Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/263

1787.] to admit the exercise of the same government with equal benefit; that a system must be suited to the habits and genius of the people it is to govern, and must grow out of them.

The people of the United States may be divided into three classes—professional men, who must, from their particular pursuits, always have a considerable weight in the government, while it remains popular; commercial men, who may or may not have weight, as a wise or injudicious commercial policy is pursued. If that commercial policy is pursued which I conceive to be the true one, the merchants of this country will not, or ought not, for a considerable time, to have much weight in the political scale. The third is the landed interest, the owners and cultivators of the soil, who are, and ought ever to be, the governing spring in the system. These three classes, however distinct in their pursuits, are individually equal in the political scale, and may be easily proved to have but one interest. The dependence of each on the other is mutual. The merchant depends on the planter. Both must, in private as well as public affairs, be connected with the professional men; who in their turn must in some measure depend on them. Hence it is clear, from this manifest connection, and the equality which I before stated exists, and must, for the reasons then assigned, continue, that after all there is one, but one great and equal body of citizens composing the inhabitants of this country, among whom there are no distinctions of rank, and very few or none of fortune.

For a people thus circumstanced are we, then, to form a government; and the question is, what sort of government is best suited to them?

Will it be the British government? No. Why? Because Great Britain contains three orders of people distinct in their situation, their possessions, and their principles. These orders, combined, form the great body of the nation; and as, in national expenses, the wealth of the whole community must contribute, so ought each component part to be duly and properly represented. No other combination of power could form this due representation but the one that exists. Neither the peers or the people could represent the royalty; nor could the royalty and the people form a proper representation for the peers. Each, therefore, must of necessity be represented by itself, or the sign of itself; and this accidental mixture has certainly formed a government admirably well balanced.

But the United States contain but one order that can be assimilated to the British nation—this is, the order of Commons. They will not, surely, then, attempt to form a government consisting of three branches, two of which shall have nothing to represent. They will not have an executive and senate [hereditary,] because the king and lords of England are so. The same reasons do not exist, and therefore the same provisions are not necessary.

We must, as has been observed, suit our government to the people it is to direct. These are, I believe, as active, intelligent and