Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/307

Rh a mighty whirlwind from the earth, and carried up every thing in their vortex.

The chief objections taken to the constitution are reducible to the following heads.

I. That it was a consolidated, instead of a confederated government: that in making it so, the delegates at Philadelphia had transcended the limits of their commission: changed fundamentally the relations which the states had chosen to bear to each other: annihilated their respective sovereignties: destroyed the barriers which divided them: and converted the whole into one solid empire. To this leading objection, almost all the rest had reference, and were urged principally with the view to illustrate and enforce it.

II. The vast and alarming array of specific powers given to the general government, and the wide door opened for an unlimited extension of those powers, by the clauses which authorized congress to pass all laws necessary to carry the given powers into effect. It was urged, that this clause rendered the previous specification of powers an idle illusion: since by the force of construction arising from that clause, congress might easily do any thing and every thing it chose, under the pretence of giving effect to some specified power.

III. The unlimited power of taxation of all kinds: the states were no longer to be required in their federative characters, to contribute their respective proportions towards the expenses and engagements of the general government: but congress were authorized to go directly to the pockets of the people, and sweep from them, en masse, from north to south, whatever portion of the earnings of the industrious poor, the rapacity of the general government or their schemes of ambitious grandeur might suggest. It was contended that such a power