erty, he would not object to it. I meet him on this ground. Liberty is secured, sir, by the limitation of its powers, which are clearly and unequivocally defined, and which are to be exercised by our own representatives freely chosen. What power is given that will endanger liberty? I consider all the traits of this system as having a tendency to the security of our liberty. I consider all its powers necessary, and only given to avoid greater evils; and if this conclusion of mine be well founded, let me ask if public liberty is not secured by bars and adamantine bolts -secured by the strongest guards and checks which human ingenuity can invent. Will this dread power of taxation render liberty insecure? Sir, without this power, other powers will answer no purpose. Government cannot exist without the means of procuring money. My honorable friend told us he considered this clause as the vitals of the Constitution. I will change the phrase, and say that I consider this part as the lungs of the Constitution. If it be sick, the whole system is consumptive, and must soon decay; and this power can never be dangerous if the principles of equal and free representation be fully attended to. While the right of suffrage is secured, we have little to fear. This government, sir, fully secures us this noble privilege, on the purest and simplest principles of equality That number which, in any one part of the country, has a right to send a representative, has the same right in another part. What does the Constitution say? That thirty thousand shall have one representative, no matter where. If this be not equal representation, what, in the name of God, is equal representation? But, says the honorable gentleman, the Constitution may be satisfied by one from each state. I conceive there is no fear of this. There is not a power to diminish the number. Does it not say that representatives shall be apportioned according to the number of the people, and that direct taxes shall be regulated by the same rules? Virginia, in the first instance, will have ten times as many as Delaware, and afterwards in proportion to their numbers. What is the criterion of representation? Do the people wish land only to be represented? They have their wish for the qualifications which the laws of the states require to entitle a man to vote for a state representative are the qualifications required by this plan to vote for a representative to Congress; and in this state, and most of the others, the

possession of a freehold is necessary to entitle a man to the privilege of a vote. Do they wish persons to be represented? Here also they are indulged; for the number of representatives is determined by the number of people: this idea is so well attended to, that even three fifths of those who are not free are included among those of whom thirty thousand shall have a right to elect one representative; so that, in either point of view, their wish is gratified. Is not liberty secured on this foundation? If it be not secured by one or the other mode, or by both, I am totally without reason. Liberty seems intrenched on this ground.

But the gentleman objects that the number is not sufficient. My opinion, with deference to that gentleman, and others who may be of different opinion from me, is, that it is fully sufficient. Being delegated solely for general purposes, a few intelligent men will suffice; at least one for every thirty thousand, aided by the Senate, seems sufficient. Are combinations, or factions, so often formed in small as in numerous bodies? Are laws better made in large than in small assemblies? Is not the influence of popular declaimers less in small than in great bodies? Would not a more numerous representation be very expensive? Is economy of no consideration? We ought, sir, to attend to the situation of the people; and our measures should be as economical as possible, without extending, however, our parsimony to a dangerous length. Objections should be founded on just and real grounds, and ought not to be urged out of a mere obstinacy. Besides, it is by no means certain that a very numerous body is more independent, or upright, than a small one. Why should the number of our representatives be greater, Mr. Chairman? The county of Middlesex, in England, which includes the cities of London and Westminster, contains upwards of nine hundred and ninety thousand souls, and yet sends to Parliament no more than eight members. Among all the clamors of the people there, it never entered into the brain of any of them that these eight were not enough. They complain that the boroughs of Old Sarum, Newton, and Gatton, and other such places, should send each two members to Parliament, although without houses or inhabitants, while the richest city sends but four. They also complain of the influence of the landed interest in some cases; that the county of Cornwall sends forty members to Parlia

ment, although it pays but eighteen parts, out of five hundred and thirteen, to the subsidy and land tax, when the county of Middlesex, which is calculated to pay two hundred and fifty parts out of five hundred and thirteen, sends but eight members. In that country, it has been uniformly found that those members, who are chosen by numerous respectable electors, make the greatest opposition to oppression and corruption, and signalize themselves for the preservation of liberty. The collective body of the commons there have generally exerted themselves in the defence of freedom, and have been successful in their exertions, notwithstanding the inequality of their election. Our representatives are chosen in the fairest manner; their election is founded in absolute equality. Is the American spirit so degenerated, notwithstanding these advantages, that the love of liberty is more predominant and warm in the breast of a Briton than in that of an American? When liberty is on a more solid foundation here than in Britain, will Americans be less ready to maintain and defend it than Britons? No, sir; the spirit of liberty and independence of the people of this country, at present, is such that they could not be enslaved under any government that could be described. What danger is there, then, to be apprehended from a government which is theoretically perfect, and the possible blemishes of which can only be demonstrated by actual experience?

The honorable gentleman then urges an objection respecting the militia, who, he tells us, will be made the instruments of tyranny to deprive us of our liberty. Your militia, says he, will fight against you. Who are the militia? Are we not militia? Shall we fight against ourselves? No, sir; the idea is absurd. We are also terrified by the dread of a standing army. It cannot be denied that we ought to have the means of defence, and be able to repel an attack.

If some of the community are exclusively inured to its defence, and the rest attend to agriculture, the consequence will be, that the arts of war and defence, and of cultivating the soil, will be understood. Agriculture will flourish, and military discipline will be perfect. If, on the contrary, our defence be solely intrusted to militia, ignorance of arms and negligence of farming will ensue: the former plan is, in every respect, more to the interest of the state. By it we shall have good farmers and soldiers; by the latter we shall have

neither. If the inhabitants be called out on sudden emergencies of war, their crops, the means of their subsistence, may be destroyed by it. If we are called in the time of sowing seed, or of harvest, the means of subsistence might be lost; and the loss of one year's crop might have been prevented by a trivial expense, if appropriated to the purpose of supporting a part of the community, exclusively occupied in the defence of the whole. I conceive that this idea, if it be a new one, is yet founded on solid and very substantial reasons. But, sir, we are told of the expediency and propriety of previous amendments. What end would it answer to attempt it? Will the states which have adopted the Constitution rescind their adopting resolutions? Had we adopted it, would we recede from it to please the caprice of any other state? Pride, sir, revolts at the idea. Admitting this state proposes amendments previous to her adoption, must there not be another federal convention? Must there not be also a convention in each state? Suppose some of our proposed conditions to be rejected; will not our exclusion out of the Union be the consequence? Or would other conventions again be called, and would be eternally revolving and devising expedients, without coming to a final decision? The loss of the union, sir, must be the result of a pertinacious demand of precedent conditions. My idea is, that we should go hand in hand with Massachusetts: adopt it first, and then propose amendments of a general nature; for local ones cannot be expected. Consider the situation of Massachusetts, commanding the north, and the importance and respectability of Virginia to the south. These, sir, are the two most populous, wealthy, and powerful states in the Union. Is it not very probable that their influence would have very great weight in carrying any amendments? Would any gentleman turn a deaf ear to their solicitations? By union alone can we exist by no other means can we be happy. Union must be the object of every gentleman here. I never yet have heard any gentleman so wild and frantic in his opposition as to avow an attachment to partial confederacies. By previous adoption, the union will be preserved; by insisting on alterations previous to our adoption, the union may be lost, and our political happiness destroyed by internal dissensions. I trust, therefore, that this Convention, after deliberate discussion, will not hesitate to determine on a previous rati

fication of a system which, even in its present form, seems competent to the perpetual preservation of our security and happiness.

Mr. HENRY then arose, and expressed a desire that the honorable gentleman on the other side (Gov. Randolph) should continue his observations on the subject he had left unfinished the day before; that he had before, and would now, give him a patient hearing, as he wished to be informed of every thing that gentlemen could urge in defence of that system which appeared to him so defective.

Gov. RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman who was last up has given us an opportunity of continuing our observations, I shall, in resuming the subject, endeavor to put this question in a more correct and accurate point of view than it has yet been put in.

I took the liberty, yesterday, of declaring to the house the necessity of a national rather than a federal government, and that the union was necessary for Virginia for many powerful reasons; that this necessity arose from the certainty of her being involved in disputes and war with the adjoining states, and the probability of an attack by foreign nations, particularly by those nations to which she is greatly in debt, and which she is unable to pay; from her inability to raise an army to protect her citizens from internal seditions and external attacks, and her inability to raise a navy to protect her trade and her coasts against descents and invasions. I also, in the course of my argument on this occasion, showed the imbecility of the present system, in order to obviate and detect the sophistry of that truly delusive opinion, which has taken possession of the minds of some gentlemen, that this shipwrecked vessel is sufficiently strong and safe for us to embark in. Whether I have succeeded or not, I have given the full effusions of my soul, in my attempt to prove the futility of that opinion. Permit me now to pursue the object of my inquiry respecting the powers necessary to be given to the general government. I shall discard general considerations at present, as I wish to be as brief as possible, and take up the particular idea of direct taxation. Is it necessary that the legislative power of the United States should be authorized to levy taxes? A strange question to be agitated in this house, after hearing the delinquency of other states, and even of