Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/117

.] what gentlemen meant by Congress guarantying a republican form of government; he wished they would. not play round the subject with their fine stories, like a fox round a trap, but come to it. Why don't they say that Congress will guaranty our state constitution?

Gen. THOMPSON said, Congress only meant to guaranty a form of government.

Hon. Mr. KING asked whether, if the present constitution of this state had been guarantied by the United States, the honorable gentleman from Sutton would not have considered it as a great defect in the proposed Constitution, as it must have precluded the state from making any alteration in it, should they see fit so to do at the time mentioned in the Constitution.

[Several other gentlemen spoke, in a desultory conversation, on various parts of the Constitution; in which several articles from the constitution of this state, and the Confederation, were read; many questions asked the honorable gentlemen who framed the Constitution, to which answers apparently satisfactory were given.]

, January 25.—The 8th section still under debate; but the conversation continued desultory; and much attention was paid to the inquiries of gentlemen on different parts of the Constitution, by those who were in favor of it.

Mr. AMES, in a short discourse, called on those who stood forth in 1775 to stand forth now; to throw aside all interested and party views; to have one purse and one heart for the whole; and to consider that, as it was necessary then, so was it necessary now, to unite,—or die we must.

Hon. Mr. SINGLETARY. Mr. President, I should not have troubled the Convention again, if some gentlemen had not called on them that were on the stage in the beginning of our troubles, in the year 1775. I was one of them. I have had the honor to be a member of the court all the time, Mr. President, and I say that, if any body had proposed such a constitution as this in that day, it would have been thrown away at once. It would not have been looked at. We contended with Great Britain, some said for a threepenny duty on tea; but it was not that; it was because they claimed a right to tax us and bind us in all cases whatever. And does not this Constitution do the same? Does it not take away ill we have—all our property? Does