Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/440

424 the propriety of the amendment, we should consider the intention of the Constitution. When it speaks of regulating the militia, was it for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia of the several states, that Congress ought to provide? I think it was not the militia of the nation, but that which existed in the several states. It is impossible the Convention could have had any thing else in contemplation; because the Constitution says that Congress shall have the power of such parts of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. If we are, then, to govern the militia, it must be such men as the particular states have declared to be militia.

Mr. BOUDINOT. With respect to the power of exempting from militia duty, I believe little doubt will remain on the mind of any gentleman, after a candid examination of the Constitution, but that it is vested in Congress. This, then, reduces the question to the doctrine of expediency. Is it more expedient that the general government should make the exemptions, or leave it to the state legislatures? For my part, I think we ought to exercise the power ourselves; because I can see neither necessity, propriety, nor expediency, in leaving that to be done by others which we ourselves can do without inconvenience.

Mr. JACKSON, (a gentleman of superior talents, who had been an active member of the Federal Convention, in framing the general Constitution, and who is one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States; was likewise a member of the late Convention of Pennsylvania; and it is in evidence that he gave his assent to the present Constitution of that state, one article of which declared that persons conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be exempted from performing militia duty, upon the condition of their paying an equivalent.) Is not this a declaration of the sense of the people of Pennsylvania, that they, and they only, had the right to determine exemptions so far as relates to their own citizens? And it is observable that this Constitution has been framed whilst the federal government was in full operation. If this privilege belongs to the state, as they have declared it does, why shall Congress attempt to wrest it from them, first by undertaking exemptions for them, and then depriving them of a tax, which they contemplate to receive into the state treasury, as an equivalent for such exemption? Certainly such, conduct must excite alarm, and occasion no inconsiderable degree of jealousy. These circumstances and considerations are forcible arguments with me to desist.

December 24, 1790.

Mr. LIVERMORE. He saw no reason why Congress should grant an exemption to those who are conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms, more than to any other description of men. They ought, in his opinion, to be exempted by the state legislatures. As to the money accruing from such exemptions, he could not conceive that Congress was authorized to raise a revenue for the United States by the militia bill; nor was any such thing ever intended by the Constitution.



, January 14, 1791. Mr. SHERMAN showed, from the Constitution, that Congress possess the power of appointing the time of choosing the electors, and the time 