Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/286

260 Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina. South Carolina, Georgia, ay, 9; Massachusetts, Delaware, no, 2.

Mr. ELLSWORTH moved, "that the rule of suffrage in the second branch be the same with that established by the Articles of Confederation." He was not sorry, on the whole, he said, that the vote just passed had determined against this rule in the first branch. He hoped it would become a ground of compromise with regard to the second branch. We were partly national, partly federal. The proportional representation in the first branch was conformable to the national principle, and would secure the large states against the small. An equality of voices was conformable to the federal principle, and was necessary to secure the small states against the large. He trusted that on this middle ground a compromise would take place. He did not see that it could on any other, and if no compromise should take place, our meeting would not only be in vain, but worse than in vain. To the eastward, he was sure Massachusetts was the only state that would listen to a proposition for excluding the states, as equal political societies, from an equal voice in both branches. The others would risk every consequence rather than part with so dear a right. An attempt to deprive them of it was at once cutting the body of America in two, and, as he supposed would be the case, somewhere about this part of it. The large states, he conceived, would, notwithstanding the equality of votes, have an influence that would maintain their superiority. Holland, as had been admitted, (by Mr. Madison,) had, notwithstanding a like equality in the Dutch confederacy, a prevailing influence in the public measures. The power of self-defence was essential to the small states. Nature had given it to the smallest insect of the creation. He could never admit that there was no danger of combinations among the large states. They will, like individuals, find out and avail themselves of the advantage to be gained by it. It was true the danger would be greater if they were contiguous, and had a more immediate and common interest. A defensive combination of the small states was rendered more difficult by their greater number. He would mention another consideration of great weight. The existing Confederation was founded on the equality of the states in the article of suffrage,—was it meant to pay no regard to this antecedent plighted faith? Let a strong executive, a judiciary, and legislative power, be created, but let not too much be attempted, by which all may be lost. He was not in general a half-way man, yet he preferred doing half the good we could, rather than do nothing at all. The other half may be added when the necessity shall be more fully experienced.

Mr. BALDWIN could have wished that the powers of the general legislature had been defined, before the mode of constituting it had been agitated. He should vote against the motion of Mr. Ellsworth, though he did not like the resolution as it stood in the report of the Committee of the Whole. He thought the second branch ought to be the representation of property, and that, in forming it, therefore,