Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/244

218 the separation from the British empire, the people of America preferred the establishment of themselves into thirteen separate sovereignties, instead of incorporating themselves into one. To these they look up for the security of their lives, liberties, and properties; to these they must look up. The federal government they formed to defend the whole against foreign nations in time of war, and to defend the lesser states against the ambition of the larger. They are afraid of granting power unnecessarily, lest they should defeat the original end of the Union; lest the powers should prove dangerous to the sovereignties of the particular states which the Union was meant to support, and expose the lesser to being swallowed up by the larger. He conceived, also, that the people of the states, having already vested their powers in their respective legislatures, could not resume them without a dissolution of their governments. He was against conventions in the states—was not against assisting states against rebellious subjects—thought the federal plan of Mr. Patter son did not require coercion more than the national one, as the latter must depend for the deficiency of its revenues on requisitions and quotas—and that a national judiciary, extended into the states, would be ineffectual, and would be viewed with a jealousy inconsistent with its usefulness.$122$

Mr. SHERMAN seconded and supported Mr. Lansing's motion He admitted two branches to be necessary in the state legislatures, but saw no necessity in a confederacy of states. The examples were all of a single council. Congress carried us through the war, and perhaps as well as any government could have done. The complaints at present are, not that the views of Congress are unwise or unfaithful, but that their powers are insufficient for the execution of their views. The national debt, and the want of power somewhere to draw forth the national resources, are the great matters that press. All the states were sensible of the defect of power in Congress. He thought much might be said in apology for the failure of the state legislatures to comply with the Confederation. They were afraid of leaning too hard on the people by accumulating taxes; no constitutional rule had been, or could be observed in the quotas; the accounts also were unsettled, and every state supposed itself in advance rather than in arrears. For want of a general system, taxes to a due amount had not been drawn from trade, which was the most convenient resource. As almost all the states had agreed to the recommendation of Congress on the subject of an impost, it appeared clearly that they were willing to trust Congress with power to draw a revenue from trade. There is no weight, therefore, in the argument drawn from a distrust of Congress; for money matters being the most important of all, if the people will trust them with power as to them, they will trust them with any other necessary powers. Congress, indeed, by the Confederation, have in fact the right of saying how much the people shall pay, and to what purpose it shall be applied; and this right was granted to them in the expectation that it would