Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/477

Rh plan reported, it is true, only intends to diminish those rights, not to annihilate them. It was the ambition and power of the great Grecian states which at last ruined their respectable council. The states, as societies, are ever respectable. Has Holland or Switzerland ever complained of the equality of the states which compose their respective confederacies? Berne and Zurich are larger than the remaining eleven cantons. So of many of the states of Germany; and yet their governments are not complained of. Berne alone might usurp the whole power of the Helvetic confederacy, but she is contented still with being equal.

The admission of the larger states into the Confederation, on the principles of equality, is dangerous. But on the Virginia system, it is ruinous and destructive. Still it is the true interest of all the states to confederate. It is their joint efforts which must protect and secure us from foreign danger, and give us peace and harmony at home.

[Here Mr. MARTIN entered into a detail of the comparative powers of each state, and stated their probable weakness and strength.]

At the beginning: of our troubles with Great Britain, the smaller states were attempted to be cajoled to submit to the views of that nation, lest the larger states should usurp their rights. We then answered them, Your present plan is slavery, which, on the remote prospect of a distant evil, we will not submit to.

I would rather confederate with any single state than submit to the Virginia plan. But we are already confederated, and no power on earth can dissolve it but by the consent of all the contracting powers; and four states, on this floor, have already declared their opposition to annihilate it. Is the old Confederation dissolved, because some of the states wish a new Confederation?

Mr. LANSING. I move that the word "not" be struck out of the resolve, and then the question will stand on its proper ground: and the resolution will read thus: that the representation of the first branch be according to the Articles of the Confederation; and the sense of the Convention on this point will determine the question of a federal or national government.

Mr. MADISON. I am against the motion. I confess the necessity of harmonizing: and if it could be shown that

5839