Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/189

 It was said, that in all transactions between State and State, the freedom, independence, importance, and consequence, even the individuality of each citizen of the different States, might with propriety be said to be swallowed up, or concentrated, in the independence, the freedom, and the individuality of the State of which they are citizens. That the thirteen States are thirteen distinct political individual existences, as to each other; that the federal government is, or ought to be, a government over these thirteen political individual existences, which form the members of that government; and that, as the largest State, is only a single individual of this government, it ought to have only one vote; the smallest State, also being one individual member of this government, ought also to have one vote. To those who urged, that for the States to have equal suffrage was contrary to the feelings of the human heart, it was answered, that it was admitted to be contrary to the feelings of pride and ambition, but those were feelings which ought not to be gratified at the expense of freedom.

[] It was urged, that the position, that great States would have great objects in view, in which they would not suffer the less States to thwart them, was one of the strongest reasons why inequality of representation ought not to be admitted. If those great objects were not inconsistent with the interest of the less States, they would readily concur in them; but if they were inconsistent with the interest of a majority of the States composing the government, in that case two or three States ought not to have it in their power to aggrandize themselves, at the expense of all the rest. To those who alleged, that equality of suffrage in our federal government, was the poisonous source from which all our misfortunes flowed, it was answered, that the allegation was not founded in fact; that equality of suffrage had never been complained of by the States, as a defect in our federal system; that, among the eminent writers, foreigners and others, who had treated of the defects of our confederation, and proposed alterations, none had proposed an alteration in this part of the system; and members of the convention, both in and out of Congress, who advocated the equality of suffrage, called upon their opponents, both in and out of Congress, and challenged them to produce one single instance where a bad measure had been adopted, or a good measure had failed of adoption, in consequence of the States having an equal vote; on the contrary, they urged, that all our evils flowed from the want of power in the federal head, and that, let the right of suffrage in the States be altered in any manner whatever, if no greater powers were given to the government, the same inconveniences would continue.

[] It was denied that the equality of suffrage was originally