Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/286

 254 Franklin's plan of representation. [i787 groundless. Indeed, under the present mode of voting by States it was in the power of the smaller States to swallow up the greater. Suppose, he said, that seven smaller States had each three members in the House, and the six larger, on an average, six members each, and that upon a given question two members of each smaller State should be in the affirmative and one in the negative, making fourteen affirmatives and seven negatives, and that all the larger States should be unanimously in the negative, making thirty-six negatives. The result would be, fourteen affirmatives, forty-three negatives; and yet the affirmatives, the minority, would prevail. The larger States were as unwilling as the smaller ones to have their interests left in the hands of others. There had been a hint of equalising the States, to avoid the difficulty ; the idea was fair, and he would not oppose it if it were practicable. Formerly the idea could not have been entertained; the provinces had had different constitutions, some having greater privileges than others, and then it was a matter of importance to the borderers on which side of the line they were placed. Now these differences were done away, and the location of boundaries was less important. The interests of a State were made up of the interests of its individual members ; if the individuals were not injured, the State was not injured ; and small States were more easily and happily governed than large. If then, in making a new division, it should be found necessary to cut down Pennsylvania, he would not be unwilling to give part of it to New Jersey and part to Delaware. But there would be difficulties in the way; equality would soon disappear in the varying increase of population, and new divisions would then again be called for. He had what he believed a better and more permanent plan to propose. It was this : Let the weakest State say what proportion of money or force it was able and willing to furnish for the Union ; let the rest agree to furnish severally an equal amount ; the whole to be absolutely in the disposal of Congress ; the Congress to be composed of an equal number of delegates from each State, and a majority of the delegates voting individually to prevail. If the supplies thus furnished should be insufficient, let Congress make requisitions on the greater States for further aid, to be offered voluntarily, according to the view taken by each State of the need of the aid and of the amount to be given. The plan, Franklin said, was not new ; it had been successfully tried in England with Ireland and with the American colonies. We some- times gave even more than had been expected of us or than had been thought proper; England had given back to us in five years a million sterling. We should probably have continued these contributions, as occasion called, had England not chosen to force us and thus to deprive us of the merit and pleasure of acting voluntarily. If this was done towards a government in which we had no representation, it would not be refused to the government now proposed.