Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/335

.] exact literal performance. Pass that government, and you will be bound hand and foot. There was an immense quantity of depreciated Continental paper money in circulation at the conclusion of the war. This money is in the hands of individuals to this day. The holders of this money may call for the nominal value, if this government be adopted. This state may be compelled to pay her proportion of that currency, pound for pound. Pass this government, and you will be carried to the federal court, (if I understand that paper right,) and you will be compelled to pay shilling for shilling. I doubt on the subject; at least, as a public man, I ought to have doubts. A state may be sued in the federal court, by the paper on your table. It appears to me, then, that the holder of the paper money may require shilling for shilling. If there be any latent remedy to prevent this, I hope it will be discovered.

The precedent, with respect to the union between England and Scotland, does not hold. The union of Scotland speaks in plain and direct terms. Their privileges were particularly secured. It was expressly provided that they should retain their own particular laws. Their nobles have a right to choose representatives to the number of sixteen. I might thus go on and specify particulars; but it will suffice to observe, generally, that their rights and privileges were expressly and unequivocally reserved. The power of direct taxation was not given up by the Scotch people. There is no trait in that union which will maintain their arguments. In order to do this, they ought to have proved that Scotland united without securing their rights, and afterwards got that security by subsequent amendments. Did the people of Scotland do this? No, sir; like a sensible people, they trusted nothing to hazard. If they have but forty-five members, and those be often corrupted, these defects will be greater here. The number will be smaller, and they will be consequently the more easily corrupted. Another honorable gentleman advises us to give this power, in order to exclude the necessity of going to war. He wishes to establish national credit, I presume, and imagines that, if a nation has public faith, and shows a disposition to comply with her engagements, she is safe among ten thousand dangers. If the honorable gentleman can prove that this paper is calculated to give us public faith, I will be satisfied. But if