Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/410

394 system contending about? It is the reasoning among all reasoners, that nothing to something adds nothing. If the new plan does not contain any new powers, why advocate it? If it does, whence are they taken? The honorable member cannot understand our argument about the sword and the purse, and asks, Why should the states hold them? I say, the state governments ought to hold the purse, to keep people's hands out of it. With respect to the sword, I say you must handle it, through your general government; but the states must have some agency, or the people will not be willing to put their hands to it. It is observed that we must talk a great deal, and that it is necessary to support here what we have said out of doors. Sir, I conceive that we ought to talk of this subject every where. Several gentlemen have observed that it is necessary these powers should be vested in Congress, that they may have funds to pledge for the payment of debts. This argument has not the least weight in my mind. The government ought not to have it in their power to borrow with too great facility. The funds which we agree to lodge with Congress will be sufficient for as much as they ought to borrow.

I submit to the candor of the committee, whether any evidence of the strength of a cause is afforded, when gentlemen, instead of reasoning fairly, assert roundly, and use all the powers of ridicule and rhetoric to abuse their adversaries. Any argument may be placed in a ridiculous light, by taking only detached parts. I wish, Mr. Chairman, that ridicule may be avoided. It can only irritate the passions, and has no tendency to convince the judgment.

The CHANCELLOR said, he was very unfortunate in provoking so many able antagonists. They had given a turn to his arguments and expressions which he did not expect. He was, however, happy that he could say, with Sir John Falstaff, that if he had no wit himself, he had been the occasion of wit in others; and therefore he supposed that the ladies, this day, had been as well entertained as yesterday. He went on to. explain what the gentleman had imputed to him as contradictions. He had charged him with saying that a federal government could not exist, and yet that he had contended for one. This was false; he had maintained that a single league of states could not long exist, and had proved it by examples. This was fair reasoning,