Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/606

580 9. In the admission of new states into the Union.

10. In establishing rules for the government of the militia.

11. In raising a regular army.

12. In the appointment of the executive.

13. In fixing the seat of government.

That in all other cases the right of suffrage be proportioned according to an equitable rule of representation.

II. That, for the determination of certain important questions in the second branch, a greater number of votes than a mere majority be requisite.

III. That the people of each state ought to retain the perfect right of adopting, from time to time, such forms of republican government as to them may seem best, and of making all laws not contrary to the Articles of Union; subject to the supremacy of the general government in those instances only in which that supremacy shall be expressly declared by the Articles of the Union.

IV. That, although every negative given to the law of a particular state shall prevent its operation, any state may appeal to the national judiciary against a negative; and that such negative, if adjudged to be contrary to the powers granted by the Articles of the Union, shall be void.

V. That any individual, conceiving himself injured or oppressed by the partiality or injustice of a law of any particular state, may resort to the national judiciary, who may adjudge such law to be void, if found contrary to the principles of equity and justice.

As appointments for the general government here contemplated will, in part, be made by the state governments, all the citizens in states where the right of suffrage is not limited to the holders of property will have an indirect share of representation in the general government. But this does not satisfy the fundamental principle, that men cannot be justly bound by laws in making which they have no part. Persons and property being both essential objects of government, the most that either can claim is such a structure of it as will leave a reasonable security for the other. And the most obvious provision, of this double character, seems to be that of confining to the holders of property—the object deemed least secure in popular governments—the right of suffrage for one of the two legislative branches. This is not without example among us; as well as other constitutional modifications, favoring the influence of property in the government. But the United States have not reached the stage of society in which conflicting feelings of the class with, and the class without, property, have the operation natural to them in countries fully peopled. The most difficult of all political arrangements is that of so adjusting the claims of the two classes as to give security to each, and to promote the welfare of all. The federal principle, which enlarges the sphere of power without departing from the elective basis of it, and controls in various ways the propensity in small republics to rash measures, and the facility of forming and executing them, will be found the best expedient yet tried for solving the problem.

These observations (see Debates in the Convention of 1787, August 7) do not convey the speaker's more full and matured view of the subject, which is subjoined. He felt too much at the time the example of Virginia.

The right of suffrage is a fundamental article in republican constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy. Allow the right exclusively to property, and the rights of persons may be oppressed. The feudal polity alone sufficiently proves it. Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property, or the claims of justice, may be overruled by a majority without property, or interested in measures of injustice. Of this, abundant proof is afforded by other popular governments; and is not without examples in our own, particularly in the laws impairing the obligation of contracts.

In civilized communities, property, as well as personal rights, is an essential object of