It is fashionable nowadays for speakers to indulge in the topic of
the vast changes which have taken place in our society. And indeed,
with all the changes that we see about us, it is a topic which is hard
to evade. It is refreshing, therefore, when on occasion we discover
that some things change so little; or, as the French proverb goes, the
more it changes the more it remains the same.

Last year, I was asked to speak before a group in New Jersey, the
occasion being the observance of the three-hundredth anniversary of
the founding of that State. In the preparation of my remarks, I en-
gaged in a little research to compare our two States, among other
things the roles they played in the drafting of our Federal Constitution.

It is most interesting today to reflect upon the deliberation of that
body of statesmen who in Philadelphia wrote this great document.
We Marylanders recall with a measure of pride that the idea of a
"more perfect union, " as expressed in the Preamble of the Constitu-
tion, had its birth in the capital of Maryland, in the celebrated An-
napolis Convention of 1786.

It was at that Convention that Hamilton and Madison drafted a
resolution pointing up "important defects of the system of federal
government... of a nature so serious... as to render the situation
of the United States delicate and critical. "

At the meeting at Annapolis, a call was issued for another conven-
tion in Philadelphia the following year, and it was at the latter con-
vention, of course, that the Federal Constitution was framed. New
Jersey, with strong dedication to state sovereignty, was the author of
a plan of government which, when finally melded with that of Vir-
ginia, became the basic structure of our federal system — a system
which, with only relatively minor modification, has served our Re-
public throughout its history.

It was this meeting in Philadelphia that I should like to discuss.
For not only was our charter of government drafted there, but laid
out by those wise and enlightened statesmen who met in Philadelphia
in 1787 to perfect their union of states.

Interestingly enough, and ironically enough, the main issue at the
constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787 was what today we
call the issue of "fair representation" — an issue which has plagued,
and is plaguing, our three co-equal and co-ordinate branches of gov-
ernment. Madison, in his journal, summed up the matter in these
words: "the great difficulty, " he wrote, "lies in the affair of representa-
tion and if this could be adjusted, all others would be surmountable. "
Madison went on to say that the two gentlemen from New Jersey —

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