Sherman opposed the election of the legislature by

Mr. SHERMAN opposed the election [of the legislature] by the people, insisting that it ought to be by the State
Legislatures. The people he said, immediately, should have as little to do as may be about the Government. They
want information, and are constantly liable to be misled.
Mr. GERRY. The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the
dupes of pretended patriots. In Massachusetts it had been fully confirmed by experience, that they are daily misled
into the most baneful measures and opinions, by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one
on the spot can refute. He had he said been too republican heretofore: he was still, however, republican, but had
been taught by experience the danger of the leveling spirit.
Mr. MASON argued strongly for an election of the larger branch by the people. It was to be the grand depository of
the democratic principle of the government. It was, so to speak, to be our House of Commons. It ought to know and
sympathize with every part of the community; and ought therefore to be taken, not only from different parts of the
whole republic, but also from different districts of the larger members of it, which had in several instances
particularly in Virginia, different interests and views arising from difference of produce, of habits, &c., &c. He
admitted that we had been too democratic, but was afraid we should incautiously run into the opposite extreme.
We ought to attend to the rights of every class of the people. He had often wondered at the indifference of the
superior classes of society to this dictate of humanity and policy; considering, that, however affluent their
circumstances, or elevated their situations, might be, the course of a few years not only might, but certainly would,
distribute their posterity throughout the lowest classes of society. Every selfish motive, therefore, every family
attachment, ought to recommend such a system of policy as would provide no less carefully for the rights and
happiness of the lowest, than of the highest, orders of Citizens.
Mr. WILSON contended strenuously for drawing the most numerous branch of the Legislature immediately from
the people. He was for raising the federal pyramid to a considerable altitude, and for that reason wished to give it as
broad a basis as possible. No government could long subsist without the confidence of the people. In a republican
government, this confidence was peculiarly essential.…
Mr. MADISON considered the popular election of one branch of the National Legislature as essential to every plan of
free government.…He thought, too, that the great fabric to be raised would be more stable and durable, if it should
rest on the solid foundation of the people themselves, than if it should stand merely on the pillars of the
Legislatures.