Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/214

198 been completed, it would have destroyed all union and happiness. What has that to do with this paper? It tells us what the present situation of America is. Can any man say he could draw a better picture of our situation than that paper? He says that, by the completion of that project, the king of Great Britain might have bound us so tight together, that resistance would have been ineffectual. Does it not tell us that union is necessary? Will not our united strength be more competent to our defence, against any assault, than the force of a part? If, in their judgment alone who could decide on it, it was judged sufficient to secure their happiness and. prosperity, why say that that project would have destroyed us? But the honorable gentleman again recurs to his beloved requisitions, on which he advises us to trust our happiness. Can any thing be more imprudent than to put the general government on so humiliating and disgraceful a footing? What are they but supplications and entreaties to the states to do their duty? Shall we rely on a system of which every man knows the inefficacy? One cannot conceive any thing more contemptible than a government which is forced to make humble applications to other governments for the means of its common support—which is driven to apply for a little money to carry on its administration a few months. After the total incapacity of the Confederation to secure our happiness has been fully experienced, what will be the consequence if we reject this Constitution? Shall we recur to separate confederacies? The honorable gentleman acknowledges them to be evils which ought not to be resorted to but on the last necessity—they are evils of the first magnitude.

Permit me to extract out of the confederation of Albany a fact of the highest authority, because drawn from human nature, which clearly demonstrates the fatal impolicy of separate confederacies. [Here he made a quotation to that effect.] If there is a gentleman here who harbors in his mind the idea of a separate confederacy, I beg him to consider the consequence. Where shall we find refuge in the day of calamity? The different confederacies will be rivals in power and commerce, and therefore will soon be implacable enemies of one another. I ask if there be any objection to this system, that will not come with redoubled energy against any other plan. See the defects in this Constitution,