Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/508

488 soldiery? As soon would a navy move from the forest, and an army spring from the earth, as such a confederacy, indebted, impoverished in its commerce, and destitute of men, could, for some years at least, provide an ample defence for itself.

Let it not be forgotten that nations, which can enforce their rights, have large claims against the United States, and that the creditor may insist upon payment from any of them. Which of them would probably be the victim? The most productive and the most exposed. When vexed by reprisals of war, the Southern States will sue for alliance on this continent or beyond the sea. If for the former, the necessity of a union of the whole is decided; if for the latter, America will, I fear, react the scenes of confusion and bloodshed exhibited among most of those nations, which have, too late, repented the filly of relying on auxiliaries.

Two or more confederacies cannot but be competitors for power. The ancient friendship between the citizens of America being thus cut off, bitterness and hostility will succeed in its place. In order to prepare against surrounding danger, we shall be compelled to vest, somewhere or other, power approaching near to military government.

The annals of the world have abounded so much with instances of a divided people being a prey to foreign influence, that I shall not restrain my apprehensions of it, should our Union be torn asunder. The opportunity of insinuating it will be multiplied in proportion to the parts into which we may be broken.

In short, sir, I am fatigued with summoning up to my imagination the miseries which will harass the United States, if torn from each other, and which will not end until they are superseded by fresh mischiefs under the yoke of a tyrant.

I come, therefore, to the last, and perhaps only refuge in our difficulties,—a consolidation of the Union, as far as circumstances will permit. To fulfil this desirable object, the Constitution was framed by the Federal Convention. A quorum of eleven states, and the only member from the twelfth, have subscribed it; Mr. Mason, of Virginia, Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, and myself, having refused to subscribe; also Robert Yates, and John Lansing, of New York.

Why I refused will, I hope, be solved to the satisfaction of those who know me, by saying that a sense of duty commanded me thus to act. It commanded me, sir; for believe me, that no event of my life ever occupied more of my reflection. To subscribe seemed to offer no inconsiderable gratification, since it would have presented me to the world as a fellow-laborer with the learned and zealous statesmen of America.

But it was far more interesting to my feelings that I was about to differ from three of my colleagues, one of whom is, to the honor of the country which he has saved, embosomed in their affections, and can receive no praise from the highest lustre of language; the other two of whom have been long enrolled among the wisest and best lovers of the commonwealth; and the unshaken and intimate friendship of all of whom I have ever prized, and still do prize, as among the happiest of all acquisitions. I was no stranger to the reigning partiality for the members who composed the Convention, and had not the smallest doubt, that from this cause, and from the ardor for a reform of government, the first applauses, at least, would be loud and profuse. I suspected, too, that there was something in the human breast which for a time would be apt to construe a temperateness in politics into an enmity to the Union.