Delegates needed a break from discussions on the presidency and turned their attention again to justice on 18 July. They still disagreed on the type of appointment. Half of the Convention wanted the Senate to choose judges, while the other half wanted the President to do so. Luther Martin supported the appointment of the Senate because he believed that the members of the body would defend the interests of each state. [118] Another set of sweeping changes introduced by the detail committee proved to be much more controversial than the Committee`s report was submitted to the Convention. On the day the Convention agreed to appoint the Committee, South Carolina Southerner Charles Cotesworth Pinckney warned of serious consequences if the Committee did not include protection from slavery in the southern states or allow the taxation of agricultural exports from the South. [129] [123]:173 In response to Pinckney and his southern delegates, the Committee had introduced three provisions that expressly limited the authority of Congress in a manner that recognized the interests of the South. The proposed language would prevent Congress from ever interfering in the slave trade. It would also prohibit the taxation of exports and require that all laws regulating foreign trade through tariffs or quotas (i.e. all laws similar to the English Navigation Acts) be passed only by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress. While much of the rest of the commission`s report would be accepted by the Convention without serious stakes, these last three proposals sparked outrage from northern delegates and opponents of slavery. [130] [123]:173-74 Delegates recognized that a serious error in the articles of Confederation was that any constitutional amendment required unanimous state approval. On 23 July, the Convention approved the need for another type of amendment to the Constitution, but was unwilling to vote on the details.
[121] On September 17, 1787, 38 delegates signed the Constitution. George Reed signed for Delware`s John Dickinson, who was absent, bringing the total number of signatures to 39. It was an extraordinary performance. In charge of the revision of the existing government, the delegates came with a brand new one. Distrustful of centralized power and loyal to their states, they created a powerful central government. They had very different interests and points of view and worked out compromises. It is now considered one of the most enduring and imitated constitutions in the world. Most delegates initially felt that the executive should be elected by the national legislature; Still others believed that the executive should be elected by state parliaments, or even by state governors. James Wilson was virtually the only delegate to propose the direct election of the president by the people. He believed that the executive could only obtain both energy and independence through some form of popular election. But Wilson realized that his idea of the popular election of the president was not appreciated and proposed a compromise in which the president would be elected by a group of „voters“ elected either by state lawmakers or by the citizens of their states. The delegates no longer appreciated this proposal, nor did its proposal for a direct popular election and voted by an overwhelming majority at that time.
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