Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/177

.] happily without changing our present despised government Cannot people be as happy under a mild as under an energetic government? Cannot content and felicity be enjoyed in republics as well as in monarchies, because there are whips, chains, and scourges, used in the latter? If I am not as rich as my neighbor, if I give my mite—my all—republican forbearance will say that it is sufficient. So said the honest confederates of Holland—You are poor, we are rich. We will go on, and do better than be under an oppressive government. Far better will it be for us to continue as we are, than to go under that tight, energetic government.

I am persuaded of what the honorable gentleman says, that separate confederacies will ruin us. In my judgment, they are evils never to be thought of till a people are driven by necessity. When he asks my opinion of consolidation, of one power to reign over America with a strong hand, I will tell him I am persuaded of the rectitude of my honorable friend's opinion, (Mr. Mason,) that one government cannot reign over so extensive a country as this is, without absolute despotism. Compared to such a consolidation, small confederacies are little evils; though they ought to be recurred to but in case of necessity. Virginia and North Carolina are despised. They could exist separated from the rest of America. Maryland and Vermont were not overrun when out of the confederacy. Though it is not a desirable object, yet I trust that, on examination, it will be found that Virginia and North Carolina would not be swallowed up, in case it was necessary for them to be joined together.

When we come to the spirit of domestic peace, the humble genius of Virginia has formed a government suitable to the genius of her people. I believe the hands that formed the American Constitution triumph in the experiment. It proves that the man who formed it, and perhaps by accident, did what design could not do in other parts of the world. After all your reforms in government, unless you consult the genius of its inhabitants, you v ill never succeed; your system can have no duration. Let me appeal to the candor of the committee, if the want of money be not the source of all our misfortunes. We cannot be blamed for not making dollars. This want of money cannot be supplied by changes in government. The only possible remedy, as I have before asserted, is industry, aided by economy. Compare the 21