Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/288

272 form we never can accede to it. Our duty to God and to our posterity forbids it. We acknowledge the defects of the Confederation, and the necessity of a reform. We ardently wish for a union with our sister states, on terms of security. This I am bold to declare is the desire of most of the people. On these terms we will most cheerfully join with the warmest friends of this Constitution. On another occasion I shall point out the great dangers of this Constitution, and the amendments which are necessary. I will likewise endeavor to show that amendments after ratification are delusive and fallacious—perhaps utterly impracticable.

Mr. LEE (of Westmoreland) strongly urged the propriety of adhering to the resolution of the house, of debating the subject regularly; that the irregular and disorderly manner in which gentlemen had hitherto proceeded was unfriendly to a rational and just decision, tended to protract time unnecessarily, and interfered with the private concerns of gentlemen.

He then proceeded: I waited some time in hopes that some gentleman on the same side of the question would rise I hope that I may take the liberty of making a few remarks on what fell from the honorable gentleman last up. He has endeavored to draw our attention from the merits of the question by Jocose observations and satirical allusions. He ought to know that ridicule is not the test of truth. Does he imagine that he who can raise the loudest laugh is the soundest reasoner? Sir, the judgments, and not the risibility, of gentlemen, are to be consulted. Had the gentleman followed that rule which he himself proposed, he would not have shown the letter of a private gentleman, who, in times of difficulty, had offered his opinion respecting the mode in which it would be most expedient to raise the public funds. Does it follow, since a private individual proposed such a scheme of taxation, that the new government will adopt it ? But the same principle has also governed the gentleman when he mentions the expressions of another private gentleman—the well-born; that our federal representatives are to be chosen from the higher orders of the people—from the well-born. Is there a single expression like this in the Constitution ? Every man who is entitled to vote for a member of our own state legislature, will have a right to vote for a member in the House of