Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/369

.] on in that quarter. This, though improbable, may be so. But to say that, because some settlements are going on in New York, Massachusetts will form a connection with the Mississippi, is, to my mind, most wonderful indeed. The great balance will be in the southern parts of America. There is the most extensive and fertile territory. There is the happiest geographical position, situated contiguously to that valuable and inestimable river. But the settlement of that country will not be warranted by the new Constitution, if it will not be forbidden by it.

No constitution under heaven, founded on principles of justice, can warrant the relinquishment of the most sacred rights of society, to promote the interest of one part of it. Do you not see the danger into which you are going, to throw away one of your dearest and most valuable rights? The people of that country now receive great and valuable emoluments from that right being protected by the existing government. But they must now abandon them. For is there any actual security? Show me any clause in that paper which secures that great right. What was the calculation which told you that it would be safer under the new than under the old government? In my mind, it was erroneous. The honorable gentleman told you that there were two bodies, or branches, which must concur to make a treaty. Sir, the President, as distinguished from the Senate, is nothing. They will combine, and be as one. My honorable friend said that ten men, the senators of five states, could give it up. The present system requires the consent of nine states. Consequently, its security will be much diminished. The people of Kentucky, though weak now, will not let the President and Senate take away this right. Look right, and see this abominable policy—consider seriously its fatal and pernicious tendency! Have we not that right guarantied to us by the most respectable power in Europe? France has guarantied to us our sovereignty and all its appendages. What are its appendages? Are not the rivers and waters, that wash the shores of the country, appendages inseparable from our right of sovereignty? France has guarantied this right to us in the most full and extensive manner. What would have been the consequences had this project with Spain been completed and agreed to? France would have told you, "You have 45