 Anti-Federalist Papers, Section 55, Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, Saturday, June 7, 1788. This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by M. L. Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio, May 2007, I have thought—and still think—that a full investigation of the actual situation of America ought to proceed any decision of this great and important question—that government is no more than a choice among evils, is acknowledged by most intelligent among mankind, and has been a standing maximum for ages. If it be demonstrated that the adoption of the new plan is a little or a trifling evil, then, sir, I acknowledge that adoption ought to follow. But, sir, if this be truth, that its adoption may entail misery on the free people of this country, I then insist that rejection ought to follow. Gentlemen strongly urge its adoption will be a mighty benefit to us. But, sir, I am made of so incredulous materials that assertions and declarations do not satisfy me. I must be convinced, sir. I shall retain my infidelity on that subject till I see our liberty secured in a manner perfectly satisfactory to my understanding. There are certain maxims by which every wise and enlightened people will regulate their conduct. There are certain political maxims which no free people ought ever to abandon—maxims of which the observance is essential to the security of happiness. It is impiously irritating, the average hand of heaven, when a people who are in full enjoyment of freedom launch out into the wide ocean of human affairs and desert those maxims which alone can preserve liberty. Such maxims, humble as they are, are those only which can render a nation safe or formidable. Poor little humble Republican maxims have attracted the admiration and engaged the attention of the virtuous and wise in all nations, and have stood the shock of ages. We do not now admit the validity of maxims which we once delighted in. We have since adopted maxims of a different, but more refined nature. New maxims which tend to the prostration of Republicanism. We have once, sir, that all men are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent rights of which when they enter into society they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity. We have a set of maxims of the same spirit, which must be beloved by every friend to liberty, to virtue, to mankind. Our Bill of Rights contains these admirable maxims. Now, sir, I say, let us consider whether the picture given of American affairs ought to drive us from those beloved maxims. The Honorable Gentleman, Governor Randolph, has said that it is too late in the day for us to reject this new plan. That system which was once executed by the Honorable Member must now be adopted. Let its defects be ever so glaring. That Honorable Member will not accuse me of want of candor, when I cast in my mind what he has given the public, and compare it to what has happened since. It seems to me very strange and unaccountable that that which was the object of his execration should now receive his encomiums. Something extraordinary must have operated so great a change as his opinion. It is too late in the day. Gentlemen must excuse me, if they should declare again and again that it was too late, and I should think differently. I never can believe, sir, that it is too late to save all that is precious. If it be proper and independently of every external consideration wisely constructed, let us receive it. But, sir, shall its adoption by eight states induce us to receive it, if it be replete with the most dangerous defects? They urge that subsequent amendments are safer than previous amendments, and that they will answer the same ends. At present we have our liberties and privileges in our own hands. Let us not relinquish them. Let us not adopt this system till we see them secure. There is some small possibility that should we follow the conduct of Massachusetts, amendments might be obtained. There is a small possibility of amending any government, but, sir, shall we abandon our most inestimable rights and rest their security on a mere possibility? The gentleman fears the loss of the union. If eight states have ratified it unamended, and we should rashly imitate their precipitate example, do we not thereby disunite from several other states? Sell those who have risked their lives for the sake of the union, be it once thrown out of it? If it be amended, every state will accede to it. But by an imprudent adoption in its defective and dangerous state, a schism must inevitably be their consequence. I can never therefore consent to hazard our most unalienable rights on an absolute uncertainty. You are told there is no peace, although you fondly flatter yourselves that all is peace. No peace, a general crying alarm in the country, commerce riches and wealth vanished, citizens going to seek comforts in other parts of the world, laws insulted many instances of tyrannical legislation? These things, sir, are new to me. He has made the discovery. As to the administration of justice, I believe that failures in commerce, etc., cannot be attributed to it. My age enables me to recollect its progress under the old government. I can justify it by saying that it continues in the same manner in this state as it did under the former government. As to other parts of the continent, I refer that to other gentlemen. As to the ability of those who administer it, I believe they would not suffer by a comparison with those who administered it under the Royal Authority. Where is the cause of complaint if the wealthy go away? Is this added to the other circumstances of such enormity and does it bring such danger over this common wealth as to warrant so important and so awful a change and so precipitate a manner? As to insults offered to the laws, I know of none. In this respect, I believe this common wealth would not suffer by comparison with the former government. The laws are well executed and as patently acquiesced in as they were under the Royal Administration. Compare the situation of the country, compare that of our citizens to what it was then, to decide whether persons in property are not as safe and secure as they were at that time. Is there a man in this common wealth whose person can be insulted with immunity? Cannot redress be had here for personal insults or injuries as well as in any part of the world, as well as in those countries where aristocrats and monarchs triumph and reign? Is not the protection of property in full operation here? The contrary cannot with truth be charged on this common wealth. Those severe changes which are exhibited against it appear to be totally groundless. On a fair investigation, we shall be found to be surrounded by no real dangers. We have the animating fortitude and persevering alacrity of republican men to carry us through misfortunes and calamities. It is the fortune of a republic to be able to withstand a stormy ocean of human vicissitudes. I know of no danger awaiting us. Public and private security are to be found here in the highest degree. Sir, it is the fortune of a free people not to be intimidated by imaginary dangers. Fear is the passion of slaves. Our political and natural hemisphere are now equally tranquil. Let us recollect the awful magnitude of the subject of our deliberation. Let us consider the latent consequences of an erroneous decision, and let not our minds be led away by unfair misrepresentations and uncandid suggestions. There have been many instances of uncommon lenity and temperance used in the exercise of power in this commonwealth. I could call your recollection to many that happened during the war and since, but every gentleman here must be apprised of them. The honorable member has given you an elaborate account of what he judges tyrannical legislation, and an ex post facto law, prens in the case of Josiah Phillips, close prens. He has misrepresented the facts. That man was not executed by a tyrannical stroke of power, nor was he a Socrates. He was a fugitive murder and an outlaw, a man who commanded an infamous bandit, and at a time when the war was at its most perilous stage. He committed the most cruel and shocking barbarities. He was an enemy to the human name. Those who declare war against human race may be struck out of existence as soon as they are apprehended. He was not executed according to those beautiful legal ceremonies which are pointed out by laws and criminal cases. The enormity of his crimes did not entitle him to it. I am truly a friend to legal forms and methods, but, sir, the occasion warranted the measure. A pirate, an outlaw, or a common enemy to all mankind may be put to death at any time. It is justified by the law of nature and nations. The honorable member tells us, then, that there are burnings and discontents in the hearts of our citizens in general, and that they are dissatisfied with their government. I have no doubt the honorable member believes this to be the case, because he says so. But I have the comfortable assurance that it is certain fact that it is not so. The middle and lower ranks of people have not these illuminated ideas which the well-born are so happily possessed of. They cannot so readily perceive latent objects. The microscopic eyes of modern statements can see abundance of defects in old systems, and their illuminated imaginations discover the necessity of a change. They are captivated by the parade of the number ten, the charms of the ten-mile square. Sir, I feel this charge will ultimately lead to our ruin. My fears are not the force of imagination. They are but too well-founded. I tremble for my country, but, sir, I trust, I rely, and I am confident, that this political speculation has not taken so strong a hold of men's minds as some would make us believe. The dangers which may arise from our geographical situation will be more properly considered a while hence. At present, what may be surmised on the subject, with respect to the adjacent states, is merely visionary. Strength, sir, is a relative term. When I reflect on the natural force of those nations that might be induced to attack us, and consider the difficulty of the attempt, and uncertainty of the success and compare there to the relative strength of our country, I say that we are strong. We have no cause to fear from that quarter. We have nothing to dread from our neighbouring states. The superiority of our cause would give us an advantage over them, where they so unfriendly are asked to attack us. As to that part of the community, which the honourable gentleman spoke of as being in danger of being separated from us, what excitement or inducement could its inhabitants have to wish such an event? It is a matter of doubt whether they would derive any advantage to themselves, or be any loss to us by such separation. Time has been, and may yet come, when they will find it to their advantage and true interest to be united with us. There is no danger of a dismemberment of our country, unless a constitution be adopted which will enable the government to plan enemies on our backs. By the confederation the rights of territory are secured. No treaty can be made without the consent of nine states. While the consent of nine states is necessary to the cessation of territory, you are safe. If it be put in the power of a less number, you will most infallibly lose the Mississippi. As long as we can preserve our uneligible rights, we are in safety. This new constitution will involve in its operation the loss of the navigation of that valuable river. The honourable gentleman cannot be ignorant of the Spanish transactions. A treaty had nearly been entered into its spain to relinquish that navigation. That relinquishment would absolutely have taken place had the consent of seven states been sufficient. The honourable gentleman told us then that eight states have adopted the system we cannot suppose they will recede on their account. I know not what they may do, but this I know, that a people of infinitely less importance than those of Virginia stood the terror of war. Vermont, sir, would stood the terror of thirteen states. Maryland did not accede to the confederation until the year 1781. These two states, feeble as they are comparatively to us, were not afraid of the whole Union. Did either of these states perish? No, sir, they were admitted freely into the Union. Will not Virginia then be admitted? I flatter myself that these states which have ratified the new plan of government will open their arms and cheerfully receive us, although we should propose certain amendments as the conditions on which we should ratify it. During the late war, all the states were in pursuit of the same object. To obtain that object, they made at most tenuous exertions. They did not suffer a trivial consideration to impede its acquisition. Give me leave to say that, if the smallest states in the Union were admitted into it after having unreasonably procrastinated their accession, the greatest and most mighty state in the Union will be easily admitted, when her reluctance to an immediate accession to this system is founded on the most reasonable grounds. When I call this the most mighty state in the Union, do I not speak the truth? Does not Virginia surpass every state in the Union in number of inhabitants, extent of territory, felicity of position, and affluence and wealth? Some infatuation hangs over men's minds, and they will inconsiderately precipitate into measures the most important and give not a moment's deliberation to others nor pay any respect to their opinions. Is this federalism? Are these the beloved effects of the federal spirit that its vote areas will never accede to the just propositions of others? Sir, were there nothing objectionable in it but that, I would vote against it. I desire to have nothing to do with such men as will obstinately refuse to change their opinions. Are our opinions not to be regarded? I hope that you will recollect that you are going to join with men who will pay no respect even to this state. Switzerland consists of thirteen cantons expressly confederated for national defense. They have stood the shock of four hundred years. That country has enjoyed internal tranquility most of that long period. Their dissensions have been, comparatively, to those in other countries, very few. What has passed in the neighboring countries? War, dissensions, and intrigues. Germany involved in the most deplorable civil war thirty years successively, continually convulsed with intestine divisions and harassed by foreign wars. France, with her mighty monarchy, perpetually at war. Compare the peasants of Switzerland with those of any other mighty nation. You will find them far more happy. For one civil war among them there have been five or six among other nations. Their attachment to their country and freedom, their resolute intrepidity in their defense, and consequent security and happiness which they have enjoyed, and the respect and awe which these things produced in the bordering nations have signalized those republicans. Their valor, sir, has been active. Everything that sets in motion the springs of the human heart engaged them to that protection of their inestimable privileges. They have not only secured their own liberty, but have been the arbiters of the fate of other people. Here, sir, contemplate the triumph of the republican governments over the pride of monarchy. I acknowledge, sir, that the necessity of national defense has prevailed in invigorating their councils and arms, and has been, in a considerable degree, the means of keeping these honest people together. But, sir, they have had wisdom enough to keep together and render themselves formidable. Their heroism is proverbial. They would heroically fight for their government and their laws. One of the illumined sons of these times would not fight for those objects. Those virtuous and simple people have not a mighty and splendid president, nor enormously expensive navies and armies to support. No, sir. Those brave republicans have acquired their reputation no less by their undaunted intrepidity than by the wisdom of their frugal and economical policy. Let us follow their example, and be equally happy. The Honorable Member advises us to adopt a measure which will destroy our bill of rights, for, after having his picture of nations, and his reasoning for abandoning all the powers retained in the States by the Confederation, I am more firmly persuaded of the impropriety of adopting this new plan in its present shape. I had doubts of the power of those who went to the Convention, but now we are possessed of it, let us examine it. When we trusted the great object of revising the Confederation to the greatest and best and most enlightened of our citizens, we thought their deliberations would have been solely confined to that revision. Instead of this, a new system, totally different in its nature, investing the most extensive powers in Congress, is presented. Will the ten men you are sent to the Church be more worthy than those seven were? If power grew so rapidly in their hands, what may it not do in the hands of others? If those who go from this state will find power accompanied by temptation, our situation must be truly critical. When about forming government, if we mistake the principles or commit any other error, the very circumstance promises that power will be abused. The greatest caution and circumspection are therefore necessary. What does this proposed system, on its investigation here, deserve the least charity? The Honorable Gentleman says that the national government is without energy. I perfectly agree with him, and when he cries out, Union, I agree with him. But I tell him not to mistake the end for the means. The end is Union. The most capital means, I suppose, are an army and navy. On a supposition I will acknowledge this, still the bare act of agreeing to that paper, though it may have an amazing influence, will not pay our millions. There must be things to pay debts. What these things are, or how they are to be produced, must be determined by our political wisdom and economy. The Honorable Gentleman alleges that previous amendments will prevent the junction of our riches from producing great profits and emoluments, which would enable us to pay our public debts by excluding us from the Union. I believe, sir, that a previous ratification of a system notoriously and confessively defective will endanger our riches, our liberty, our all. Its defects are acknowledged, they cannot be denied. The reason offered by the Honorable Gentleman for adopting this defective system is its adoption by the Eight States. I say, sir, that if we present nothing but what is reasonable in the shape of amendments they will receive us. Union is as necessary for them as for us. Will they then be so unreasonable as not to join us? If such be their disposition, I am happy to know it in time. The Honorable Member then observed that nations will expend millions for commercial advantages. That is, they will deprive you of every advantage if they can. Apply this another way. Their cheaper way, instead of laying out millions and making war upon you, will be to corrupt your senators. I know that if they not be above all price they may make a sacrifice to our commercial interests. They may advise your president to make a treaty that will not only sacrifice all your commercial interests but throw prostrate your bill of rights. Does he fear that their ships will outnumber ours on the ocean? Or that nations whose interest comes in contact with ours, in the progress of their guilt, will perpetrate the vilest expedience to exclude us from a participation in commercial advantages? Does he advise us in order to avoid this evil to adopt the Constitution, which will enable such nations to obtain their ends by the more easily mode of contaminating the principles of our senators? Sir, if our senators will not be corrupted it will be because they will be good men, and not because the Constitution provides against corruption. For there is no real check secured in it, and the most abandoned and profligate act may with impunity be committed by them. With respect to Maryland, what danger from thence? I know none. I have not heard of any hostility premeditated or committed. Nine-tenths of the people have not heard of it. Those who are so happy as to be illumined have not informed their fellow citizens of it. I am so valiant as to say that no danger can come from that source sufficient to make me abandon my Republican principles. The Honorable Gentleman ought to have recollected that there are no tyrants in America, as there are in Europe. The citizens of Republican borders are only terrible to tyrants. Instead of being dangerous to one another, they mutually support one another's liberties. We might be confederated with the adopting states without ratifying his system. No form of government renders the people more formidable. A confederacy of states joined together becomes strong as the United Netherlands. The government of Holland, execrated as it is, proves that the present confederation is adequate to every purpose of human association. There are seven provinces confederated together for a long time, containing numerous opulent cities and many of the finest ports in the world. The recollection of the situation of that country would make me execrate monarchy. The singular felicity and success of that people are in parallel. Freedom has done miracles there in reclaiming land from the ocean. It is the richest spot on the face of the globe. Have they no men or money? Have they no fleets or armies? Have they no arts and sciences among them? How did they repel the attacks of the greatest nations in the world? How would they acquire their amazing influence and power? Did they consolidate government to affect these purposes as we do? No, sir. They have trampled over every obstacle and difficulty and have arrived at the summit of political felicity and of uncommon opulence by means of a confederacy that very government which gentlemen affect to despise. They have, sir, avoided a consolidation as the greatest of evils. They have lately, it is true, made one advance to that fatal progression. This misfortune bursts on them by iniquity and artifice. That stad holder, that executive magistrate, contrived it in conjunction with other European nations. It was not the choice of the people. Was it owing to his energy that this happened? If two provinces have paid nothing, what have not the rest done? And have not these two provinces made other exertions? Aught they to avoid this inconvenience to have consolidated their different states and have a ten-mile square? Compare that little spot, nurtured by liberty, with the fairest country in the world. Does not Holland possess a powerful navy and army and a full treasury? They did not acquire these by debasing the principles and trampling on the rights of their citizens. Sir, they acquired these by their industry, economy, and by the freedom of their government. Their commerce is the most extensive in Europe. Their credit is unequaled. Their felicity will be an eternal monument of the blessings of liberty. Every nation in Europe is taught by them what they are and what they ought to be. The contrast between those nations and this happy people is the most splendid spectacle for Republicans, the greatest cause of exultation and triumph to the sons of freedoms. While other nations participated by the rage, ambition, or folly have, in the pursuit of the most magnificent projects, riveted the fetters of bondage on themselves and descendants, these Republicans secured in their political happiness and freedom. Where is there a nation to be compared to them? Where is there now? Or where was there ever a nation of so small a territory and so few in numbers, so powerful, so wealthy, so happy? What is the cause of this superiority? Liberty, sir. The freedom of their government. Though they are now unhappily and some degrees consolidated, yet they have my acclamations when put in contrast with those millions of their fellow men who lived and died like slaves. The dangers of a consolidation ought to be guarded against in this country. I shall exert my poor talents to ward them off. Dangers are to be apprehended in whatever manner we proceed. But those of a consolidation are the most destructive. Let us leave no expedient untried to secure happiness. But whatever be our decision, I am consoled if American liberty will remain in tire only for half a century. And I trust that mankind in general, and our posterity in particular, will be compensated for every anxiety we now feel. Another gentleman tells us that no inconvenience will result from the exercise of the power of taxation by the general government, that two shillings out of ten may be saved by the impost, and that four shillings may be paid to the federal collector and four to the state collector. A change of government will not pay money. If, from the probable amount of the imposts, you take the enormous and extravagant expenses which will certainly attend the support of this great consolidated government, I believe you will find no reduction of the public burdens by this new system. The splendid maintenance of the President, and of the member of both houses, and the salaries and fees of the swarm of officers' independence of the government, will cost this continent immense sums. Double sets of collectors will double their expenses. To those are to be added oppressive excisemen and custom house officers. Sir, the people have a hereditary hatred to custom house officers. The experience of the mother country leads me to detest them. They have introduced their baneful influence into the administration and destroyed one of the most beautiful systems that ever the world saw. Our forefathers enjoyed liberty there while that system was in its purity. But now it is contaminated by the influence of every kind. The style of the government, friends, we, the people, close friends, was introduced perhaps to recommend it to the people at large. To those citizens who are to be leveled and degraded to the lowest degree, who are likened to a herd, and who, by the operation of this blessed system, are to be transformed from respectable independent citizens to abject dependent subjects or slaves. The honorable gentleman has anticipated what we are to be reduced to by degradingly assimilating our citizens to a herd. I will exchange that abominable word for requisitions. Requisitions, which gentlemen affect to despise, have nothing degrading in them. On this depends our political prosperity. I never will give up that darling word requisitions. My country may give it up. A majority may rest it from me, but I will never give it up till my grave. Requisitions are attended with one singular advantage. They are attended by deliberation. They secure to the states the benefit of correcting oppressive errors. If our assembly thought requisitions erroneous, if they thought the demand was too great, they might at least supplicate Congress to reconsider that it was a little too much. The power of direct taxation was called by the honorable gentleman the soul of the government. Another gentleman called it the lungs of the government. We all agree that it is the most important part of the body politic. If the power of raising money be necessary for the general government, it is no less so for the states. If money be the vitals of Congress, is it not precious for those individuals from whom it is to be taken? Must I give my soul my lungs to Congress? Congress must have our souls. The state must have our souls. This is dishonorable and disgraceful. These two coordinate interfering unlimited powers of harassing the community are an example. It is unprecedented in history. They are the visionary projects of modern politicians. Tell me not of imaginary means, but of reality. This political solicism will never tend to the benefit of the community. It will be as oppressive in practice as it is absurd in theory. If you part from this, what the Honorable Gentleman tells you is the soul of Congress, you will be inevitably ruined. I tell you, they shall not have the soul of Virginia. They tell us that one collector may collect the federal and state taxes, the general government being paramount to the state legislatures. If the sheriff is to collect for both, his right hand for Congress is left for the state, his right hand for being paramount over the left, his collections will go to Congress. We shall have the rest. Deficiencies in collections will always operate against the states. Congress, being the paramount supreme power, must not be disappointed. Thus, Congress will have an unlimited, unbounded command over the soul of the Commonwealth. After satisfying their uncontrolled demands, what can be left for the states? Not a sufficiency, even to defray the expenses of their internal administration. They must therefore glide imperceptibly and gradually out of existence. This, sir, must naturally terminate in a consolidation. If this will do for other people, it never will do for me. If we were to have one representative for every 30,000 souls, it must be by implication. The Constitution does not positively secure it. Even say it is a natural implication. Why not give us a right to that proportion in express terms in language that could not admit of evasions or subterfuges? If they can use implication for us, they can also use implication against us. We are giving power. They are getting power. Judge then on which side the implication will be used. When we once put it in their option to assume constructive power, danger will follow. Trial by jury and liberty of the press are also on this foundation of implication. If they encroach on these rights and you give your implication for a plea, you are cast, for they will be justified by the last part of it which gives them full power, quote, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry their power into execution, end quote. Implication is dangerous because it is unbounded. If it be admitted at all and no limits be prescribed, it emits of the utmost extension. They say that everything that is not given is retained. The reverse of the proposition is true by implication. They do not carry their implication so far when they speak of the general welfare. No implication when the sweeping clause comes. Implication is only necessary when the existence of privileges is in dispute. The existence of powers is sufficiently established. If we trust our dearest rights to implication, we shall be in a very unhappy situation. Implication in England has been a source of dissension. There has been a war of implication between the king and people. For a hundred years did the mother country struggle under the uncertainty of implication. The people insisted that their rights were implied. The monarch denied the doctrine. The Bill of Rights, in some degree, terminated the dispute. By a bold implication, they said they had a right to bind us in all cases whatsoever. This constructive power we opposed, and successfully. Thirteen or fourteen years ago, the most important thing that could be thought of was to exclude the possibility of construction and implication. These, sir, were then deemed perilous. The first thing that was thought of was a Bill of Rights. We were not satisfied with your constructive argumentative rights. A Bill of Rights is indispensable necessary. A general positive provision should be inserted in the new system, securing to the states and the people every right which is not conceded to the general government. And every implication should be done away with. It now being late, I will resume the subject another time. End Anti-Federalist Papers, Section 55. Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, Saturday, June 7th, 1788. Anti-Federalist Papers, Section 56. Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, Monday, June 9th, 1788. This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by M.L. Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio, May 2007. Mr. Chairman, I find myself again constrained to trespass on the patience of this committee. I wish there was a prospect of union in our sentiments. So much time would not then be taken up. But when I review the magnitude of the subject under consideration, and of dangers which appear to me in this new plan of government, and compare there to my poor abilities to secure our rights, it will take much more time in my poor, unconnected way to traverse the objectionable parts of it. There are friends here who will be abler than myself to make good those objections which to us appear well founded. If we recollect, on last Saturday I made some observations on some of those dangers which these gentlemen would feign persuade us hang over the citizens of this commonwealth, to induce us to change the government and adopt the new plan. Unless there be great and awful dangers, the change is dangerous and the experiment ought not to be made. In estimating the magnitude of these dangers, we are obliged to take a most serious view of them, to see them, to handle them, and to be familiar with them. It is not sufficient to feign mere imaginary dangers. There must be a dreadful reality. The great question between us is, does that reality exist? These dangers are partially attributed to bad laws executed by the community at large. It is said that the people wish to change the government. I should be happy to meet them on that ground. Should the people wish to change it, we should be innocent of the dangers. It is a fact that the people do not wish to change their government. How am I to prove it? It will rest on my bare assertion unless supported by an internal conviction in men's breasts. My poor say so as mere non-entity. But, sir, I am persuaded that four-fifths of the people of Virginia must have amendments to the new plan to reconcile them to a change of their government. It is a slippery foundation for the people to rest their political salvation on my or their assertions. No government can flourish unless it be founded on the affiction of the people. Unless, gentlemen, can be sure that this new system is founded on that ground, they ought to stop their career. I will not repeat what the gentlemen say. I will mention one thing. There is a dispute between us and the Spaniards about the right of navigating the Mississippi. This dispute is frung from the federal government. I wish a great deal to be said on this subject. I wish to know the origin and progress of the business as it would probably unfold great dangers. In my opinion, the preservation of that river calls for our most serious consideration. It has been agitated in Congress. Seven states have voted, so that it is known to the Spaniards that under our existing system, the Mississippi shall be taken from them. Seven states wish to relinquish this river to them. The six southern states opposed it. Seven states, not being sufficient to convoy it away, it remains now ours. If I am wrong, there is a number on this floor who can contradict the facts. I will readily retract. This new government, I can see, will enable those states who have already discovered their inclination that way to give away this river. Will the honorable gentlemen advise us to relinquish its inestiminal navigation and place formidable enemies on our backs? This week this poor confederation cannot secure us. We are resolved to take shelter under the shield of Federal authority in America. The southern parts of America have been protected by that weakness so much executed. I hope this will be explained. I was not in Congress when these transactions took place. I may not have stated every fact. I may have misrepresented matters. I hope to be fully acquainted with everything relative to the object. Let us hear how the great and important right of navigating that river has been attended to, and whether I am mistaken in my opinion that Federal measures will lose it to us forever. If a bare majority of Congress can make laws, the situation of our Western citizens is dreadful. We are threatened with danger for the non-payment of our debt due to France. We have information come from an illustrious citizen of Virginia who is now in Paris, which disproves the suggestions of such dangers. This citizen has not been in the airy regions of theoretical speculation. Our ambassador is this worthy citizen. The ambassador of the United States of America is not so despised as the honorable gentleman would make us believe. A servant of a republic is as much respected as that of a monarch. The honorable gentleman tells us that hostile fleets are to be sent to make reprisals upon us. Our ambassador tells you that the King of France has taken into consideration to enter into commercial regulations on reciprocal terms with us, which will be a peculiar advantage to us. Does this look like hostility? I might go farther. I might say, not from public authority, but good information that his opinion is that you reject this government. His character and abilities are in the highest estimation. He is well acquainted in every respect with this country, equally so with the policy of European nations. This illustrious citizen advises you to reject this government till it be amended. His sentiments coincide entirely with ours. His attachment to and services done for this country are well known. At a great distance from us, he remembers and studies our happiness. Living in splendor and wealth, he thinks yet a bill of rights. Think of those little despised things called maxims. Let us follow the sage advice of this common friend of our happiness. It is little usual for nations to send armies to collect debts. The house of bourbon, that great friend to America, will never attack her for her unwilling delay of payment. Give me leave to say that Europe is too much endangered about objects of greater importance to attend to us. On that great theater of the world, the little American matters vanish. Do you believe that the mighty monarch of France, beholding the greatest scenes that ever engaged the attention of a prince of that country, will divert himself for those important objects and now call for a settlement of accounts with America? This proceeding is not warranted by good sense. The friendly disposition to us and the actual situation of France render the idea of danger from that quarter absurd. Would this countryman of ours be fond of advising us to a measure which he knew to be dangerous? And can it reasonably be supposed that he can be ignorant of any premeditated hostility against this country? The Honorable Gentleman may suspect the account, but I will do our friend a justice to say that he would warn us of any danger from France. Do you suppose the Spanish monarch will risk a contest with the United States when the colonies are exposed to them? Every advance that people make to the westward makes him tremble for Mexico and Peru. Despised as we are among ourselves, under our present government, we are terrible to that monarchy. If this not be a fact, it is generally said so. We are in the next place, frightened by dangers from Holland. We must change our government to escape the wrath of that republic. We are in the next place, under our present government, like this new one. A Statholder, sir, a Dutch president has brought on that country miseries which will not permit them to collect debts with fleets or armies. The wife of a Dutch Statholder bought 100,000 men against the republic and prostrated all opposition. This president will bring the miseries on us like those of Holland, such as the condition of European affairs, that it would be unsafe for them to send fleets or armies. But here, sir, they make a transition to objects of another kind. We are presented with dangers of a very uncommon nature. I am not acquainted with the arts of painting. Some gentlemen have a peculiar talent for them. They are practiced with great ingenuity on this occasion. As a counterpart to what we have already been intimidated with, we are told that some lands have been sold, which cannot be sold. But this will bring war on this country. Here the picture will not stand examination. Can it be supposed that a few lands speculators and jobbers have violated the principles of probity that it will involve this country in war? Is there no redress to be otherwise obtained, even admitting the delinquents and sufferers to be numerous? When gentlemen are thus driven to produce imaginary dangers, to induce this convention to ascend to this state, to say that to change itself is really dangerous. Then the Maryland compact is broken and will produce perilous consequences. I see nothing very terrible in this. The adoption of the new system will not remove the evil. Will they forfeit good neighborhood with us because the compact is broken? Then disputes concerning the Carolina line are to involve us in dangers. A strip of land from the Allegheny to the Mississippi is the subject to this pretended dispute. I do not know the length or breath of this disputed spot. Have they not regularly confirmed our right to it and relinquished all claims to it? I could venture to pledge that the people of Carolina will never disturb us. The strength of this despised country has settled an immense tract of the country of the westward. The honorable gentleman's observation on our frontiers north and south, east and west, are all inaccurate. Will Maryland fight against this country for seeking amendments? Were there not sixty members in that state who went in quest of amendments? Sixty against eight or ten were in favor of pursuing amendments? Shall they fight us for doing what they themselves have done? They have sought amendments, but differently from the manner in which the gentleman may plume himself on this difference. Will they fight us for this dissimilarity? Will they fight us for seeking the objects they seek themselves? When they do, it will be time for me to hold my peace. Then, sir, comes Pennsylvania in terrible array. Pennsylvania is to go in conflict with Virginia. Pennsylvania has been a good neighbor here to for the face. If we sufficiently attend to the actual situation of things, we shall conclude that Pennsylvania will do what we do. A number of that country are strongly opposed to it. Many of them have lately been convinced of its fatal tendency. They are disgorged of their federalism. I beseech you to bring this matter home to yourselves. Was there a possibility for the people and so very short a period after its formation. This is the middle of June. Those transactions happened last August. The matter was circulated by every effort of industry and the most precipitate measures taken to hurry the people into adoption. Yet now, after having had several months to investigate it, a very large part of this community, a great majority of this community, do not understand it. I have heard gentlemen of respectable abilities declare that they did not understand it. If, after great pains, men of high learning who have received the aids of a regular education do not understand it, if the people of Pennsylvania understood it in so short a time, it must have been from intuitive understandings and uncommon acuteness of perception. Place yourselves in their situation. Would you fight your neighbors for considering this great and awful matter? If you wish for real amendments, such as the security of trial by jury, it will reach the hearts of the people of that state. Whatever may be the disposition of the aristocratical politicians of that country, I know there are friends of human nature in that state. If so, they will never make war on those who make professions of what they are attached to themselves. As to dangers arising from borders, it is mutual and reciprocal. If it be dangerous for Virginia, it is equally so for them. It will be their true interest to be united with us. The danger of our being their enemies will be a prevailing argument in our favor. It will be as powerful to admit us into the union as a vote of adoption without previous amendments could possibly be. Then the savage Indians are to destroy us. We cannot look them in the face. The danger is here divided. They are as terrible to the other states as to us. But, sir, it is well known that we have nothing to fear from them. Our back settlers are considerably stronger than they. Their superiority increases daily. Suppose the states to be confederated all around us. What we want in numbers we shall make up otherwise. Our compact situation and natural strength will secure us. But to avoid all dangers, we must take shelter under the federal government. Nothing gives us a decided importance but this federal government. You will sip sorrow according to that vulgar phrase if you want any other security than the laws of Virginia. A number of characters of the greatest eminence in this country object to this government for its consolidating tendencies. This is not imaginary. It is a formidable reality. If consolidation proves to be as mischievous to this country as it has been to other countries, what will the poor inhabitants of this country do? This government will operate like an ambuscade. It will destroy the state governments and swallow the liberties of the people without giving previous notice. If gentlemen are willing to run the hazard, let them run it, but I shall exculpate myself by my opposition and monetary warnings within these walls. But then comes paper money. We are at peace on this subject. Though this is a thing which the mighty federal convention had no business with, yet I acknowledge that paper money would be the bane of this country. I detest it. Nothing can justify people in resorting to it but extreme necessity. It is at rest, however, in this Commonwealth. It is no longer solicited or advocated. Sir, I ask you, and every other gentleman who hears me, if he can retain his indignation at a system which takes from the state legislatures the care and preservation of the interests of the people. One hundred and eighty representatives, the choice of the people of Virginia, cannot be trusted with their interests. They are a mob as suspected heard. This country has not virtue enough to manage its own internal interests. These must be referred to the chosen ten. If we cannot be trusted with the private contracts of the citizens, we must be depraved indeed. If he can prove that, by one uniform system of abandoned principles, the legislature has betrayed the rights of the people, then let us seek another shelter. So degrading and indignity, so flagrant and outraged on the states, so vile a suspicion, is humiliating to my mind and many others. Will the adoption of this new plan pay our debts? This, sir, is a plain question. It is inferred that our grievances are to be redressed, and the evils of the existing system to be removed by the new constitution. Let me inform the honorable gentleman that no nation has ever paid its debts by a change of government, without the aid of industry. You will never pay your debts but by a radical change of domestic economy. At present you buy too much and make too little to pay. Will this system promote manufacturers, industry and frugality? If instead of this your hopes and designs will be disappointed, you relinquish a great deal and hazard indefinitely more for nothing. Will it enhance the value of your lands? Will it lessen your burdens? Will your looms and wheels go to work by the act of adoption? If it will, and its consequence produce these things, it will consequently produce a reform and enable you to pay your debts. Gentlemen must prove it. I am a skeptic and infidel on this point. I cannot conceive that we will have these happy consequences. I cannot confide in assertions and allegations. The evils that attend us lie in extravagance and want of industry, and can only be removed by assiduity and economy. Perhaps we shall be told by gentlemen that these things will happen because the administration is to be taken from us, and placed in the hands of the few who will pay greater attention, and be more studiously careful than we can be supposed to be. With respect to the economical operation of the new government, I will only remark that the national expenses will be increased. If not doubled, it will approach it very nearly. I might, without incurring the imputation of illiberality or extravagance, say that the expense will be multiplied tenfold. I might tell you of a numerous standing army, a great powerful navy, a long and rapacious train of officers and dependents independent of the president, senators, and representatives whose compensations are without limitation. How are our debts to be discouraged unless the taxes are increased, when the expenses of the government are so greatly augmented? The defects of this system are so numerous and palpable, and so many states object to it that no union can be expected unless it be amended. Let us take a review of the facts. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have rejected it. They have refused to become federal. New York and North Carolina are reported to be strongly against it. From high authority, give me leave to tell that New York is in high opposition. Will any gentlemen say that North Carolina is not against it? They may say so. But I say the adoption of it in those two states amounts to an entire uncertainty. The system must be amended before these four states will accede to it. Besides, there are several other states which were dissatisfied in which alterations. Massachusetts had, in decided terms, proposed amendments, but by your previous ratification has put the cart before the horse. Maryland instituted a committee to propose amendments. It then appears that two states have actually refused to adopt, two of those who have adopted have a desire of amending, and there is a probability of it being rejected by New York and North Carolina. The other states have acceded without proposing amendments. With respect to them, local circumstances have, in my judgment, operated to produce its unconditional, instantaneous adoption. The locality of the seat of government, ten miles square, in a seat of justice with all their concomitant emoluments, operated so powerfully with the first adopting state that it was adopted without taking time to reflect. We are told that numerous advantages will result from the concentration of the wealth and grandeur of the United States in one happy spot to those who will reside in or near it. Prospects of profits and emoluments have a powerful influence on the human mind. We, sir, have no such projects as that of a grand seat of government for thirteen states and perhaps for one hundred states hereafter. Connecticut and New Jersey have their localities also. New York lies between them. They have no ports and are not importing states. New York is an importing state and, taking advantage of its situation, makes them pay duties for all the articles of their consumption. Thus these two states, being obliged to import all they want through the medium of New York, pay the particular taxes of that state. I know the force and effect of reasoning of this sort by experience. When the impost was proposed some years ago, those states which were not importing states readily agreed to concede to Congress the power of laying an impost on all goods imported for the use of the continental treasury. Connecticut and New Jersey, therefore, are influenced by advantages of trade in their adoption. The amount of all imposts to go into one common treasury. This favors adoption by the non-importing states, as they participate in the profits which were before exclusively enjoyed by the importing states. Notwithstanding this obvious advantage to Connecticut, there is a formidable minority there against it. After taking this general view of American affairs as respecting federalism, will the honorable gentleman tell me that he can expect union in America? When so many states are pointedly against it. When two adopting states have pointed out and express terms, they are dissatisfaction as it stands. And when there is so respectable a body of men to contend it in every state, can the honorable gentleman promise himself harmony of which he is so fond? If he can, I cannot. To me it appears unequivocally clear that we shall not have that harmony. If it appears to the other states that our aversion is founded on just grounds, will they not be willing to indulge us? If disunion will really result from Virginia's proposing amendments, will they not wish the re-establishment of the union and admit us, if not on such terms as we prescribe, yet on advantageous terms? Is not union as essential to their happiness as to ours? Sir, without a radical alteration, the states will never be embraced on one federal pale. If you attempt to force it down men's throats and call it union, dreadful consequences must follow. He has said a great deal of disunion and the dangers that are to arise from it. When we are on the subject of disunion and dangers, let me ask, how will his present doctrine hold with what has happened? Is it consistent with that noble and disinterested conduct which he displayed on a former occasion? Did he not tell us that he withheld a signature? Where, then, were the dangers which now appeared him so formidable? He saw all America eagerly confiding that the result of their deliberations would remove their distresses. He saw all America acting under the impulses of hope, expectation, and anxiety arising from their situation, and their partiality for the members of that convention. Yet his enlightened mind knowing that system to be defective, magnanimously and nobly refused its approbation. He was not led by the illumined, the illustrious few. He was actuated by the dictates of its own judgment, and a better judgment than I can form. He did not stand out of the way of information. He must have been possessed of every intelligence. What alteration has a few months brought about? The eternal difference between right and wrong does not fluctuate. It is immutable. I ask this question as a public man, and out of no particular view. I wish as such to consult every source of information to form my judgment on so awful a question. I had the highest respect for the honorable gentleman's abilities. I considered his opinion as a great authority. He taught me, sir, in despite of the approbation of that great federal convention, to doubt of the propriety of that system. When I found my honorable friend in the number of those who doubted, I began to doubt also. I coincided with him in opinion. I shall be a staunch and faithful disciple of his. I applaud that magnanimity which led him to withhold his signature. If he thinks now differently, he is as free as I am. Such is my situation that as a poor individual, I look for information everywhere. This government is so new, it wants a name. I wish its other novelties were as harmless as this. He told us we had an American dictator in the year 1781. We never had an American president. In making a dictator, we followed the example of the most glorious, magnanimous, and skillful nations. In great dangers this power has been given. Rome had furnished us with an illustrious example. America found a person for that trust. She looked to Virginia for him. We gave a dictatorial power to hands that used it gloriously, and which were rendered more glorious by surrendering it up. Where is there a breed of such dictators? Shall we find a set of American presidents of such a breed? Will the American president come and lay prostrate at the feet of Congress's laurels? I fear there are a few men who can be trusted on that head. The glorious Republic of Holland has erected monuments of her warlike, intrepidine valor, yet she is now totally ruined by a stat holder. A Dutch president. The destructive wars into which that nation has been plunged have since involved her in ambition. The glorious triumphs of Blenheim and Ramilles were not so conformable to the genius, nor so much to the true interest of the Republic, as those numerous and useful canals and dykes and other objects at which ambition spurns. That Republic has, however, by the industry of its inhabitants and policy of its magistrates, suppressed the ill effects of ambition. Notwithstanding two of their provinces having paid nothing, yet I hope the example of Holland will tell us that we can live happily without changing our present despised government. Cannot people be as happy under a mild as under an energetic government? Cannot content and felicity be enjoyed in Republics as well as in monarchies, because there are whips, chains, and scourges leased in the latter? If I have not as rich as my neighbor, if I give my might, my all, Republican forbearance will say that it is sufficient. So said the honest Confederates of Holland. You are poor, we are rich. We will go on and do better than be under an oppressive government. Far better will it be for us to continue as we are than to go under that tight, energetic government. I am persuaded of what the honorable gentleman says, that separate Confederacies will ruin us. In my judgment there are evils never to be thought of till the people are driven by necessity. When he asked my opinion of consolidation, of one power to reign over America with a strong hand, I will tell him I am persuaded of the rectitude of my honorable friend's opinion, Mr. Mason, that one government cannot reign over so extensive a country as this is without absolute despotism. Compared to such consolidation, small Confederacies are little evils, though they ought to be recurred to but in case of necessity. Virginia and North Carolina are despised. They could exist separated from the rest of America. Maryland and Vermont were not overrun when out of the Confederacy. Though it is not a desirable object, yet I trust that on examination it will be found that Virginia and North Carolina would not be swallowed up in case it was necessary for them to be joined together. When we come to the spirit of domestic peace, the humble genius of Virginia has formed a government suitable to the genius of her people. I believe the hands that form the American Constitution triumph in the experiment. It proves that the man who formed it and perhaps by accident did what design could not do in other parts of the world. After all your reforms in government, unless you consult the genius of its inhabitants, you will never succeed. Your system can have no duration. Let me appeal to the candor of the committee. If the want of money be not the source of all our misfortunes. We cannot be blamed for not making dollars. This want of money cannot be supplied by changes in government. The only possible remedy, as I have before asserted, is industry aided by economy. Compare the genius of the people with the government of this country. Let me remark that it stood the severest conflict during the war to which every human virtue has been called. I call upon every gentleman here to declare whether the king of England had any subject so attached to his family and government, so loyal as we were, but the genius of Virginia called on us for liberty, called us from those beloved endearments which from long habits we were taught to love and revere. We entertained from our earliest infancy the most sincere regard and reverence for the mother country. Our partiality extended to a predilection for her customs, habits, manners, and laws. Thus inclined, when the deprivation of our liberty was attempted, what did we do? What did the genius of Virginia tell us? Sell all and purchase liberty. This was a severe conflict. Republican maxims were then esteemed. Those maxims and the genius of Virginia landed you safe on the shore of freedom. On this awful occasion, did you want a federal government? Did federal ideas possess your minds? Did federal ideas lead you to the most splendid victories? I must again repeat the favorite idea that the genius of Virginia did, and will again, lead us to happiness. To obtain the most splendid prize you did not consolidate. You accomplished the most glorious ends by the assistance of the genius of your country. Men were then taught by that genius that they were fighting for what was most dear to them. View the most affectionate father, the most tender mother, operated on by liberty, nobily stimulating their sons, their dearest sons, sometimes their only son to advance the defense of their country. We have seen the sons of Cincinnati's without splendid magnificence or parade going with the genius of their great progenitor Cincinnati's to the plough. Men who served their country without ruining it, men who had served at the destruction of their private patrimonies, the country owing them amazing accounts for the payment of which no adequate provision was then made. We have seen such men throw prostrate their arms at your feet. They did not call for those of monuments with ambition presents to some imaginations. The soldiers who were able to command everything, instead of trampling on those laws which they were instituted to defend, most strictly obeyed them. The hands of justice have not been laid on a single American soldier. Bring them into contrast with Europeans. You will see an astonishing superiority over the latter. There has been a strict subordination to the laws. The honorable gentleman's office gave him an opportunity of viewing if the laws were minister shows to prevent riots, routes, and unlawful assemblies. From his then situation, he could have furnished us with the instances in which licentiousness trampled on the laws. Among all our troubles we have paid almost to the last shilling for the sake of justice. We have paid as well as any state. I will not say better. To support the general government and our own legislature, to pay the interest of the public debts and defray contingencies, we have been heavily taxed. To add to these things, the distress produced by paper money and by tobacco contracts were sufficient to render any people discontented. These, sir, were great temptations. But in the most severe conflict of misfortune, this code of laws, this genius of Virginia, call it what you will, triumph over everything. Why did it please the gentleman, Mr. Corbin, to bestow such epithets on our country? Have the worms taken possession of the wood that our strong vessel, our political vessel, has sprung a leak? He may know better than I, but I consider such epithets to be the most illiberal and unwarrantable aspersions on our laws. The system of laws under which we have lived has been tried and found to suit our genius. I trust we shall not change this happy system. I cannot so easily take leave of an old friend, till I see him following after and pursuing other objects, which can pervert to great objects of human legislation. Pardon me, if I withhold my assent. Some here speak of the difficulty in forming a new code of laws. Young as it were, it were not wonderful if there was a difficulty in forming and assimilating one system of laws. I shall be obliged to the gentleman if he would point out those glaring, those great faults. The efforts of assimilating our laws to our genius have not been found altogether vain. I shall pass over some other circumstances which I intended to mention, and endeavor to come to the capital objection which my honorable friend has made. My worthy friend said that a Republican form of government would not suit a very extensive country, but that if a government were judiciously organized and limits prescribed to it, an attention to these principles might render it possible for it to exist in an extensive territory. Whoever will be bold to say that a continent can be governed by that system contradicts all the experience of the world. It is a work too great for human wisdom. Let me call for an example. Experience has been called the best teacher. I call for an example of great extent of country, governed by one government or Congress, call it what you will. I tell him that a government may be trimmed up according to gentlemen's fancy, but it never can operate. It would be but very short-lived, however disagreeable it may be to lengthen my objections. I cannot help taking notice of what Honorable Gentleman said. To me it appears that there is no check in that government. The President, Senators, and Representatives all immediately or immediately are the choice of the people. Tell me not of checks on paper, but tell me if checks found that on self-love. The English government has found that on self-love. This powerful, irresistible stimulus of self-love has saved that government. It has interposed that hereditary nobility between the King and Commons. If the host of lords assist or permit the King to overturn the liberties of the people, the same tyranny will destroy them. They will therefore keep the balance in the Democratic branch. Suppose they see the Commons encroach upon the King. Self-love, that great energetic check, will call upon them to interpose, for if the King be destroyed, their destruction must speedily follow. Here is a consideration which prevails in my mind to pronounce the British government superior, in this respect, to any government that ever was in any country. Compare this with your congressional checks. I beseech gentlemen to consider whether they can say, when trusting power, that a more patriotic profession will be equally operative and efficacious as the check of self-love. In considering the experience of ages, is it not seen that fair, disinterested patriotism and professions of attachment to rectitude have never been solely trusted to by enlightened free people? If you depend on your Presidents and Senators patriotism, you are gone. Have you arresting place like the British government? Where is the rock of your salvation? The real rock of political salvation is self-love, perpetuated from aged age in every human breast, and manifested in every action. If they can stand the temptations of human nature, you are safe. If you have a good President, Senators and Representatives, there is no danger. But can this be expected from human nature? Without real checks, it will not suffice that some of them are good. A good President or Senator or Representative will have a natural weakness. Virtue will slumber. The wicked will be continually watching. Consequently, you will be undone. Where are your checks? You have no hereditary nobility. An order of men to whom human eyes can be cast up for relief. For, says the Constitution, there is no title of nobility to be granted. Which, by the by, would not have been so dangerous as the presulous secession of powers contained in this paper? Because, as Montague says, when you give titles of nobility, you know what you give. But when you give power, you know not what you give. If you say that out of this depraved mass, you can collect luminous characters, it will not avail unless this luminous breed will be propagated from generation to generation. And even then, if the number of vicious characters will preponderate, you are undone. And that this will certainly be the case is, to my mind, perfectly clear. In the British government, there are real balances and checks. In this system, there are only ideal balances. Till I am convinced that there are actual, efficient checks, I will not give my assent to its establishment. The President and Senators have nothing to lose. They have not that interest in the preservation of the government that the King and Lords have in England. They will, therefore, be regardless of the interests of the people. The Constitution will be as safe with one body as with two. It will answer every purpose of human legislation. How was the Constitution of England when only the Commons had the power? I need not remark that it was the most unfortunate era when that country returned to King Lords and Commons without sufficient responsibility in the King. When the Commons of England, in the manly language it became freemen, said to their King, You are our servant. Then the Temple of Liberty was complete. From that noble source have we derived our liberty, that spirit of patriotic attachment to one's country, that zeal for liberty, and that enmity to tyranny, which signalized the then champions of liberty we inherit from our British ancestors. And I am free to own that if you cannot love a Republican government, you may love the British monarchy, for although the King is not sufficiently responsible, the responsibility of his agents and the efficient checks interposed by the British Constitution render it less dangerous than other monarchies or oppressive tyrannical aristocracies. What are the checks of exposing accounts? The checks upon paper are inefficient and nougatory. Can you search your president's closet? Is this a real check? We ought to be exceedingly cautious in giving up this life, this soul, of money, this power of taxation to Congress. What powerful check is there here to prevent the most extravagant and profligate squandering of the public money? What security have we in money matters? Inquiry is precluded by this Constitution. I never wish to see Congress supplicate the States. But it is more abhorrent to my mind to give them an unlimited and unbounded command over our souls, our lives, our purses, without any check or restraint. How are you to keep Inquiry alive? How discover their conduct? We are told by that paper that a regular statement in account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. Here is a beautiful check. What time? Here is the utmost latitude left. If those who are in Congress pleased to put that construction upon it, the words of the Constitution will be satisfied by publishing these accounts once in every hundred years. They may publish or not as they please. Is this like the present despised system whereby the accounts are to be published monthly? I come now to speak something of requisitions which the honorable gentleman thought so truly contemptible and disgraceful. That incorrigible gentleman, being a child of the Revolution, must recollect with gratitude the glorious effects of requisitions. It is an idea that must be grateful to every American. An English Army was sent to compel us to pay money contrary to our consent to force us by arbitrary and tyrannical coercion to satisfy their unbounded demands. We wished to pay with our own consent. Rather than pay against our consent, we engaged in that bloody contest which terminated so gloriously. By requisitions we pay with our own consent by the means we have triumphed in the most arduous struggle that ever tried the virtue of man. We fought then for what we are contending for now. To prevent an arbitrary deprivation of our property contrary to our consent and inclination. I shall be told in this place that those who are to tax us are our representatives. To this I answer, that there is no real check to prevent their ruining us. There is no axial responsibility. The only semblance of a check is the negative power of not re-electing them. This, sir, is but a feeble barrier when their personal interest, their ambition and avarice come to be put in contrast with the happiness of the people. All checks founded on anything but self-love will not avail. The Constitution reflects in the most degrading and mortifying manner on the virtue, integrity and wisdom of the state legislatures. It presupposes that to chosen few who go to Congress will have more upright hearts and more enlightened minds that those who are members of the individual legislatures. To suppose the ten gentlemen shall have more real substantial merit than one hundred and seventy is humiliating to the last degree. If, sir, the diminution of numbers being augmentation of merit, perfection must center in one. If you have the faculty of discerning spirits, it is better to point out at once the man who has this most illuminated qualities. If ten men be better than one hundred and seventy, it follows of necessity that one is better than ten. The choice is more refined, such as the danger of the abuse of implied power, that it would be safer at once to have seven representatives, the number to which we are now entitled, then depend upon the uncertain and ambiguous language of this paper. The number may be lessened instead of being increased, and yet, by argumentative constructive implied power, the proportion of taxes may continue the same or be increased. Nothing is more perilous than constructive power, which gentlemen are so willing to trust their happiness to. If sheriffs prove now an over-math for our legislature, if their ingenuity has alluded to vigilance of our laws, how will the manor be amended when they come clothed with federal authority? A strenuous argument offered by gentlemen is that the same sheriffs may collect for the continental and state cherries. I have before shown that this must have an inevitable tendency to give a decided preference to the federal treasury in actual collections and to throw all deficiencies on the state. This imaginary remedy for the evil of congressional taxation will have another oppressive operation. The sheriff comes today as a state collector. Next day is federal. How are you to fix him? How will it be possible to discriminate oppressions committed in one capacity from those perpetrated in another? Will not this ingenuity perplex the simple and honest planter? This will at least involve in difficulties those who are unacquainted with legal ingenuity. When you fix him, where are you to punish him? For I suppose they will not stay in our courts. They must go to the federal court. For if I understand that paper right, all controversies arising under the Constitution or under the laws made in pursuance thereof are to be tried in that court. When gentlemen told us that this part deserved the least exception, I was in hopes they would prove that there was plausibility in their suggestions and that oppression would probably not follow. Are we not told that it shall be treason to live a war against the United States? Suppose an insult offered to the federal laws at an immense distance from Philadelphia. Will this be deemed treason? And shall a man be dragged many hundred miles to be tried as a criminal for having perhaps justifiably resisted an unwarrantable attack upon his person or property? I am not well acquainted with federal jurisprudence, but it appears to me that these oppressions must result from this part of the plan. It is at least doubtful, and where there is even a possibility of such evils, they ought to be guarded against. There are to be a number of places fitted out for arsenals and dockyards in the different states. Unless you sell to Congress such places as are proper for these, within your state, you will not be as consistent after adoption. It results, therefore, clearly that you are to give into the hands all such places as are fit for strongholds. When you have these fortifications and garrisons within your state, your legislature will have no power over them, though they see the most dangerous insults offered to the people daily. They are also to have magazines in its state. These depositories for arms, though within the state, will be free from the control of its legislature. Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us as in our own hands? If our legislature be unworthy of legislating for every foot in this state, they are unworthy of saying another word. The clause which says the Congress shall, quote, provide for arming, organizing, and disciplining in the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, end quote, seem to put the states in power of Congress. I wish to be informed if a Congress neglected to discipline them whether the states were not precluded from doing it. Not being favored with a particular answer, I am confirmed in my opinion that the states have not the power of disciplining them without recurring to the doctrine of constructed implied powers. If by implication the states may discipline them by implication also Congress may officer them because in a partition of power each has a right to come in for part, and because implication is to operate in favor of Congress on all occasions, where their object is an extension of power, as well as in favor of the states. We have not one fourth of the arms that would be sufficient to defend ourselves. The power of arming the militia and the means of purchasing arms are taken from the state by the paramount powers of Congress. If Congress will not arm them, they will not be armed at all. There have been no instances shown of a voluntary session of power sufficient to induce me to grant the most dangerous power. A possibility of their future linkersment will not persuade me to yield such powers. Congress, by the power of taxation, by that of raising an army, and by their control over the militia, have the sword in one hand and the purse in the other. Shall we be safe without either? Congress have an unlimited power over both. They are entirely given up by us. Let them candidly tell me, where and when did freedom exist when the sword and purse were given up from the people? Unless a miracle in human affairs interposed no nation ever retained its liberty after loss of the sword and purse. Can you prove by any argumentative deduction that it is possible to be safe without retaining one of these? If you give them up, you are gone. Give us least a plausible apology why Congress should keep their proceedings in secret. They have the power of keeping them secret as long as they plead, for the provision for a periodical publication is too inexplicit and ambiguous to avail anything. The expression from time to time, as I have more than once observed, admits of any extension. They may carry on the most wicked and pernicious schemes under the dark veil of secrecy. The liberties of the people never were nor ever will be secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. The most iniquitous plots may be carried on against their liberty and happiness. I am not an advocate for divulging indiscriminately all the operations of government, though the practice of our ancestors in some degree justifies it. Such transactions, as relate to military operation or affairs of great consequence, the immediate promulgation of which might defeat the interest of the community, I would not wish to be published, till the end which required the secrecy should have been effected. But the cover with the veil of secrecy, the common routine of business, is an abomination in the eyes of every intelligent man and every friend to his country. I appeal to this convention if it would not be better for America to take off the veil of secrecy. Look at us, here are transactions. If this had been the language of the Federal Convention, what would have been the result? Such a Constitution would not have come out to your utter astonishment, conceding such dangerous powers and recommending secrecy in the future transactions of government. I believe it would have been given more general satisfaction if the proceedings of that convention had not been concealed from the public eye. This Constitution authorizes the same conduct. There is not an English feature in it. The transactions of Congress may be concealed a century from the public consistent with the Constitution. This, sir, is a laudable imitation of the transactions of the Spanish Treaty. We have not forgotten with what a thick veil of secrecy those transactions were covered. We are told that this government, collectively taken, is without an example. That it is national in this part and federal in that part, etc. We may be amused if we please by a treatise on political anatomy. In the brain it is national. The stamina are federal. Some limbs are federal. Others national. The senators are voted for by the state legislatures so far it is federal. Individuals choose to members of the first branch here it is national. It is federal in conferring general powers but national in retaining them. It is not to be supported by the states. The pockets of individuals are to be searched for its maintenance. What signifies it to me that you have the most curious anatomical description of it in its creation? To all the common purposes of legislation it is a great consolidation of government. You are not to have the right to legislate in any but trivial cases. You are not to touch private contracts. You are not to have the right of having arms in your own defense. You cannot be trusted with dealing out justice between man and man. What shall the states have to do? Take care of the poor, repair and make highways erect bridges and so on and so on? Abolish the state legislatures at once. What purposes should they be continued for? Our legislature will indeed be a ludicrous spectacle. 180 men marching in solemn, farcical procession exhibiting a mournful proof of the lost liberty of their country without the power of restoring it. But sir, we have the consolation that it is a mixed government. That is, it may work sorely on your neck but you will have some comfort by saying that it was a federal government in its origin. I beg gentlemen to consider. Lay aside your prejudices. Is this a federal government? Is it not a consolidated government for almost every purpose? Is the government of Virginia a state government after this government is adopted? I granted it as a republican government but for what purposes? For such trivial domestic considerations as to render it unworthy the name of a legislature. I shall take leave of this political anatomy by observing that it is the most extraordinary that ever entered to the imagination of man. If our political disease is demand to cure, this is unheard of medicine. The honorable member, I am convinced, wanted a name for it. Were your health in danger? Would you take new medicine? I need not make use of these exclamations for every member in this committee must be alarmed at making new and unusual experiments in government. Let us have national credit and a national treasury in case of war. You never can want national resources in time of war if the war be a national one. If it be necessary and this necessity be obvious to the meanest capacity. The utmost exertions will be used by the people of America in that case. A republic has disadvantage over a monarchy that the wars are generally founded on more just grounds. A republic can never enter into a war unless it be a national war, unless it be approved of or desired by the whole community. Did ever a republic fail to use the utmost resources of the community when war was necessary? I call for an example. I call also for an example where a republic has been engaged in a war contrary to the wishes of the people. There are thousands of examples where the ambition of its prince has precipitated a nation into the most destructive war. No nation ever withheld power when its object was just and right. I will hazard an observation. I find fault with the paper before you because the same power that declares war has the power to carry it on. Is it so in England? The king declares war and the House of Commons gives the means of carrying it on. This is a strong check on the king. He will enter into no war that is unnecessary, for the commons have the power of withholding the means, will exercise that power unless the object of the war be for the interest of the nation. How is it here? The Congress can both declare war and carry it on, and levy your money as long as you have a shilling to pay. I shall now speak a little of the colonial Confederacy which was proposed at Albany. Massachusetts did not give her consent to the project at Albany, so as to consolidate with the other colonies. Had there been a consolidation at Albany, where would have been their charter? Would that Confederacy have preserved their charter from Britain? The strength and energy of the then-designed government would have crushed American opposition. The American Revolution took its origin from the comparative weakness of the British government, not being concentrated in one point. A concentration of the strength and interest of the British government in one point would have rendered opposition to its tyranny fruitless. For want of the consolidation, do we now enjoy liberty and the privilege of debating at this moment? I am pleased with the colonial establishment. The example which the Honorable Member has produced to persuade us to depart from our present Confederacy rivets me to my former opinion and convinces me that consolidation must end in the destruction of our liberties. The Honorable Gentleman has told us of our ingratitude to France. She does not intend to take payment by force. In gratitude shall not be laid to my charge. I wish to see the friendship between this country and that magnanimous ally perpetuated. Requisitions will enable us to pay the debt we owe to France and other countries. She does not desire us to go from our beloved Republican government. The change is inconsistent with our engagements with those nations. It is cried out that those in opposition wish disunion. This is not true. They are the most strenuous enemies to it. This government will clearly operate disunion. If it be heard on the other side of the Atlantic that you are going to disunite and dissolve the Confederacy, what says France? Will she be indifferent to an event that will so radically affect her treaties with us? Our treaty with her is founded on the Federation. We are bound to her as thirteen states confederated. What will become of the treaty? It is said the treaties will be on better footing. How so? Will the President, Senate, and House of Representatives be parties to them? I cannot conceive how the treaties can be as binding if the Confederacy is dissolved as they are now. Those nations will not continue their friendship then. They will become our enemies. I look on the treaties as the greatest pillars of safety. If the House of Bourbon keeps us, we are safe. Dissolve that Confederacy. Who has you? The British. Federalism will not protect you from the British. Is a connection with that country more desirable? I was amazed when gentlemen forgot the Friends of America. I hope that this dangerous change will not be affected. It is safe for the French and Spaniards that we should continue to be thirteen states, but it is not so that we should can be consolidated into one government. They have settlements in America. Will they like the schemes of popular ambition? Will they not have some serious reflections? You may tell them that you have not changed your situation, but they will not believe you. If there be a real check intended to be left on Congress, it must be left in the state governments. If there will be some check, as long as the judges are in corrupt, as long as they are upright, you may preserve your liberty. But what will the judges determine when the state and federal authority comes to be contrasted? Will your liberty then be secure when the congressional laws have declared paramount to the laws of your state and the judges are sworn to support them? I am constrained to make a few remarks on the absurdity of adopting this system and relying on the chance of getting it amended afterwards. When it is confessed to be replete with defects, is it not offering to insult your understandings to attempt to reason you out of the propriety of rejecting it till it be amended? Does it not insult your judgments to tell you, adopt first and then amend? Is your rage for novelty so great that you are first to sign and seal and then to retract? Is it possible to conceive a greater solicism? I am at a loss of what to say. You agree to bind yourselves hand and foot, for the sake of what? A being unbound? You go into a dungeon, for what? To get out? Is there no danger when you go in that the bolts of federal authority shall shut you in? Human nature never will part from power. Look for an example of voluntarily relinquishment of power from one end of the globe to the other. You will find none. Nine-tenths of our fellow men have been and are now depressed by the most intolerable slavery in the different parts of the world because the strong hand of power has bolted them in the dungeon of despotism. Review the present situation of the nations of Europe, which is pretended to be the freest quarter of the globe. Cast your eyes on the countries called free there. Look at the country from which we are descended. I beseech you. And although we are separated by everlasting insuperable partitions, yet there are some virtuous people there who are friends to human nature and liberty. Look at Britain. See there the bolts and bars of power. See bribery and corruption defiling the fairest fabric of that ever human nature reared. Can a gentleman who is an Englishman or who is acquainted with the English history desire to prove these evils? See the efforts of a man descended from a friend of America. See the efforts of that man assisted even by the king to make reforms. But you find the faults too strong to be amended. Nothing but bloody war can alter them. See Ireland. That country grown from century to century without getting their government amended. Previous adoption was the fashion there. They sent four amendments from time to time, but never obtained them, though pressed by the Severe's Depression, till eighty thousand volunteers demanded them, sword in hand, till the power of Britain was prostrate, when the American resistance was crowned with success. Shall we do so? If you judge by the experience of Ireland, you must obtain the amendments as early as possible. But I ask you again. Where is the example that a government was amended by those who instituted it? Where is the instance of the errors of a government rectified by those who adopted them? I shall make a few observations to prove that the power of elections which is given to Congress is contrived by the federal government, that the people may be deprived of their proper influence in the government by destroying the force and effect of their suffrages. Congress is to have discretionary control over the time, place, and manner of elections. The representatives are to be elected, consequently, when and where they please. As to the time and place, gentlemen have attempted to obviate the objection by saying that the time is to happen once in two years and that the place is to be within a particular district or in the respective counties. But how will they obviate the danger of referring the manner of election to Congress? Those illuminated geni may see that this may not endanger the rights of the people, but in my un-lightened understanding it appears plain and clear that it will impair the popular weight in the government. Look at the Roman history. They had two ways of voting, the one by tribes and the other by centuries. By the former numbers prevailed and the latter riches preponderated. According to the mode prescribed, Congress may tell you that they have a right to make the vote of the one gentleman go as far as the votes of a hundred poor men. The power over the manner admits of the most dangerous latitude. They may modify it as they please. They may regulate the number of votes by quantity of property without involving any repugnancy to the Constitution. I should not have thought of this trick or contrivance had I not seen how the public liberty of Rome was trifled with by the mode of voting by centuries, whereby one rich man had as many votes as a multitude of poor men. The plebeians were trampled on till they resisted. The patriarchs trampled on the liberties of the plebeians till the latter had the spirit to assert their right to freedom and equality. The result of the American mode of election may be similar. Perhaps I may be told that I have gone through the regions of fancy, that I deal in noisy exclamations in mighty professions of patriotism. Gentlemen may retain their opinions, but I look on that paper as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people. If such be your rage for novelty, take it, and welcome, but you shall never have my consent. My sentiments may appear extravagant, but I can tell you that a number of my fellow citizens have kindred sentiments, and I am anxious if my country should come into the hands of tyranny to exculpate myself from being in any degree the cause and to exert my facilities to the utmost to extricate her. Whether I am gratified or not in my beloved form of government, I consider that the more she had plunged into distress, the more it is my duty to relieve her. Whatever may be the result, I shall wait with patience till the day may come when an opportunity shall offer to exert myself in her cause. But I should be led to take that man for a lunatic who should tell me to run into the adoption of a government avowedly defective in hopes of having it amended afterwards. Were I about to give away the meanest particle of my own property, I should act with more prudence and discretion. My anxieties and fears are great, lest America, by the adoption of this system, should be cast into a fathomless bottom. I must now conclude, but I have not gone through all I intended to say, and I beg to be indulged at another time. And, Anti-Federalist Paper, Section 56, Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, Monday, June 9th, 1788, and Anti-Federalist Papers.