Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/213

.] the certain consequence of the continuance of such a disgraceful conduct. He then informed us that no danger was to be apprehended from Spain—that she trembles for Mexico and Peru. That nation, sir, is a powerful nation, and has immense resources. What will she be when united with France and other nations who have cause of complaint against us? Mr. Chairman, Maryland seems, too, to he disregarded. The loss of the Union would not bring her arms upon our heads:—look at the Northern Neck! If the Union is dissolved, will it adhere to Virginia? Will the people of that place sacrifice their safety for us? How are we to retain them? By force of arms? Is this the happy way he proposes for leaving us out of the Union?

We are next informed that there is no danger from the borders of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and that my observations upon the frontiers of England and Scotland are inapplicable. He distinguishes republican from monarchical borderers, and ascribes pacific meekness to the former, and barbarous ferocity to the latter. There is as much danger, sir, from republican borderers as from any other. The danger results from the situation of borderers, and not from the nature of the government under which they live. History will show that as much barbarity and cruelty have been committed upon one another by republican borderers as by any other. We are borderers upon three states, two of which are ratifying states. I therefore repeat, sir, that we have danger to apprehend from this quarter.

As to the people's complaints of the government, the gentleman must either have misunderstood me, or went over very slightly what I said of the Confederation. He spoke of the Constitution of Virginia, concerning which I said nothing. The Confederation, sir, on which we are told we ought to trust our safety, is totally void of coercive power and energy. Of this the people of America have been long convinced; and this conviction has been sufficiently manifested to the world. Of this I spoke, and now I repeat, that if we trust to it, we shall be defenceless. The general government ought to be vested with powers competent to our safety, or else the necessary consequence must be, that we shall be defenceless.

The honorable gentleman tells us that, if the project at Albany for the colonial consolidation, as he terms it, had