ome time have to do, by the cumbrous process of an amendment
to the Constitution.

The work of the convention, as thus far considered, related to the
legislative department of the new government. While these discussions
were going on, much attention had been paid, from time to time, to the
characteristics of the proposed federal executive. The debates on this
question, though long kept up, were far less acrimonious than the
debates on representation and the power of Congress over trade, because
here there was no obvious clashing of local interests. But for this very
reason the convention had no longer so clear a chart to steer by. On the
question of the slave-trade, the Pinckneys knew accurately just what
South Carolina wanted, how much it would do to claim, and how far it
would be necessary to yield. As to the regulation of commerce by a bare
majority of votes in Congress, King and Sherman on the one hand, Mason
and Randolph on the other, were able to pursue a thoroughly definite
course of action in behalf of what were supposed to be the special
interests of New England or of Virginia. Consequently, the debates kept
close to the point; the controversy was keen, and sometimes, as we have
seen, angry.

[Sidenote: Debates as to the federal executive.]

It was very different with the question as to the federal executive.
Upon this point the discussions were guided rather by general
speculations as to what would be most likely to work well, and
accordingly they wandered far and wide. Some of the delegates seemed to
think we should sooner or later come to adopt a hereditary monarchy, and
that the chief thing to be done was to postpone the event as long as
possible. Many wild ideas were broached: such, for example, as a
triple-headed executive, to represent the eastern, middle, and southern
states, somewhat as associated Roman emperors at times administered
affairs in the different portions of an undivided empire. The Virginia
plan had not stated whether its proposed executive was to be single or
plural, because the Virginia delegates could not agree. Madison wished
it to be single, to insure greater efficiency, but to Randolph and Mason
a tyranny seemed to lurk in such an arrangement. When James Wilson and
Charles Pinckney suggested that the executive power should be intrusted
into the hands of one man, a profound silence fell upon the convention.
No one spoke for several minutes, until Washington, from the chair,
asked i