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 only remark, that it was the most unfortunate era when the country returned to king, lords and commons, without sufficient responsibility in the king. When the commons of England, in the manly language which 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 their checks of exposing accounts? Their checks upon paper are inefficient and nugatory. 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-our 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 and account of the 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 please to put that construction upon it, the words of the constitution will be satisfied by publishing those accounts once in one 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 honorable 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 con

sent.

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 their means we have triumphed in the most arduous struggle that ever tried the virtue of man. We fought then for what we are contending 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 actual responsibility. The only semblance of a check is the negative power of not reelecting 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 any thing but self-love, will not avail. This constitution' reflects, in the most degrading and mortifying manner, on the virtue, integrity and wisdom of the state legislatures: it presupposes that the chosen few who go to congress, will have more upright hearts, and more enlightened minds, than those who are members of the individual legislatures. To suppose that 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 be an augmentation of merit, perfection must centre in one. If you have the faculty of discerning spirits, it is better to point out at once the man who has the most illumined 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 is 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, than depend on the uncertain and ambiguous language of that 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 overmatch for our legislature; if their ingenuity has eluded the vigilance of our laws, how will the matter 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 treasuries. I have before shown, that this must have an inevitable tendency to give a decided preference to the federal treasury in the 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 to-day as a state collect

or next day he is federal-how are you to fix him? How will it be possible to discriminate oppressions committed in one capacity from those perpetrated in the other? Will not his ingenuity perplex the simple, 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 that 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 levy 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 dock-yards in the different states. Unless you sell to congress such places as are proper for these within your state, you will not be consistent after adoption; it results therefore clearly that you are to give into their 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 each 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 defence? There is a wide difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of congress. If our defence 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? If our legislature be unworthy of legislating for every foot in this state, they are unworthy of saying another word.

The clause which says that congress shall "provide for arming, organizing and disciplining 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,"

seemed to put the states in the power of congress. I wished to be informed, if 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 constructive, 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 the 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 states by the paramount powers of congress. If congress will not arm them, they will not be armed at all.

There have been nb instances shown of a voluntary cession of power, sufficient to induce me to grant the most dangerous powers: a possibility of their future relinquishment 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 him candidly tell me, where and when did freedom exist when the sword and purse were given up by the people? Unless a miracle in human affairs interposed, no nation ever retained its liberty after the 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 at least a plausible apology why congress should keep their proceedings in secret. They have the power of keeping them secret as long as they please; for the provision for a periodical publication is too inexplicit and ambiguous to avail any thing. 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 of schemes under the dark veil of secrecy. The liberties of a 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 operations or affairs of great consequence, the immediate promulgation of which might defeat the interests of the community I would not wish to be published till the end which

required their secrecy should have been effected. But to 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-hear our 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 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 consistently 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, &c. We may be amused, if we please, by a treatise of 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 the 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 defence: 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-one hundred and eighty 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