Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/370

354 given it up yourselves; you have put it on a different footing; and if your bad policy has done this, it is your own folly. You have drawn it on your own heads; and, as you have bartered away this valuable right, neither policy nor justice will call on me to guaranty what you gave up yourselves." This language would satisfy the most sanguine American.

Is there an opinion that any future projects will better secure you? If this strong government contended for be adopted, seven states will give it up forever; for a temporary cession is, in my opinion, perfectly the same thing. The thing is so obviously big with danger, that the blind man himself might see it.

As to the American secretary, the goodness of his private character is not doubted. It is public conduct which we are to inspect. The public conduct of this secretary goes against the express authority of nine states. Although he may be endowed with the most brilliant talents, I have a right to consider his politics as abandoned. Yet his private virtues may merit applause. You see many attempts made, which, when brought into actual experiment, are found to result from abandoned principles. The states are geographically situated so and so. Their circumstances are well known. It is suggested, this expedient was only to temporize till a more favorable opportunity. Will any gentleman tell me that the business was taken up hastily, when that vote was taken in Congress? When you consider the ability of the gentlemen who voted in Congress on that question, you must be persuaded that they knew what they were about. American interest was fully understood. New Jersey called her delegates from Congress for having voted against this right. Delegates may be called and instructed under the present system, but not by the new Constitution. The measure of the Jersey delegates was adverse to the interest of that state, and they were recalled for their conduct.

The honorable gentleman has said that the House of Representatives would give some curb to this business of treaties respecting the Mississippi. This is to me incomprehensible. He will excuse me if I tell him he is exercising his imagination and ingenuity. Will the honorable gentleman say that the House of Representatives will break through their