Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/653

.] greater probability of obtaining the one than the other? Will not nine states more probably agree to any amendments than thirteen? The doctrine of chances is in favor of it.

Unless we in vain look for a perfect constitution, we ought to take it. In vain you will seek, from India to the pole, for a perfect constitution. Though it may have certain defects, yet I doubt whether any system more perfect can be obtained at this time. Let us no longer pursue chimerical and ridiculous systems. Let us try it: experience is the best test. It will bear equally on all the states from New Hampshire to Georgia; and as it will operate equally on all, they will all call for amendments; and whatever the spirit of America calls for, must doubtless take place immediately.

I consider Congress as ourselves, as our fellow-citizens, and no more different from us than our delegates in the state legislature. I consider them as having all a fellow feeling for us, and that they will never forget that this government is that of the people. Under this impression, I conclude that they will never dare to go beyond the bounds prescribed in the Constitution, and that, as they are eligible and removable by ourselves, there is sufficient responsibility; for where the power of election frequently reverts to the people, and that reversion is unimpeded, there can be no danger. Upon the whole, this is the question—Shall it be adopted or rejected? With respect to previous amendments, they are equal to rejection. They are abhorrent to my mind. I consider them as the greatest of evils. I think myself bound to vote against every measure which I conceive to be a total rejection, than which nothing, in my conception, can be more imprudent, destructive, and calamitous.

Mr. TYLER. Mr. Chairman, I should have been satisfied with giving my vote on the question to-day; but, as I wish to hand down to posterity my opposition to this system, I conceive it to be my duty to declare the principles on which I disapprove it, and the cause of my opposition. I have seriously considered the subject in my mind, and when I consider the effects which may happen to this country from its adoption, I tremble at it. My opposition to it arose first from general principles, independent of any local consideration. But when I find that the Constitution is expressed in indefinite terms, in terms which the gentlemen who composed it do not all concur in the meaning of,—I say that,