Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/662

646 likewise. The people are not lo be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them. The government is administered by the representatives of the people voluntarily and freely chosen.

Under these circumstances, should any one attempt to establish their own system, in prejudice of the rest, they would be universally detested and opposed, and easily frustrated. This is a principle which secures religious liberty most firmly. The government will depend on the assistance of the people in the day of distress. This is the case in all governments. It never was otherwise. They object to this government because it is strong and energetic, and, with respect to the rich and poor, that it will be favorable to the one and oppressive to the other. It is right it should be energetic. This does not show that the poor shall be more oppressed than the rich. Let us examine it. If it admits that private and public justice should be done, it admits what is just. As to the indolent and fraudulent, nothing will reclaim these but the hand of force and compulsion. Is there any thing, in this government which will show that it will bear hardly and unequally on the honest and industrious part of the community? I think not. As to the mode of taxation, the proportion of each state, being known, cannot be exceeded; and such proportion will be raised, in the most equitable manner, of the people, according to their ability. There is nothing to warrant a supposition that the poor will be equally taxed with the wealthy and opulent.

I shall make a comparison, to illustrate my observations, between the state and the general government. In our state government, so much admired by the worthy gentleman over the way, though there are 1700 militia in some counties, and but 150 in others, yet every county sends two members, to assist in legislating for the whole community. There is disproportion between the respectable county of Augusta, which I have the honor to represent, and the circumscribed, narrow county of Warwick. Will any gentleman tell us that this is a more equal representation than is fixed in the Constitution, whereby 30,000 are to send one representative, in whatever place they may reside? By the same state system, the poor, in many instances, pay as much as the rich. Many laws occur to my mind where I could show you that the representation and taxation bear hard on those who live