Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/296

280 Will this Constitution remedy the fatal inconveniences of the clashing state interests? Will not every member that goes from Virginia be actuated by state influence? So they will also from every other state. Will the liberty and property of this country be secure under such a government? What, sir, is the present Constitution? A republican government founded on the principles of monarchy, with the three estates. Is it like the model of Tacitus or Montesquieu? Are there checks in it, as in the British monarchy? There is an executive fetter in some parts, and as unlimited in others as a Roman dictator. A democratic branch marked with the strong features of aristocracy, and an aristocratic branch with all the impurities and imperfections of the British House of Commons, arising from the inequality of representation and want of responsibility. There will be plenty of Old Sarums, if the new Constitution should be adopted. Do we love the British so well as to imitate their imperfections? We could not effect it more than in that particular instance. Are not all defects and corruption founded on an inequality of representation and want of responsibility? How is the executive? Contrary to the opinion of all the best writers, blended with the legislative. We have asked for bread, and they have given us a stone. I am willing to give the government the regulation of trade. It will be serviceable in regulating the trade among the states. But I believe that it will not be attended with the advantages generally expected.

As to direct taxation—give up this, and you give up every thing, as it is the highest act of sovereignty: surrender up this inestimable jewel, and you throw away a pearl richer than all your tribe. But it has been said by an honorable gentleman, (Mr. Pendleton,) as well as I recollect, that there could be no such thing as an interference between the two legislatures, either in point of direct taxation, or in any other case whatsoever. An honorable gentleman (Mr. Mason) has replied that they might interfere in the case of a poll tax. I will go farther, and say, that the case may happen in the judiciary. Suppose a state execution and a federal execution issued against the same man, and the state officer and federal officer seize him at the same moment; would they divide the man in two, as Solomon directed the child to be divided who was claimed by two