Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/475

Rh form two thirds of the legislatures. I am willing to give up private interest to the public good; but I must be satisfied first that it is the public interest; and who can decide this point? A majority, only, of the Union.

The Lacedemonians insisted, in the Amphictyonic council, to exclude some of the smaller states from a right to vote, in order that they might tyrannize over them. If the plan now on the table be adopted, three states in the Union have the control, and they may make use of their power when they please.

If there exist no separate interests, there is no danger in an equality of votes; and if there be danger, the smaller states cannot yield. If the foundation of the existing Confederation is well laid, powers may be added. You may safely add a third story to a house, where the foundation is good. Read, then, the votes and proceedings of Congress on forming the Confederation. Virginia only was opposed to the principles of equality. The smaller states yielded rights, not the large states. They gave up their claim to the unappropriated lands with the tenderness of the mother recorded by Solomon. They sacrificed affection to the preservation of others. New Jersey and Maryland rendered more essential services during the war than many of the larger states. The partial representation in Congress is not the cause of its weakness, but the want of power. I would not trust a government, organized upon the reported plan, for all the slaves of Carolina, or the horses and oxen of Massachusetts. Price says that laws made by one man, or a set of men, and not by common consent, is slavery. And it is so when applied to states, if you give them an unequal representation. What are called human feelings, in this instance, are only the feelings of ambition and the lust of power.

Adjourned till to-morrow morning.

, June 28, 1787.

Met pursuant to adjournment. Mr. MARTIN, in continuation. On federal grounds, it is said that a minority will govern a majority; but on the Virginia plan, a minority would tax a majority. In a federal government, a majority of states must and ought to tax. In local government of states, counties may be unequal: still numbers, not property, govern. What is the government now forming—over states or