Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/99

.] because he is decorated with the name of author, but because his sentiments are drawn from human nature, to prove the dangerous impolicy of withholding necessary powers from Congress; but I shall at this time fatigue the house as little as possible. What are the powers of Congress? They have full authority to recommend what they please; this recommendatory power reduces them to the condition of poor supplicants. Consider the dignified language of the members of the American Congress. May it please your high mightinesses of Virginia to pay your just proportionate quota of our national debt: we humbly supplicate that it may please you to comply with your federal duties. We implore, we beg your obedience! Is not this, sir, a fair representation of the powers of Congress? Their operations are of no validity when counteracted by the states. Their authority to recommend is a mere mockery of government. But the amendability of the Confederation seems to have great weight on the minds of some gentlemen. To what point will the amendments go? What part makes the most important figure? What part deserves to be retained? In it one body has the legislative, executive, and judicial powers; but the want of efficient powers has prevented the dangers naturally consequent on the union of these. Is this union consistent with an augmentation of their power? Will you, then, amend it by taking away one of these three powers? Suppose, for instance, you only vested it with the legislative and executive powers, without any control on the judiciary; what must be the result? Are we not taught by reason, experience, and governmental history, that tyranny is the natural and certain consequence of uniting these two powers, or the legislative and judicial powers, exclusively, in the same body? If any one denies it, I shall pass by him as an infidel not to be reclaimed. Whenever any two of these three powers are vested in one single body, they must, at one time or other, terminate in the destruction of liberty. In the most important cases, the assent of nine states is necessary to pass a law. This is too great a restriction, and whatever good consequences it may, in some cases, produce, yet it will prevent energy in many other cases. It will prevent energy, which is most necessary on some emergencies, even in cases wherein the existence of the community depends on vigor and expedition. It is incompatible with that secrecy which