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Appendix III
The Report of the Constitutional Convention
17 September 1787
The President of the Convention to the President of Congress'
In Convention, September 17, 1787.
SIR, We have now the honor to submit to the consideration of the
United States in Congress assembled, that Constitution which has ap-
peared to us the most adviseable.
The friends of our country have long seen and desired, that the
power of making war, peace and treaties, that of levying money and
regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and judicial
authorities should be fully and effectually vested in the general govern-
ment of the Union: but the impropriety of delegating such extensive
trust to one body of men is evident-Hence results the necessity of a
different organization.
It is obviously impracticable in the foederal government of these
States, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet
provide for the interest and safety of all-Individuals entering into
society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The mag-
nitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circum-
stance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to
draw with precision the line between those rights which must be sur-
rendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present oc-
casion this difficulty was encreased by a difference among the several
States as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests.
In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view,
that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American,
the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity,
felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consid-
eration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each State
in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than
might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution, which
we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual
deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situa-
tion rendered indispensible.
That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every State is not
perhaps to be expected; but each will doubtless consider, that had her
interests been alone consulted, the consequences might have been par-
ticularly disagreeable or injurious to others; that it is liable to as few
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