in the fifth article of the Constitution.

Ninthly, That it may be prescribed, what disposition shall be made of the surplus revenue, when such revenue is found to be on hand.'

Tenthly, That the right to, and the mode of disposition of the public lands of the United States, may be settled.'

Your Committee are not aware that any serious constitutional difficulty exists in relation to these two subjects, which they

deem to be mere questions of public policy and expediency, entirely within the competency of Congress.

'Eleventhly, That the election of President and Vice President may be secured, in all cases, to the people.'

'Twelfthly, That their tenure of office may be limited to one

term.'

Whatever considerations there may be in favor of an amendment of the Constitution in these particulars, and your Committee admit that the expediency of a change in the second of them rests upon highly plausible grounds, yet the mode of amendment through the agency of Congress, pointed out by the Constitution, seems to them to be fully competent to effect such an amendment, whenever it shall be the will and desire of a decided majority of the people of the United States.

Lastly, that the rights of the Indians may be definitely settled.'

Your Committee believe this to be purely a subject of judicial construction under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States; that the Supreme Court is competent to settle any questions appertaining to it, which do exist, or which may hereafter exist; and that, of course, it offers no exigency requiring the call of a Convention.

In fine, the specific objects of amendment proposed by the State of Georgia, are of two kinds :-first, things wherein the true intendment of certain clauses of the Constitution may have been deemed questionable, which your Committee regard as the proper subject matter of judicial construction or definition, in the last resort of constitutional, as distinguished from extra constitutional modes of procedure, and of course as not fitting objects of a Convention; and, secondly, things wherein specific alterations of, or additions to the Constitution may have been deemed expedient, which your Committee regard as belonging to the competency of Congress, and by no means of such vital consequence as to justify the extraordinary step of a Convention of the people of the United States.

Having thus adverted to the reasons on which the Legislature of Georgia found their proposition for the call of a Convention, and also to the specific objects of amendment which they propound for investigation, your Committee have only to add, in

conclusion, that they conceive the meeting of a Convention of the people, for the purpose of revising the Constitution, in these or any other respects, to be a remedy required only by pressing emergencies of national exigency; and they apprehend that, under any subsisting state of public feeling, its tendency would be to create new questions of difficulty, and to augment the differences of opinion in regard to old ones, and thus to weaken rather than confirm the power of the Union. The Legislature of Georgia have alleged various subjects of fundamental law as requiring the agency of a Convention, being such as the peculiar views or position of the State of Georgia have suggested to her Legislature. It would be easy for your Committee to swell the number of subjects equally suitable for the consideration of a Convention with those under discussion, derived from the views and position of this Commonwealth; and some of the latter class of subjects involve questions of public right, of national expediency, of constitutional organization, quite as important in themselves, and quite as dear to the convictions of the people of Massachusetts, as any of the former class can possibly be to the people of Georgia. But your Committee are content with the Constitution in the form they have received it from their fathers, regarding it as a monument of comprehension and sagacity, which the labors of a Convention might perhaps improve in some points, but which they would be more likely to unsettle and overturn, without possessing the capacity or the power to raise upon its ruins another equally noble fabric of political wisdom to supply its place. Whilst entertaining, therefore, all proper respect for the opinions of the Legislature of Georgia, and while solicitous to treat that State with deference as a coequal member of the Union, your Committee, in view of the whole matter, recommend to the Legislature the adoption of the following Resolves.

For the Committee,

CALEB CUSHING.

RESOLVES.

Whereas, the Governor of the State of Georgia did, by his communication under date of the twenty-eighth day of December last, transmit to His Excellency the Governor of the Commonwealth, copies of a certain Preamble and Resolutions connected therewith, recently adopted by the Legislature of said State of Georgia, and His Excellency did, by his Special Message of the sixteenth of January last, communicate the same to the Legislature of this Commonwealth :

And whereas, in said Preamble and Resolutions it is set forth that, for certain reasons therein alleged, the State of Georgia doth make application to the Congress of the United States for the call of a Convention of the People to amend the Constitution in sundry particulars, enumerated in said Preamble, and in such others as the People may consider needful :—

And whereas, the specified subjects of amendment are either matters of definition or construction merely, arising on the face of the Constitution, as to which the meaning of the Constitution is already, or may hereafter be, satisfactorily ascertained under the Constitution, and by means provided therein, and which matters do not properly come within the functions of a Convention; or else matters of amendment suitable for the consideration of Congress, under the Fifth Article of the Constitution, and not of such vital moment as to require the call of a Convention :-Therefore,

1.

Resolved, That the Legislature of this Commonwealth do not concur in the proposition of the State of Georgia, inviting a Convention of the People of the United States for the purpose of amending the Constitution.

2. Resolved, That His Excellency the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of these Resolves, together with the Report which accompanies them, to the President of the United States, to the Governors of all the States, and to each of the Senators and Representatives of this Commonwealth in Congress.