Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/613

.] destruction would lead me to vote for the Constitution in spite of the objections I have to it. But, sir, what have I heard to-day? I sympathized most warmly with what other gentlemen said yesterday, that, let the contest be what it may, the minority should submit to the majority. With satisfaction and joy I heard what he then said—that he would submit, and that there should be peace if his power could procure it. What a sad reverse to-day! Are we not told, by way of counterpart to language that did him honor, that he would secede? I hope he will pardon, and correct me if I misrecite him; but if not corrected, my interpretation is, that secession by him will be the consequence of adoption without previous amendments.

[Here Mr. HENRY explained himself, and denied having said any thing of secession, but that he said, he would have no hand in subsequent amendments; that he would remain and vote, and afterwards he would have no business here.]

I see, continued his excellency, that I am not mistaken in my thoughts. The honorable gentleman says, he will remain and vote on the question, but after that he has no business here, and that he will go home. I beg to make a few remarks on the subject of secession. If there be in this house members who have in contemplation to secede from the majority, let me conjure them, by all the ties of honor and duty, to consider what they are about to do. Some of them have more property than I have, and all of them are equal to me in personal rights. Such an idea of refusing to submit to the decision of the majority is destructive of every republican principle. It will kindle a civil war, and reduce every thing to anarchy and confusion. To avoid a calamity so lamentable, I would submit to it, if it contained greater evils than it does.

What are they to say to their constituents when they go home? "We come here to tell you that liberty is in danger, and, though the majority is in favor of it, you ought not to submit." Can any man consider, without shuddering with horror, the awful consequences of such desperate conduct? I entreat men to consider and ponder what good citizenship requires of them. I conjure them to contemplate the consequences as to themselves as well as others. They themselves will be overwhelmed in the general disorder. I did not think that the proposition of the honorable gentleman