Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/423

Rh By this and the other credentials, we see that the basis of our present authority is founded on a revision of the Articles of the present Confederation, and to alter or amend them in such parts where they may appear defective. Can we on this ground form a national government? I fancy not. Our commissions give a complexion to the business; and can we suppose that, when we exceed the bounds of our duty, the people will approve our proceedings?

We are met here, as the deputies of thirteen independent sovereign states, for federal purposes. Can we consolidate their sovereignty, and form one nation, and annihilate the sovereignties of our states, who have sent us here for other purposes?

What, pray, is intended by a proportional representation? Is property to be considered as part of it? Is a man, for example, possessing a property of £4000 to have 40 votes to one possessing only £100? This has been asserted on a former occasion. If state distinctions are still to be held up, shall I submit the welfare of the state of New Jersey, with 5 votes in the national council, opposed to Virginia, who has 16 votes? Suppose, as it was in agitation before the war, that America had been represented in the British Parliament; had sent 200 members; what would this number avail against 600? We would have been as much enslaved in that case as when unrepresented; and what is worse, without the prospect of redress. But it is said that this national government is to act on individuals, and not on states; and cannot a federal government be so framed as to operate in the same way? It surely may. I therefore declare that I will never consent to the present system, and I shall make all the interest against it in the state which I represent that I can. Myself or my state will never submit to tyranny or despotism.

Upon the whole, every sovereign state, according to a confederation, must have an equal vote, or there is an end to liberty. As long, therefore, as state distinctions are held up, this rule must invariably apply; and if a consolidated national government must take place, then state distinctions must cease, or the states must be equalized.

Mr. WILSON was in favor of the resolve. He observed that a majority, nay, even a minority, of the states have a right to confederate with each other, and the rest may do