Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/403

Rh "Provided, That no act or acts done by one or more of the states against the United States, or by any citizen of any one of the United States, under the authority of one or more of the said states, shall be deemed treason, or punished as such; but in case of war being levied by one or more of the states against the United States, the conduct of each party towards the other, and their adherents respectively, shall be regulated by the laws of war and of nations."

But this provision was not adopted, being too much opposed to the great object of many of the leading members of the Convention, which was, by all means to leave the states at the mercy of the general government, since they could not succeed in their immediate and entire abolition.

By the third section of the fourth article no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, without the consent of the legislature of such state.

There are a number of states which are so circumstanced, with respect to themselves and to the other states, that every principle of justice and sound policy requires their dismemberment, or division into smaller states. Massachusetts is divided into two districts, totally separated from each other by the state of New Hampshire, on the north-east side of which lie the provinces of Maine and Sagadohock, more extensive in point of territory, but less populous, than old Massachusetts, which lies on the other side of New Hampshire. No person can cast his eye on the map of that state, but he must in a moment admit, that every argument drawn from convenience, interest, and justice, requires that the provinces of Maine and Sagadohock should be erected into a new state, and that they should not be compelled to remain connected with old Massachusetts, under all the inconveniences of their situation.

The state of Georgia is larger in extent than the whole island of Great Britain, extending from its sea-coast to the Mississippi, a distance of eight hundred miles or more; its breadth, for the most part, about three hundred miles. The states of North Carolina and Virginia, in the same manner, reach from the sea-coast unto the Mississippi.

The hardship, the inconvenience, and the injustice, of compelling the inhabitants of those states who may dwell on the western side of the mountains, and along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to remain connected with the inhabitants of those states, respectively, on the Atlantic side of the mountains, and subject to the same state governments, would be such as would, in my opinion, justify even recourse to arms, to free themselves from, and to shake off, so ignominious a yoke.

This representation was made in Convention; and it was further urged. that the territory of these states was too large, and that the inhabitants thereof would be too much disconnected for a republican government to extend to them its benefits, which is only suited to a small and compact territory—that a regard also for the peace and safety of the Union ought to excite a desire that those states should become, in time, divided into separate states; since, when their population should become proportioned in degree to their territory, they would, from their strength and power, become dangerous members of a federal government. It was further said that, if the general government was not, by its Constitution, to interfere, the inconvenience would soon remedy itself; for that, as the population increased in those states, their legislatures would be obliged to consent to the erection of new states, to avoid the evils of a civil war. But as,