Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/151

.] the tax is laid on polls: why, the people of the former place will pay their tax ten times as easy as the latter—thus helping that part of the community which stands in the least need of help. On this footing, the poor pay as much as the rich; and in this a way is laid, that five slaves shall be rated no more than three children. Let gentlemen consider this: a farmer takes three small orphans, on charity, to bring up; they are bound to him: when they arrive at twenty-one years of age, he gives each of them a couple of suits of clothes, a cow, and two or three young cattle: we are rated as much for these as a farmer in Virginia is for five slaves, whom he holds for life—they and their posterity—the males and the she ones too. The Senate, Mr. President, are to be chosen two from each state. This, sir, puts the smaller states on a footing with the larger, when the states have to pay according to their numbers. New Hampshire does not pay a fourth part as much as Massachusetts. We must, therefore, to support the dignity of the Union, pay four times as much as New Hampshire, and almost fourteen times as much as Georgia, who, we see, are equally represented with us.

The term, sir, for which the Senate is chosen, is a grievance. It is too long to trust any body of men with power. It is impossible but that such men will be tenacious of their places; they are to be raised to a lofty eminence, and they will be loath to come down; and, in the course of six years, may, by management, have it in their power to create officers, and obtain influence enough to get in again, and so for life. When we felt the hand of British oppression upon us, we were so jealous of rulers, as to declare them eligible but for three years in six. In this constitution we forget this principle. I, sir, think that rulers ought, at short periods, to return to private life, that they may know how to feel for and regard their fellow-creatures. In six years, sir and at a great distance, they will quite forget them;—

We are apt to forget our friends, except when we are conversing with them.

We now come, sir, to the 4th section. Let us see: the time, place, and manner of holding elections, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. No objections to this: but, sir, after the flash of lightning comes the