Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/132

116 mode of raising a revenue in Virginia to be that of requisitions; suppose your requisitions sent on to every county; say that money is wanted; assume the most pressing language—"We earnestly entreat you; we humbly supplicate and solicit you would furnish us with one thousand or one hundred pounds, to defray the necessary charges of our government! "What would be the result of such applications for voluntary contributions? You would be laughed at for your folly, for thinking human nature could be thus operated upon. From my knowledge of human nature, and of my countrymen, I am perfectly certain this would be the case. The argument will be found good in all cases; it will admit of any extension. I ask any gentleman in this house, if states would comply with what even a few individuals would refuse? Would not the requisitions of Congress meet a similar fate? This, sir, has as often happened as it has been the pleasure of the states to withhold the quotas. Not a shilling has been put into the Continental treasury but with the utmost reluctance. The probable delinquency of other states has been the pretext of non-compliance, with every state. It has been thought hard that our General Assembly should pay when Congress ordered us. Our representatives have been supposed careless of our interest in paying the demands of Congress, while delinquencies happened in other states. Punctuality, sir, instead of being held in that estimation which it really merits, has been looked upon as an improvident expenditure of the substance of the people, and a subjection of the inhabitants to grievances and burdens to which the people of delinquent states were not exposed. This idea has been held in many states, and would hold again. Whosoever depends on the mere right to demand their respective proportions of the states, shows a total ignorance of human actions, and betrays an unacquaintance with the principles of sure policy. The principal ends of all political institutions are the happiness and safety of the community; but a reliance on congressional requisitions would leave the country exposed and open to those who should choose to invade us, or lead to such sedition and confusion among ourselves as must subvert and destroy every object of human society. If requisitions be not faithfully complied with, military coercion seems necessary: coercion, judiciously and moderately