Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/402

382 if the Convention had wished so to do ; but the same reason influenced here as in the case of the establishment of the inferior courts. As they could not trust state judges, so would they not confide in state juries. They alleged that the general government and the state governments would always be at variance—that the citizens of the different states would enter into the views and interests of their respective states, and therefore ought not to be trusted in determining causes in which the general government was any way interested, without giving the general government an opportunity, if it disapproved the verdict of the jury, to appeal, and to have the facts examined into again, and decided upon by its own judges, on whom it was thought a reliance might be had by the general government, they being appointed under its authority.

Thus, sir, in consequence of this appellate jurisdiction, and its extension to facts as well as to law, every arbitrary act of the general government, and every oppression of all that variety of officers appointed under its authority for the collection of taxes, duties, impost, excise, and other purposes, must be submitted to by the individual, or must be opposed with little prospect of success, and almost a certain prospect of ruin, at least in those cases where the middle and common class of citizens are interested. Since, to avoid that oppression, or to obtain redress, the application must be made to one of the courts of the United States,—by good fortune, should this application be in the first instance attended with success, and should damages be recovered equivalent to the injury sustained, an appeal lies to the Supreme Court, in which case the citizen must at once give up his cause, or he must attend to it at the distance, perhaps, of more than a thousand miles from the place of his residence, and must take measures to procure before that court, on the appeal, all the evidence necessary to support his action, which, even if ultimately prosperous, must be attended with a loss of time, a neglect of business, and an expense, which will be greater than the original grievance, and to which men in moderate circumstances would be utterly unequal.

By the third section of this article, it is declared that treason against the United States shall consist in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.

By the principles of the American revolution, arbitrary power may, and ought to, be resisted even by arms, if necessary. The time may come when it shall be the duty of a state, in order to preserve itself from the oppression of the general government, to have recourse to the sword; in which case, the proposed form of government declares, that the state, and every one of its citizens who acts under its authority, are guilty of a direct act of treason; reducing, by this provision, the different states to this alternative,—that they must tamely and passively yield to despotism, or their citizens must oppose it at the hazard of the halter, if unsuccessful; and reducing the citizens of the state which shall take arms to a situation in which they must be exposed to punishment, let them act as they will—since, if they obey the authority of their state government, they will be guilty of treason against the United Stales; if they join the general government, they will be guilty of treason against their own state.

To save the citizens of the respective states from this disagreeable dilemma, and to secure them from being punishable as traitors to the United States, when acting expressly in obedience to the authority of their own state. I wished to have obtained, as an amendment to the third section of this article, the following clause:—