Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/197

.] Direct taxation is another objection on which the honorable gentleman expatiates. This has been answered by several able gentlemen; but as the honorable gentleman reverts to the subject, I hope I shall be excused in saying a little on it. If union be necessary, direct taxes are also necessary for its support. If it be an inconvenience, it results from the union; and we must take its disadvantages with it: besides, it will render it unnecessary to recur to the sanguinary method which some gentlemen are said to admire. Had the Amphictyonic council had the power contained in that paper, would they have sent armies to levy money? Will the honorable gentleman say that it is more eligible and humane to collect money by carrying fire and sword through the country, than by the peaceable mode of raising money of the people, through the medium of an officer of peace, when it is necessary?

But says he, "The President will enslave you; Congress will trample on your liberties; a few regiments will appear, Mr. Chief Justice must give way; our mace-bearer is no match for a regiment." It was inhuman to place an individual against a whole regiment. A few regiments will not avail; I trust the supporters of the government would get the better of many regiments. Were so mad an attempt made, the people would assemble in thousands, and drive thirty times the number of their few regiments. We would then do as we have already done with the regiments of that king whom he so often tells us of.

The public liberty, says he, is designed to be destroyed. What does he mean? Does he mean that we, who are friends to that government, are not friends to liberty? No man dares to say so. Does he mean that he is a greater admirer of liberty than we are? Perhaps so. But I undertake to say that, when it will be necessary to struggle in the cause of freedom, he will find himself equaled by thousands of those who support this Constitution. The purse of the people of Virginia is not given up by that paper: they can take no more of our money than is necessary to pay our share of the public debts, and provide for the general welfare. Were it otherwise, no man would be louder against it than myself.

He has represented our situation as contradistinguished from the other states. What does he mean? I ask if it be