Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/454

438 place and the strongholds, independently of the local authority of the state. I ask you, if this clause be struck out, whether the sweeping clause will not enable them to protect themselves from insult. If you grant them these powers, you destroy every degree of responsibility. They will fully screen them from justice, and preclude the possibility of punishing them. No instance can be given of such a wanton grasp of power as an exclusive legislation in all cases whatever.

Mr. MADISON. Mr. Chairman, I am astonished that the honorable member should launch out into such strong descriptions without any occasion. Was there ever a legislature in existence that held their sessions at a place where they had not jurisdiction? I do not mean such a legislature as they have in Holland; for it deserves not the name. Their powers are such as Congress have now, which we find not reducible to practice. If you be satisfied with the shadow and form, instead of the substance, you will render them dependent on the local authority. Suppose the legislature of this country should sit in Richmond, while the exclusive jurisdiction of the place was in some particular county; would this country think it safe that the general good should be subject to the paramount authority of a part of the community?

The honorable member asks. Why ask for this power, and if the subsequent clause be not fully competent for the same purpose. If so, what new terrors can arise from this particular clause? It is only a superfluity. If that latitude of construction which he contends for were to take place with respect to the sweeping clause, there would be room for those horrors. But it gives no supplementary power It only enables them to execute the delegated powers. If the delegation of their powers be safe, no possible inconvenience can arise from this clause. It is at most but explanatory. For when any power is given, its delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute if. Were it possible to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances in which legislation by the general legislature would be necessary, and leave to the states all the other powers, I imagine no gentleman would object to it. But this is not within the limits of human capacity. The particular powers which are found necessary to be given