Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/426

400 Indians carried their hospitality so far as to offer to strangers their wives and daughters. Was this a proper model for us? He would admit them to his house, he would invite them to his table, would provide for them comfortable lodgings, but would not carry the complaisance so far as to bed them with his wife. He would let them worship at the same altar, but did not choose to make priests of them. He ran over the privileges which emigrants would enjoy among us, though they should be deprived of that of being eligible to the great offices of government; observing that they exceeded the privileges allowed to foreigners in any part of the world; and that as every society, from a great nation down to a club, had the right of declaring the conditions on which new members should be admitted, there could be no room for complaint. As to those philosophical gentle men, those citizens of the world, as they called themselves, he owned, he did not wish to see any of them in our public councils. He would not trust them. The men who can shake off their attachments to their own country can never love any other. These attachments are the wholesome prejudices which uphold all governments. Admit a Frenchman into your Senate, and he will study to increase the commerce of France: an Englishman, and he will feel an equal bias in favor of that of England. It has been said that the legislatures will not choose foreigners, at least improper ones. There was no knowing what legislatures would do. Some appointments made by them proved that every thing ought to be apprehended from the cabals practised on such occasions. He mentioned the case of a foreigner who left this state in disgrace, and worked himself into an appointment from another to Congress.

On the question, on the motion of Mr. Gouverneur Morris to insert fourteen in place of four years,—

New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, Georgia, ay, 4; Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, no, 7.

On the question for thirteen years, moved by Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS,—it was negatived, as above.

On ten years, moved by Gen. PINCKNEY, the votes were the same.

Dr. FRANKLIN reminded the Convention, that it did not follow, from an omission to insert the restriction in the Constitution, that the persons in question would be actually chosen into the legislature.

Mr. RUTLEDGE. Seven years of citizenship have been required for the House of Representatives. Surely a longer time is requisite for the Senate, which will have more power.

Mr. WILLIAMSON. It is more necessary to guard the Senate in this case, than the other House. Bribery and cabal can be more easily practised in the choice of the Senate, which is to be made by the legislatures, composed of a few men, than of the House of Representatives, who will be chosen by the people.

Mr. RANDOLPH will agree to nine years, with the expectation that it will be reduced to seven, if Mr. Wilson's motion to