Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/421

1789, 1790.] to guard against corruption; because no one will presume to think that a body composed like this, and increased in a ratio of 4 to 3, will be much less exposed to sale than we are. Nor is a greater number necessary to secure the rights and liberties of the people, for the representative of a great body of people is likely to be more watchful of its interests than the representative of a lesser body.

Mr. MADISON. Suppose they, the people, instruct a representative by his vote to violate the Constitution; is he at liberty to obey such instructions? Suppose he is instructed to patronize certain measures, and from circumstances known to him, but not to his constituents, he is convinced that they will endanger the public good; is he obliged to sacrifice his own judgment to them? Is he absolutely bound to perform what he is instructed to do? Suppose he refuses; will his vote be the less valid, or the community be disengaged from that obedience which is due, from the laws of the Union? If his vote must inevitably have the same effect, what sort of a right is this, in the Constitution, to instruct a representative who has a right to disregard the order, if he pleases? In this sense, the right does not exist: in the other sense, it does exist, and is provided largely for.



, February 22, 1790.

Mr. SMITH, (of South Carolina.) The Constitution itself was opposed to the measure, (discrimination of the domestic debt;) for it was an ex post facto law, which was prohibited in express terms. The transference of public securities was lawful at the time these alienations were made; an attempt therefore to punish the transferees, is an attempt to make an ex post facto law, by making that unlawful which was lawful at the time it was done; it alters the nature of the transaction, and annexes the idea of guilt to that which, at the moment of commission, was not only perfectly innocent, but was explicitly authorized and encouraged by a public act of Congress. By that act, those who had money were invited to purchase of those who held securities; and now they were called upon to punish the purchasers who bought under that invitation. The Constitution restrains the states from passing any law impairing the force of contracts: a fortiori, is the legislature of the Union restrained? What an example to hold up to the judiciary of the United States! How could they annul a state law, when the state would be able to plead a precedent on the part of Congress? The right of property was a sacred right; no tribunal on earth, nor even legislative body, could deprive a citizen of his property, unless by a fair equivalent, for the public welfare. The purchaser was vested, by the sale, with an absolute right to the full amount of the security, and it was beyond their authority to divest him of it. They might, indeed, by an act of power, declare that he should be paid only half; but his right to the other moiety would not be extinguished.

The present Constitution, which is a mild one, met with considerable opposition. Had it been rejected, the public securities would never have been paid.

It was the surest policy of governments to adhere strictly to their plighted faith, when it was in their power to do so, even should such strict adherence work an injury to some part of the community. This was the practice of nations in the case of a treaty, which, when made by competent authority they considered themselves bound to observe, although they 