If the Government is to be lasting, it must be founded in the confidence and affections of the people, and must be so constructed as to obtain these. The MAJORITY will be governed by their interest. The Southern States are the minority in both Houses. Is it to be expected that they will deliver themselves bound hand and foot to the Eastern States, and enable them to exclaim, in the words of Cromwell on a certain occasion -"the lord hath delivered them into our hands."
Fellow Virginia delegate James Madison, who was a strong supporter of the Constitution and, in fact, is known to us today as "the father of the Constitution," resisted Masons's request for a two-thirds vote and argued that there would be no exploitation of the South if there was a simple majority vote to enact tariff legislation. The final draft of the Constitution that was approved in Philadelphia had only a simple majority requirement for tariff legislation, and Mason refused to sign the document. One writer, in analyzing this dispute over the tariff between Mason and Madison- which later became the most important cause of the American Civil War- shows that Mason continued his opposition to the Constitution in the Virginia ratification convention by continuing to demand a two-thirds vote on any tariff legislation."
"Lincoln and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception" Reassessing the presidency: the Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom, by John V. Denson, Ed. writer and a member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Ed. 2001.
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Every irritation between the two sections of the country from this point on, all from this simple debate over the two-thirds vote vs the simple majority vote over the issue of revenue, would lead to the great dispute of 1860.
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David Upton