Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/96

80 me leave to say, that I see naught but destruction in a local confederacy. With what state can we confederate but North Carolina?—North Carolina, situated worse than ourselves. Consult your own reason; I beseech gentlemen most seriously to reflect on the consequences of such a confederacy; I beseech them to consider whether Virginia and North Carolina, both oppressed with debts and slaves, can defend themselves externally, or make their people happy internally. North Carolina, having no strength but militia and Virginia, in the same situation, will make, I fear, but a despicable figure in history. Thus, sir, I hope that I have satisfied you that we are unsafe without a union; and that in union alone safety consists.

I come now, sir, to the great inquiry, whether the Confederation be such a government as we ought to continue under—whether it be such a government as can secure the felicity of any free people. Did I believe the Confederation was a good thread, which might be broken without destroying its utility entirely, I might be induced to concur in put ting it together; but I am so thoroughly convinced of its incapacity to be mended or spliced, that I would sooner recur to any other expedient.

When I spoke last, I endeavored to express my sentiments concerning that system, and to apologize (if an apology was necessary) for the conduct of its framers; that it was hastily devised to enable us to repel a powerful enemy, that the subject was novel, and that its inefficacy was not discovered till requisitions came to be made by Congress. In the then situation of America, a speedy remedy was necessary to ward off the danger, and this sufficiently answered that purpose; but so universally is its imbecility now known, that it is useless for me to exhibit it at this time. Has not Virginia, as well as every other state, acknowledged its debility, by sending delegates to the general Convention? The Confederation is, of all things, the most unsafe, not only to trust to in its present form, but even to amend.

The object of a federal government is to remedy and strengthen the weakness of its individual branches, whether that weakness arises from situation or from any external cause. With respect to the first, is it not a miracle that the Confederation carried us through the last war? It was our unanimity, sir, that carried us through it. That system