Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/188

172 wanted a name for it. Were your health in danger, would you take new medicine? I need not make use of these exclamations: for every member in this committee must be alarmed at making new and unusual experiments in government. Let us have national credit and a national treasury in case of war. You never can want national resources in time of war, if the war be a national one—if it be necessary, and this necessity be obvious to the meanest capacity. The utmost exertions will be used by the people of America in that case. A republic has this advantage over a monarchy, that its wars are generally founded on more just grounds. A republic can never enter into a war, unless it be a national war—unless it be approved of, or desired, by the? whole community. Did ever a republic fail to use the utmost resources of the community when war was necessary? I call for an example. I call also for an example where a republic has been engaged in a war contrary to the wishes of its people. There are thousands of examples where the ambition of its prince has precipitated a nation into the most destructive war. No nation ever withheld power when its object was just and right. I will hazard an observation: I find fault with the paper before you, because the same power that declares war has the power to carry it on. Is it so in England? The king declares war; the House of Commons gives the means of carrying it on. This is a strong check on the king. He will enter into no war that is unnecessary; for the commons, having the power of withholding the means, will exercise that power, unless the object of the war be for the interest of the nation. How is it here? The Congress can both declare war and carry it on, and levy your money, as long as you have a shilling to pay.

I shall now speak a little of the colonial confederacy which was proposed at Albany. Massachusetts did not give her consent to the project at Albany, so as to consolidate with the other colonies. Had there been a consolidation at Albany, where would have been their charter? Would that confederacy have preserved their charter from Britain? The strength and energy of the then designed government would have crushed American opposition.

The American revolution took its origin from the comparative weakness of the British government—not being concentrated in one point. A concentration of the strength and