Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/309

.] begged permission to ask these questions: If the majority was in the Southern States, (which, as ten is a majority, might be the case,) would not objections, equally forcible as the gentleman's, lie on the side of the Eastern States? and yet that, in all governments, a majority must be somewhere, is most evident: nothing would be more completely farcical than a government completely checked. Having commented thus far on the gentleman's opposition to the Federal Constitution, he proceeded, according to the order of his objections, to consider the presiding power. On this he would be extremely concise; for, as the only objection which had fallen upon this head from the honorable gentleman was, that we had only a thirteenth part of him; and as this might equally, and, in his opinion, with more justice, be the objection of many and almost every state, he considered it only as a weight thrown into the scale of other objections, and not a subject for discussion.

With respect to the President's responsibility, it could not be established more firmly than it is by the Constitution. When treaties are made, if in the time of prosperity, men seldom think they gain enough; if in the day of adversity, they would be apt to make the President the pillow upon whom they would rest all their resentment. The Constitution had then wisely made him, as a man, responsible by the influence of fame, his character, and his feelings; as a citizen, they have postponed the period at which he could be tried with propriety until the fervor of party and cool reflection can determine his fate. The gentleman had also objected to the power given to those two branches of making treaties, and that these treaties should become the law of the land. A number of gentlemen have proved this power to be in the possession of the head of every free nation, and that it is within the power of the present Congress. He should only, therefore, observe, that the most free and enlightened nations of the world had a federal head, in which this power was established—he meant the Amphictyonic council of the Greeks, which was the palladium of their united liberties, and, until destroyed by the ambition of a few of the states of Greece, was revered by that jealous people as the cornerstone of their federal union. Against the representation he generally objects, that they are too few, and not elected immediately by the people. The whole body consists of sixty