Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/293

1787.] equality, nor the report as it stood, that the report was as susceptible of melioration as the motion: that a reform would be nugatory and nominal only, if we should make another Congress of the proposed Senate: that if the adherence to an equality of votes was fixed and unalterable, there could not he less obstinacy on the other side; and that we were in fact cut asunder already, and it was in vain to shut our eyes against it: that he was, however, filled with astonishment, that, if we were convinced that every man in America was secured in all his rights, we should be ready to sacrifice this substantial good to the phantom of state sovereignty: that his feelings were more harrowed and his fears more agitated for his country than he could express: that he conceived this to be the last opportunity of providing for its liberty and happiness: that he could not, therefore, but repeat his amazement, that, when a just government, founded on a fair representation of the people of America, was within our reach, we should renounce the blessing, from an attachment to the ideal freedom and importance of states: that should this wonderful illusion continue to prevail, his mind was prepared for every event, rather than sit down under a government founded on a vicious principle of representation, and which must be as short-lived as it would be unjust. He might prevail on himself to accede to some such expedient as had been hinted by Mr. Wilson; but he never could listen to an equality of votes, as proposed in the motion

Mr. DAYTON. When assertion is given for proof, and terror substituted for argument, he presumed they would have no effect, however eloquently spoken. It should have been shown that the evils we have experienced have proceeded from the equality now objected to; and that the seeds of dissolution for the state governments are not sown in the general government. He considered the system on the table as a novelty, an amphibious monster; and was persuaded that it never would be received by the people.

Mr. MARTIN would never confederate, if it could not be done on just principles.

Mr. MADISON would acquiesce in the concession hinted by Mr. Wilson, on condition that a due independence should be given to the Senate. The plan in its present shape makes the Senate absolutely dependent on the states. The Senate, therefore, is only another edition of Congress. He knew the faults of that body, and had used a bold language against it. Still he would preserve the state rights as carefully as the trial by jury.

Mr. BEDFORD contended, that there was no middle way between a perfect consolidation and a mere confederacy of the states. The first is out of the question; and in the latter they must continue, if not perfectly, yet equally, sovereign. If political societies possess ambition, avarice, and all the other passions which render them formidable to each other, ought we not to view them in this light here? Will not the same motives operate in America as elsewhere? If any gentleman doubts it, let him look at the votes. Have they not been