Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/648

632 divided in opinion, several of those brave officers whom I have seen so gallantly fighting and bleeding for their country, the question is doubly interesting to me. I thought it would be the last of human events, that I should be on a different side from them on so awful an occasion. However painful and distressing to me the recollection of this diversity of sentiment may be, I am consoled by this reflection—that difference of opinion has a happy consequence; it aids discussion, and is a friend to truth. We ought (and I hope we have the temper) to be regulated by candor and moderation—without which, in a deliberative body, every thing with respect to the public good evaporates into nothing.

I came hither under a persuasion that the felicity of our country required that we should accede to this system; but I am free to declare that I came in with my mind open to conviction, and a predetermination to recede from my opinion, if I should find it to be erroneous. I have heard nothing hitherto that would warrant a change of one idea. The objections urged by the advocates of the opposition have been ably, and, in my conception, satisfactorily answered by the friends of the Constitution. I wish, instead of reasoning from possible abuses, that the government had been considered as an abstract position, drawn from the history of all nations and such theoretic opinions as experience has demonstrated to be right. I have waited to hear this mode of reasoning, but in vain. Instead of this, sir, horrors have been called up, chimeras suggested, and every terrific and melancholy idea adduced to prevent what I think indispensably necessary for our national honor, happiness, and safety—I mean the adoption of the system under consideration.

How are we to decide this question? Shall we take the system by way of subsequent amendments, or propose amendments as the previous condition of our adoption? Let us consider this question coolly. In my humble opinion, it transcends the power of this Convention to take it with previous amendments. If you take it so, I say that you transcend and violate the commission of the people; for, if it be taken with amendments, the opinions of the people at large ought to be consulted on them. Have they an opportunity of considering previous amendments? They have seen the Constitution, and sent us hither to adopt or reject it. Have we more latitude on this subject? If you propose