Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/404

384 by the proposed Constitution, the general government is obliged to protect each state against domestic violence, and consequently will be obliged to assist in suppressing such commotions and insurrections as may take place from the struggle to have new states erected, the general government ought to have a power to decide upon the propriety and necessity of establishing or erecting a new state, even without the approbation of the legislature of such states within whose jurisdiction the new state should be erected; and for this purpose I submitted to the Convention the following proposition: "That, on the application of the inhabitants of any district of territory within the limits of any of the states, it shall be lawful for the legislature of the United States—if they shall, under all circumstances, think it reasonable—to erect the same into a new state, and admit it into the Union, without the consent of the state of which the said district may be a part." And it was said, that we surely might trust the general government with this power with more propriety than with many others with which they were proposed to be intrusted; and that, as the general government was bound to suppress all insurrections and commotions which might arise on this subject, it ought to be in the power of the general government to decide upon it, and not in the power of the legislature of a single state, by obstinately and unreasonably opposing the erection of a new state, to prevent its taking effect, and thereby extremely to oppress that part of its citizens which live remote from and inconvenient to the seat of its government, and even to involve the Union in war to support its injustice and oppression. But, upon the vote being taken, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, were in the negative. New Hampshire, Connecticut, Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, were in the affirmative. New York was absent.

That it was inconsistent with the rights of free and independent states to have their territory dismembered without their consent, was the principal argument used by the opponents of this proposition. The truth of the objection we readily admitted, but at the same time insisted that it was not more inconsistent with the rights of free and independent states than that inequality of suffrage and power which the larger states had extorted from the others; and that, if the smaller states yielded up their rights in that instance, they were entitled to demand from the states of extensive territory a surrender of their rights in this instance; and in a particular manner, as it was equally necessary for the true interest and happiness of the citizens of their own states, as of the Union. But, sir, although, when the large states demanded undue and improper sacrifices to be made to their pride and ambition, they treated the rights of free states with more contempt than ever a British Parliament treated the rights of her colonial establishment, yet, when a reasonable and necessary sacrifice was asked from them, they spurned the idea with ineffable disdain. They then perfectly understood the full value and the sacred obligation of state rights, and at the least attempt to infringe them, where they were concerned, they were tremblingly alive, and agonized at every pore.

When we reflect how obstinately those states contended for that unjust superiority of power in the government which they have in part obtained, and for the establishment of this superiority by the Constitution; when we reflect that they appeared willing to hazard the existence of the Union rather than not to succeed in their unjust attempt; that, should their legislatures consent to the erection of new states within their jurisdiction, it