Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/140

124 circumstances with themselves, to represent them? What laws can they make that will not operate on themselves and friends, as well as on the rest of the people? Will the people reelect the same men to repeat oppressive legislation? Will the people commit suicide against themselves, and discard all those maxims and principles of interest and self-preservation which actuate mankind in all their transactions? Will the ten miles square transform our representatives into brutes and tyrants? I see no grounds to distrust them: but suppose they will be inclined to do us mischief; how can they effect it? If the federal necessities call for the sum of sixty-five thousand pounds, our proportion of that sum is ten thousand pounds. If, instead of this just proportion, they should require a greater sum, a conflict would ensue. What steps could they take to enforce the payment of the unjust and tyrannical demand? They must summon up all the genius of better men; but in case of actual violence, they could not raise the thousandth part of ten thousand pounds. In case of a struggle, sir, the people would be irresistible. If they should be so liable to lapse from virtue, yet would not one man be found, out of a multitude, to guard the interests of the people—not one man to hold up his head to discover the tyrannical projects of a corrupt and depraved majority?

Suppose the House of Representatives all equally infatuated, and determined on so wicked an intention as to infringe the rights of the people; they have not the whole authority in their own hands. There are twenty-six senators, distinguished for their wisdom, not elevated by popular favor, but chosen by a select body of intelligent men: will they also be corrupt? Will their honor and virtue be contaminated and disgraced in one instant? Sixty-five representatives and twenty-six senators are then to be suddenly changed from upright men to monsters: ninety-one persons, selected tor superior qualities, are to compose this Pandemonium of iniquity. The supposition of their degenerating to such a degree is unwarrantable, and inconsistent with an admission of their being freely chosen by a people capable of discerning merit; and should a majority ever be so forgetful of their duty as to wish to trample on the immunities of the people, there is no reason to doubt that some of them will be so far inspired with a zeal for liberty as to warn their country of