Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/617

.] the reservation of rights not expressly given away he repeated what he had before observed of the 2d article of the Confederation, that it was interpreted to prohibit Congress from granting passports, although such a power was necessarily incident to that of making war. Did not this, says he show the vanity of all the federal authority? Gentlemen have displayed great wisdom in the use they make of the experience of the defects in the old Confederation. When we see the defect of that article, are we to repeat it? Are those gentlemen zealous friends to the Union, who profess to be so here, and yet insist on a repetition of measures which have been found destructive to it? I believe their professions, but they must pardon me when I say their arguments are not true.

[His excellency then read the 2d amendment proposed, respecting the number of representatives.]

What better security have you under these words than under the clause in the paper before you? This puts it in the power of your representatives to continue the number of it in that paper. They may always find a pretext to justify their regulations concerning it. They may continue the number at two hundred, when an augmentation would be necessary.

As to the amendment respecting direct taxation, the subject has been so fully handled, and is so extensive in its nature, that it is needless to say any thing of it.

The 4th amendment goes on the wide field of indiscriminate suspicion that every one grasps after offices, and that Congress will create them unnecessarily. Perhaps it will exclude the most proper from offices of great importance to the community.

[Here he read the 5th amendment.]—I beg the honorable gentleman to tell me on what subject Congress will exercise this power improperly. If there be any treachery in their view, the words in this amendment are broad enough to allow it. It is as good a security in this Constitution, as human ingenuity can devise; for if they intend any treachery, they will not let you see it.

[Here he read the 7th and 8th amendments.]—I have never hesitated to acknowledge that I wished the regulation of commerce had been put in the hands of a greater body than it is in the sense of the Constitution. But I appeal to 7651