Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/290

264 suffrage in the general councils. His remarks were not the result of partial or local views. The state he represented (Connecticut) held a middle rank.$156$

Mr. MADISON did justice to the able and close reasoning of Mr. Ellsworth, but must observe that it did not always accord with itself. On another occasion, the large states were described by him as the aristocratic states, ready to oppress the small. Now, the small are the House of Lords, requiring a negative to defend them against the more numerous Commons. Mr. Ellsworth had also erred in saying that no instance had existed in which confederated states had not retained to themselves a perfect equality of suffrage. Passing over the German system, in which the king of Prussia has nine voices, he reminded Mr. Ellsworth of the Lycian confederacy, in which the component members had votes proportioned to their importance, and which Montesquieu recommends as the fittest model for that form of government. Had the fact been as stated by Mr. Ellsworth, it would have been of little avail to him, or rather would have strengthened the arguments against him; the history and fate of the several confederacies, modern as well as ancient, demonstrating some radical vice in their structure. In reply to the appeal of Mr. Ellsworth to the faith plighted in the existing federal compact, he remarked, that the party claiming from others an adherence to a common engagement ought at least to be guiltless itself of a violation. Of all the states, however, Connecticut was perhaps least able to urge this plea. Besides the various omissions to perform the stipulated acts, from which no state was free, the legislature of that state had, by a pretty recent vote, positively refused to pass a law for complying with the requisitions of Congress, and had transmitted a copy of the vote to Congress. It was urged, he said, continually, that an equality of votes in the second branch was not only necessary to secure the small, but would be perfectly safe to the large ones, whose majority in the first branch was an effectual bulwark. But, notwithstanding this apparent defence the majority of states might still injure the majority of the people. In the first place, they could obstruct the wishes and interests of the majority. Secondly, they could extort measures repugnant to the wishes and interest of the majority. Thirdly, they could impose measures adverse thereto; as the second branch will probably exercise some great powers, in which the first will not participate. He admitted that every peculiar interest, whether in any class of citizens, or any description of states, ought to be secured as far as possible. Wherever there is danger of attack, there ought to be given a constitutional power of defence. But he contended that the states were divided into different interests, not by their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the most material of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of their having, or not having, slaves. These two causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States. It did not lie between the large and small states. It lay between the northern and southern, and in