Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/322

306 paid the quota required of her. The general government could not abuse this power, and favor one state and oppress another, as each state was to be taxed only in proportion to its representation; and as to excises, when it is considered how many more excisable articles are manufactured to the northward than there are to the southward, and the ease and convenience of raising a revenue by indirect taxation, and the necessity there is to obtain money for the payment of our debts, for our common defence, and for the general welfare, he thought every man would see the propriety, and even the necessity, of this clause. For his part, he knew of no sum that he would not sooner have consented to have paid, if he had had it, rather than have adopted Lord North's conciliatory plan, which seems, by the argument of the gentleman, to be in some respect preferable to the proposed Constitution; but in asserting this, the gentleman certainly cannot be serious. As to the payment of members of the legislature out of the federal treasury, General Pinckney contended it was right, and particularly beneficial to us, who were so distant from the seat of the federal government, as we at present paid our members not only while they were actually in Congress, but for all the time they were going there and returning home, which was an expense the Middle States felt but in a slight degree; but now that all the members are to be paid out of the public treasury, our remote situation will not be particularly expensive to us. The case of the payment of the Massachusetts judges under the royal government can by no ingenuity be made applicable to the payment of the members of the federal legislature. With regard to Mr. Lowndes's question, "What harm had paper money done?" General Pinckney answered, that he wondered that gentleman should ask such a question, as he had told the house that he had lost fifteen thousand guineas by depreciation; but he would tell the gentleman what further injuries it had done—it had corrupted the morals of the people; it had diverted them from the paths of honest industry to the ways of ruinous speculation; it had destroyed both public and private credit, and had brought total ruin on numberless widows and orphans.

As to the judiciary department. General Pinckney observed, that trial by jury was so deservedly esteemed by the people of America, that it is impossible for their representatives to