Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/377

.] state can help her. She may call on tne present general government; but, whatever may be the wish of Congress, they can give them no relief. That country contains all my wishes and prospects. There is my property, and there I intend to reside. I should be averse to the establishment of any system which would be injurious to it. I flatter myself that this government will secure their happiness and liberty.

Gov. RANDOLPH. Since I have seen so many attempts made, and so many wrong inducements offered, to influence the delegation from Kentucky, I must, from a regard to justice and truth, give my opinion on the subject. If I have no interest in that country, I hope they will consider what I have to say as proceeding from an impartial mind.—That the people of Kentucky have an unequivocal right to the navigation of the Mississippi, by the law of nature and nations, is clear and undoubted; though, to my own knowledge, a question has arisen, whether the former connection of America with Great Britain has not taken it away from them. There was a dispute respecting the right of Great Britain to that river, and the United States have only the same right which the original possessor had, from whom it was transferred. I am willing to declare that the right is complete; but where is the danger of losing it by the operation of the new government? The honorable gentleman tells us that France has guarantied to us the possession of that river. We need not trouble ourselves about it. France, he supposes, will do every thing for us. Does this pretended security enable us to make use of it? Is there any reasonable motive to induce the government to give it up? If it be not given up, if the guaranty of France be any security now, it will be so then. I wish an honorable gentleman over the way had known certain facts. If he had, they must have operated on his mind to refrain from making such observations. [Here his excellency read the treaty of peace with Great Britain, defining the boundaries of the United States.]

He then declared, that, from the most liberal interpretation, it would never give the inhabitants a right to pass through the middle of New Orleans. I appeal to what the French ambassador said, in 1781, in Congress—that America had no right to the Mississippi. If the opinion of the 4631