Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/379

Rh It has been observed, Mr. Speaker, by my honorable colleagues, that the debate respecting the mode of representation was productive of considerable warmth. This observation is true. But, sir, it is equally true, that, if we could have tamely and servilely consented to be bound in chains, and meanly condescended to assist in riveting them fast, we might have avoided all that warmth, and have proceeded with as much calmness and coolness as any Stoic could have wished. Having thus, sir, given the honorable members of this house a short history of some of the interesting parts of our proceedings, I shall beg leave to take up the system published by the Convention, and shall request your indulgence while I make some observations on different parts of it, and give you such further information as may be in my power. [Here Mr. Martin read the first section of the first article, and then proceeded.] With respect to this part of the system, Mr. Speaker, there was a diversity of sentiment. Those who were for two branches in the legislature—a House of Representatives and a Senate—urged the necessity of a second branch, to serve as a check upon the first, and used all those trite and common-place arguments which may be proper and just when applied to the formation of a state government over individuals variously distinguished in their habits and manners, fortune and rank; where a body chosen in a select manner, respectable for their wealth and dignity, may be necessary, frequently, to prevent the hasty and rash measures of a representation more popular. But, on the other side, it was urged that none of those arguments could with propriety be applied to the formation of a federal government over a number of independent states—that it is the state governments which are to watch over and protect the rights of the individual, whether rich or poor, or of moderate circumstances, and in which the democratic and aristocratic influence or principles are to be so blended, modified, and checked, as to prevent oppression and injury—that the federal government is to guard and protect the states and their rights, and to regulate their common concerns—that a federal government is formed by the states, as states, (that is, in their sovereign capacities,) in the same manner as treaties and alliances are formed—that a sovereignty, considered as such, cannot be said to have jarring interests or principles, the one aristocratic, and the other democratic; but that the principles of a sovereignty, considered as a sovereignty, are the same, whether that sovereignty is monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or mixed—that the history of mankind doth not furnish an instance, from its earliest history to the present time, of a federal government constituted of two distinct branches—that the members of the federal government, if appointed by the states in their state capacities, (that is, by their legislatures, as they ought,) would be select in their choice; and, coming from different states, having different interests and views, this difference of interests and views would always be a sufficient check over the whole; and it was shown that even Adams, who, the reviewers have justly observed, appears to be as fond of checks and balances as Lord Chesterfield of the graces,—even he declares that a council consisting of one branch has always been found sufficient in a federal government.

It was urged, that the government we were forming was not in reality a federal, but a national, government, not founded on the principles of the preservation, but the abolition or consolidation, of all state governments—that we appeared totally to have forgotten the business for which we were sent, and the situation of the country for which we were