Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/328

312 to many characters who were in Congress, that they declared that they never would enter into the measure, unless the situation of the United States was such as could not prevent it.

I suppose that the adoption of this government will be favorable to the preservation of the right to that navigation. Emigration will be made, from those parts of the United States which are settled, to those parts which are unsettled. If we afford protection to the western country, we shall see it rapidly peopled. Emigrations from some of the Northern States have been lately increased. We may conclude, as has been said by a gentleman on the same side, (Mr. Nicholas,) that those who emigrate to that country will leave behind them all their friends and connections as advocates for this right.

What was the cause of those states being the champions of this right when the Southern States were disposed to surrender it? The preservation of this right will be for the general interest of the Union. The western country will be settled from the north as well as the south, and its prosperity will add to the strength and security of the Union. I am not able to recollect all those circumstances which would be necessary to give gentlemen a full view of the subject. I can only add, that I conceive that the establishment of the new government will be the best possible means of securing our rights, as well in the western parts as elsewhere. I will not sit down till I make one more observation on what fell from my honorable friend. He says that the true difference between the states lies in this circumstance—that some are carrying states and others productive, and that the operation of the new government will be, that there will be a plurality of the former to combine against the interest of the latter, and that consequently it will be dangerous to put it in their power to do so. I would join with him in sentiments, if this were the case. Were this within the bounds of probability, I should be equally alarmed; but I think that those states, which are contradistinguished, as carrying states, from the non-importing states, will be but few. I suppose the Southern States will be considered by all as under the latter description. Some other states have been mentioned by an honorable member on the same side, which are not considered as carrying states. New Jersey