Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/219

1787.] the Union, shall be deemed guilty of the same offence as if it had been committed by a citizen of the state in which the offence was committed. $111$

Adjourned. 

, June, 16.

In Committee of the Whole, on the resolutions proposed by Mr. Patterson and Mr. Randolph, Mr. LANSING called for the reading of the first resolution of each plan, which he considered as involving principles directly in contrast. That of Mr. Patterson, says he, sustains the sovereignty of the respective states, that of Mr. Randolph destroys it. The latter requires a negative on all the laws of the particular states, the former only certain general power for the general good. The plan of Mr. Randolph, in short, absorbs all power, except what may be exercised in the little local matters of the states, which are not objects worthy of the supreme cognizance. He grounded his preference of Mr. Patterson's plan, chiefly, on two objections to that of Mr. Randolph,—first, want of power in the Convention to discuss and propose it; secondly, the improbability of its being adopted.

1. He was decidedly of opinion that the power of the Convention was restrained to amendments of a federal nature, and having for their basis the Confederacy in being. The acts of Congress, the tenor of the acts of the states, the commissions produced by the several deputations, all proved this. And this limitation of the power to an amendment of the Confederacy marked the opinion of the states, that it was unnecessary and improper to go farther. He was sure that this was the case with his state. New York would never have concurred in sending deputies to the Convention, if she had supposed the deliberations were to turn on a consolidation of the states, and a national government.

2. Was it probable that the states would adopt and ratify a scheme which they had never authorized us to propose, and which so far exceeded what they regarded as sufficient? We see by their several acts, particularly in relation to the plan of revenue proposed by Congress in 1783, not authorized by the Articles of Confederation, what were the ideas they then entertained. Can so great a change be supposed to have already taken place? To rely on any change which is hereafter to take place in the sentiments of the people, would be trusting to too great an uncertainty. We know only what their present sentiments are; and it is in vain to propose what will not accord with these. The states will never feel a sufficient confidence  2517