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James Wilson's Trust in the People, Not the Government to Govern James Wilson, a member of Pennsylvania delegation, was a legal theorist, law lecturer and Supreme Court Justice. In 1787, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Wilson helped draft the US Constitution, leading the fight for ratification in the state of Pennsylvania. In 1790, he engineered the drafting of that state's new constitution. His lectures during that year are considered landmarks in the history of American jurisprudence. He was a believer in a completely national government and also one of the first to conclude that England legally had no power over the colonies. In 1774 Wilson published an essay Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, Wilson asserted that because the English King chartered the colonies, the English King was the only bond between England and the colonies. Wilson then argued, based on English Common Law that the bond did not allow English Parliament to control any activities involving the colonies, especially the act of taxation without representation. His manuscript created quite a stir. He was one of the first to voice these opinions in a sensible, well argued manner. Wilson maintained that sovereignty was vested in the people "for purposes of Union." Wilson believed that election to the national government should be accomplished by direct vote of the people using simple majority rules. He believed that in this proportionate system, the Deanna Kurlowecz people, rather than the states would be represented. This arrangement would provide less focus on the states as individual and separate entities, and more on representation of people individually as part of a national entity.
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