This consideration seems sufficient to determine our opinion,
that the convention have gone as far in the endeavor to secure the
advantage of numbers in the formation of treaties as could have been
reconciled either with the activity of the public councils or with a
reasonable regard to the major sense of the community. If two thirds of
the whole number of members had been required, it would, in many cases,
from the non-attendance of a part, amount in practice to a necessity of
unanimity. And the history of every political establishment in which
this principle has prevailed, is a history of impotence, perplexity, and
disorder. Proofs of this position might be adduced from the examples of
the Roman Tribuneship, the Polish Diet, and the States-General of the
Netherlands, did not an example at home render foreign precedents
unnecessary.
To require a fixed proportion of the whole body would not, in all
probability, contribute to the advantages of a numerous agency, better
then merely to require a proportion of the attending members. The
former, by making a determinate number at all times requisite to a
resolution, diminishes the motives to punctual attendance.
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