Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/167

.] this against their invasion of others' rights, or abusing of their power! Such a door is now opened for the establishment of righteous government, and for securing equal liberty, as never was before opened to any people upon earth.

Dr. JARVIS. Mr. President, the objections which gentlemen have made to the form of ratification which has been submitted by your excellency, have arisen either from a doubt of our having a right to propose alterations, or from the supposed improbability that any amendments recommended by this assembly will ever become a part of the federal system. If we have no right, sir, to propose alterations, there remains nothing further to be attempted, but to take the final question, independent of the propositions for amendment. But I hope the mere assertion of any one is not to operate as an argument in this assembly; and we are not yet waiting for evidence to prove this very singular position, which has been so often repeated. If we have a right, sir, to receive or reject the Constitution, surely we have an equal authority to determine in what way this right shall be exercised. It is a maxim, I believe, universally admitted, that, in every instance, the manner in which every power is to be exerted, must be in its nature discretionary with that body to which this power is delegated. If this principle be just, sir, the ground which has been taken to oppose your excellency's proposals, by disputing the right of recommending alterations, must be necessarily relinquished. But gentlemen say, that they find nothing about amendments in the commission under which they are acting, and they conceive it neither agreeable to the resolution of the legislature, nor to the sense of their constituents, that such a scheme should be adopted. Let us inquire, then, sir, under what authority we are acting, and to what tribunal we are amenable. Is it, then, sir, from the late federal Convention that we derive that authority? Is it from Congress, or is it even from the legislature itself? It is from neither, sir. We are convened in right of the people, as their immediate representatives, to execute the most important trust which it is possible to receive; we are accountable, in its execution, to God only, and our own consciences. When gentlemen assert, then, that we have no right to recommend alterations, they must have ideas strangely derogatory to the influence and authority of our constituents, whom we have the honor of representing. But should it be