m88

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The Grand Committee of Postponed Questions Rejected a Council

by lchervinsky (lchervinsky)

Cite as: lchervinsky, ‘The Grand Committee of Postponed Questions Rejected a Council’ in Lindsay Chervinsky, Advising the President, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 88.

Commentary

When the Grand Committee delivered its final report to the Convention, they did not recommend including a privy council or any other type of advisory council. No notes or meeting minutes survive to suggest why the Committee rejected a council. On September 7, however, Gouverneur Morris, did offer one explanation. In response to George Mason's motion to attach a council to the executive, Morris argued that "The question of a Council was considered in the Committee, where it was judged that the [President] by persuading his Council, to concur in his wrong measures, would acquire their protection from them."

Approved for publication

None