Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

UNIVERSITY

11

OF

FORNIA

450 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF GEORGE MASON.

10. That no standing army or regular troops shall be raised or kept up in time of peace without the consent of two thirds of the members present in both houses.

11. That no soldier shall be enlisted for a longer term than four years; except in time of war, and then for no longer term than the continuance of the war.

12. That each State respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining its own militia, whensoever the Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same.

13. That the militia shall not be subject to martial law except when in actual service, in time of war, invasion, or rebellion; and when not in the actual service of the United States shall be subject only to such fines, penalties and punishments as shall be directed or inflicted by the laws of its own State.

14. That the exclusive power of legislation given to the Congress over the federal town and its adjacent district, shall extend only to such regulations as respect the police and good government thereof.

15. That no person shall be capable of being President of the United States for more than eight years in any term of sixteen years.

16. That the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such courts of admiralty as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish in any of the different States.

17. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other foreign ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States, and between persons claiming lands under the grants of different States.

18. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other foreign ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction; in all the other cases before mentioned the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction as to matters of law only, except in cases of equity, and of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, in which the Supreme

[blocks in formation]

Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. But the judicial power of the United States shall extend to no case where the cause of action shall have originated before the ratification of this Constitution, except in disputes between States about their territory, disputes between persons claiming lands under the grants of different States, and suits for debts due to the United States.

19. That in criminal prosecutions no man shall be restrained in the exercise of the usual and accustomed right of challenging or excepting to the jury.

AMENDMENTS PROPOSED TO THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF

GOVERNMENT.

That there be a Declaration of Rights, asserting and securing from encroachment the essential and unalienable rights of the people, in some such manner as the following.

Here the Declaration of Rights to be inserted.

And that there be also the following amendments to the Constitution :

1. That each State in the Union shall retain its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the Congress of the United States.

2. That there shall be one representative for every thirty thousand persons, according to the enumeration or census mentioned in the Constitution, until the whole number of the representatives amounts to two hundred.

3. That Congress shall not exercise the powers, respecting the regulation of elections, vested in them by the fourth section of the first article of the Constitution, but in cases when a State neglects or refuses to make the regulations therein mentioned, or shall make regulations subversive of the rights of the people to a free and equal representation in Congress agreeably to the Constitution, or shall be prevented from making elections by invasion or rebellion; and in any of these cases, such powers shall be exercised by Congress only until the cause be removed.

4. That Congress do not lay direct taxes, nor excises upon any articles of the growth or manufactured from the growth of any of

[ocr errors]

the American States, but when the monies arising from the duties or imposts are insufficient for the public exigencies; nor then until Congress shall have first made a requisition upon the States, to assess, levy and pay their respective proportions of such requisitions, according to the enumeration or census fixed in the Constitution, in such way and manner as the legislature of the State shall judge best; and if any State shall neglect or refuse to pay its proportion, pursuant to such requisition, then Congress may assess and levy such State's proportion, together with interest thereon, at the rate of six cents per annum, from the time of payment prescribed in such requisition.

5. That the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be ineligible to and incapable of holding any office under the authority of the United States, during the time for which they shall respectively be elected.

6. That there shall be a constitutional responsible council, to assist in the administration of government, with the power of choosing out of their own body a president, who in case of the death, resignation or disability of the president of the United States, shall act, pro tempore, as vice-president, instead of a vicepresident elected in the manner prescribed by the Constitution; and that the power of making treaties, appointing ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Courts, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by the Constitution, and which shall be established by law, be vested in the president of the United States with the assistance of the council so to be appointed. But all treaties so made or entered into, shall be subject to the revision of the Senate and House of Representatives for their ratification. And no commercial treaty shall be ratified without the consent of two thirds of the members present in both houses; nor shall any treaty ceding, contracting, restraining or suspending the territorial rights or claims of the United States, or any of them, or their, or any of their rights or claims to fishing in the American seas, or navigating the American rivers, be ratified, without the consent of three fourths of the whole number of the members of both houses.

7. No navigation law or law for regulating commerce shall be passed without the consent of two thirds of the members present in both houses.

[blocks in formation]

8. Neither the president nor vice-president of the United States, nor any member of the council shall command the army or navy of the United States in person without the consent of two thirds of the members of both houses.

9. No soldier shall be enlisted for a longer term than four years, except in time of war, and then for no longer term than the continuance of the war.

10. No mutiny act shall be passed for any longer term than two years.

11. The president of the United States, or any other officer acting under the authority of the United States, shall, upon impeachment, be suspended from the exercise of his office, during his trial,

12. The judges of the federal court shall be incapable of holding any other office, or of receiving the profits of any other office, or emolument under the United States or any of them.

V.

PAPER ON CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS.

The essential difference between the citizens of a free country, and the subjects of arbitrary or despotic governments, or in other words, between freemen and slaves, consists principally in this.That the citizens of a free country choose the men who are to make laws for them, and are therefore governed by no laws, but such as are made by men of their own choosing, in whom they can confide, who are amenable to them; and if they abuse their trust can be turned out at the next election. But the subjects of arbitrary governments having no such right of suffrage, in electing their own law-makers, are governed by laws made by men whom they do not choose, who therefore are not amenable to them, over whom they have no control, in whom they have no confidence, with whom they have no common interest or fellowship; and whose interest and views may be, and frequently will be in direct contrast and opposition to the rights and interest of the bulk of the people. Hence proceed partial and unjust laws, oppression and every species of tyranny. From these premises it is evident that this right of suffrage, in the choice

of their own lawmakers is the foundation and support of all the other rights and privileges of freemen. And whenever they shall be deprived of it, all their other rights and privileges must soon moulder away and tumble to the ground. Whenever it shall be impaired or weakened, all the other rights and privileges of a free people will be impaired or weakened, in the same proportion. And whenever, under any pretence whatever, the substance of this fundamental and precious right of suffrage shall be so far undermined or invalidated, as to leave the name or shadow of it only to the people, or to any particular part of the people, from thenceforward, such people will possess only the name and shadow of liberty, which without the substance, is not worth preserving.

It is surely therefore the duty of freemen-a duty which they owe to themselves, to their country, to their children, and to generations yet unborn-to watch over and guard this sacred and inestimable right of suffrage, and with manly firmness to resist the smallest attempt of invasion, or encroachment on it, for every encroachment will grow into a precedent for some other encroachment.

There is great cause to apprehend, that at the next session of the Virginia Assembly, an attempt will be made, to deprive the people of Fairfax County of their right of suffrage, in choosing members of Congress; or which amounts to nearly the same thing, to take from them the substance, and leave them only the name and shadow of choosing. When the new Constitution for the general government of the United States of America was first formed, Virginia was entitled to send only ten members to the House of Representatives in Congress. The whole State of Virginia was therefore laid off into only ten districts, each of which chose one member. Kentucky being one of those ten districts, chose one of the said ten members. The six counties of King George, Stafford, Prince William, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Fauquier composed another of those ten districts, for choosing one of the said ten members. But by the census or enumeration of all the inhabitants of the United States, taken last year, the number of members in the House of Representatives, from almost every State in the Union, will be greatly increased. From Virginia the number will be more than doubled, and consequently the number of the former districts must be more than doubled also, and the size and extent of them lessened in the same proportion for at the next election, sometime in the course of next winter, Virginia instead of sending nine

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »