Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/476

456 ? As to the latter, their rights cannot be the object of a general government. These are already secured by their guardians, the state governments. The general government is, therefore, intended only to protect and guard the rights of the states as states.

This general government, I believe, is the first upon earth which gives checks against democracies or aristocracies. The only necessary check, in a general government, ought to be a restraint to prevent its absorbing the powers of the state governments. Representation, on federal principles, can only flow from state societies. Representation and taxation are ever inseparable—not according to the quantum of property, but the quantum of freedom.

Will the representatives of a state forget state interests? The mode of election cannot change it. These prejudices cannot be eradicated. Your general government cannot be just or equal, upon the Virginia plan, unless you abolish state interests. If this cannot be done, you must go back to principles purely federal.

On this latter ground, the state legislatures and their constituents will have no interests to pursue different from the general government, and both will be interested to support each other.

Under these ideas, can it be expected that the people can approve the Virginia plan? But it is said, the people, not the state legislatures, will be called upon for approbation—with an evident design to separate the interest of the governors from the governed. What must be the consequence? Anarchy and confusion. We lose the idea of the powers with which we are intrusted. The legislatures must approve.

By them it must, on your own plan, be laid before the people. How will such a government, over so many great states, operate? Wherever new settlements have been formed in large states, they immediately want to shake off their dependency. Why? Because the government is too remote for their good. The people want it nearer home.

The basis of all ancient and modern confederacies is the freedom and the independency of the states composing it. The states forming the Amphictyonic council were equal, though Lacedemon, one of the greatest states, attempted the exclusion of three of the lesser states from this right. The