Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/384

364 the Eastern. It was also objected that the numbers of representatives appointed by this section to be sent, by the particular states, to compose the first legislature, were not precisely agreeable to the rule of representation adopted by this system, and that the numbers in this section are artfully lessened for the large states, while the smaller states have their full proportion, in order to prevent the undue influence which the large states will have in the government from being too apparent; and I think, Mr. Speaker, that this objection is well founded.

I have taken some pains to obtain information of the number of freemen and slaves in the different states; and I have reason to believe that, if the estimate was now taken which is directed, and one delegate to be sent for every thirty thousand inhabitants, that Virginia would have at least twelve delegates, Massachusetts eleven, and Pennsylvania ten, instead of the number stated in this section; whereas the other states, I believe, would not have more than the number there allowed them; nor would Georgia, most probably, at present, send more than two. If I am right, Mr. Speaker, upon the enumeration being made, and the representation being apportioned according to the rule prescribed, the whole number of delegates would be seventy-one, thirty-six of which would be a quorum to do business: the delegates of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, would amount to thirty-three of that quorum. Those three states will, therefore, have much more than equal power and influence in making the laws and regulations which are to affect this continent, and will have a moral certainty of preventing any laws or regulations which they disapprove, although they might be thought ever so necessary by a great majority of the states. It was further objected that, even if the states who had most inhabitants ought to have a greater number of delegates, yet the number of delegates ought not to be in exact proportion to the number of inhabitants, because the influence and power of those states whose delegates are numerous will be greater, when compared with the influence and power of the other states, than the proportion which the numbers of their delegates bear to each other; as, for instance, though Delaware has but one delegate, and Virginia but ten, yet Virginia has more than ten times as much power and influence in the government as Delaware. To prove this, it was observed that Virginia would have a much greater chance to carry any measure than any number of states whose delegates were altogether ten, (suppose the states of Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire,) since the ten delegates from Virginia, in every thing that related to the interest of that state, would act in union, and move one solid and compact body; whereas the delegates of these four states, though collectively equal in number to those from Virginia, corning from different states having different interests, will be less likely to harmonize and move in concert. As a further proof, it was said that Virginia, as the system is now reported, by uniting with her the delegates of four other states, can carry a question against the sense and interest of the eight states by sixty-four different combinations; the four states voting with Virginia being every time so far different as not to be composed of the same four; whereas the state of Delaware can only, by uniting four other states with bar, carry a measure against the sense of eight states by two different combinations—a mathematical proof that the state of Virginia has thirty-two times greater chance of carrying a measure against the sense of eight states than Delaware, although Virginia has only ten times as many delegates. It was also