86

A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT PROPOSED.

Mason, the proposition under discussion clearly proved that it was a national government and not a Confederation. The assumption of the power to lay direct taxes would entirely change the league of States into a consolidated government, which would subvert every principle which had hitherto prevailed in the country. It would totally annihilate the State governments. Two concurrent powers, each levying taxes, could not exist without the one destroying the other. The general government would be paramount to that of the States. Not a single example, he said, on the face of the earth, supported the opinion that a national government was adapted to so extensive a country as America, embracing many climates and containing inhabitants so very different in manners, habits and customs. He repeated the objections which had been elaborated in the Federal Convention, that sixty-five members, the number allotted to the Lower House of Congress, could not possibly know the situation and circumstances of all the people in so numerous a country. But his principal complaint was, that the new plan converted the Confederation into one general consolidated government, "one of the worst curses that could befall a nation." Yet if amendments were produced which would secure the rights of the people, he would gladly agree to the new plan.1

The cause

Pendleton saw no danger in the new plan. of alarm was rather on the other side, the rejection of government and the dissolution of the Union. The form of the preamble "We the people" was a common one and a favorite with him, because none but the people could delegate power. The objection that the Union should be of the State governments and not of the people, he thought wholly baseless, because the State governments would

1 Id., 29-33; June 4, 1788.

PATRICK HENRY'S ARGUMENT.

87

have nothing to do with the Union; otherwise the people could not be the final judge of the plan. To Mason and Henry, who argued that the power of Congress was too great, he replied, that the Convention had ample authority to propose any plan; the choice now lay between the one it had proposed, or no government at all. The new government would be of laws, not of men.2 This also was his answer to the charge that the Constitution would establish a consolidated government which would annihilate that of the States.

But Henry, ever elaborating his first premise, declared against the dangers of the plan. Were these not shown from the difficulty of its amendment, in that threefourths of the States must agree to any change, and twothirds of Congress, or of the State legislatures were necessary even to propose amendments? The expectation was altogether too great. One-tenth of the population of the United States, inhabiting the four smallest, might obstruct the most necessary amendments. The standing army, which the new plan established, would be more than a match for any disapproval of the conduct of the new government by the people. The excessive power of legislation over the Federal district would establish tyranny.5 Even the control of the militia, the last and best defense of the States, had been taken away from them. A consolidated empire, such as was now proposed, would have no real checks and balances, and the unlimited power

1 See the elaboration of this argument in the Federalist, No. XL.

2 The expression occurs in the Declaration of Rights of the constitution of Massachusetts, 1780, Article XXX.

3 Elliot, III, 35-41.

4 Id., 49, 55.

6 Id., 51.

• Id., 52.

88

2

MADISON REPLIES TO HENRY.

of taxation would deprive the poor man of his property.1 The people were protected by no Bill of Rights in the new plan, which in that respect all agreed was not Virginian in character. The people being subject to two sets of tax-gatherers they would be drained dry.3 There was a worse fault; the whole plan squinted toward monarchy; the President might easily become king, for the army was in his hands.4

Partly in reply to Henry, Randolph discussed at length the necessity of establishing a national government and particularly the interest of Virginia to aid in doing so, because of the great dangers and losses she would otherwise incur. His argument was similar to Pinckney's in the late South Carolina convention. Henry and other Anti-Federal speakers were basing their objections largely on the superior guarantees of liberties which such a constitution as that of Virginia afforded. It was necessary to persuade wavering delegates that the interests of the State would be more perfectly conserved under the new plan than by any other government which was likely to be proposed. Randolph was thus meeting the Anti-Federalists on their own ground.

To Henry's objections, Madison made elaborate and specific replies, showing that the dangers apprehended existed in each case only in Henry's mind, for the powers of Congress were guarded by limitations; the infirmity of the Confederation, he said, proved the necessity for a

1 Id., 54-55.

2 Id., 55-56.

⚫ Id., 57.

4 Id., 58, 59; June 5, 1788.

So Nicholas urged the adoption of the Constitution as otherwise the northern neck of the eastern shore would separate from Virginia; Elliot, III, 101.

• Id., 65-85.

PROBABLE EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES. 89

strong government. Moreover the parts of the new plan, in every instance, were answerable to the people. If the general government was wholly independent of the States usurpation might be expected, but it derived its authority from the same source from which they derived theirs. The members of the federal government would be chosen from the same body of men from which the State legislatures were composed. Instead of the tendency of public affairs to run toward the annihilation of the State governments, Madison believed it would be the other way; the State governments would counteract the general interest.1

To the objection that New England and the other northern States would combine and control the South, it was replied, that the population of the South would soon exceed that of the North, as its country was well settled, while the South had extensive uncultivated tracts.2 A great part of Anti-Federal attack on the new plan was veiled in an excessive eulogism of the British Constitution, the more paradoxical because the Anti-Federalists claimed to be the apostles of democracy. In reply the Federalists brought forward evidence to prove that the Constitution would give greater security to the people than could a government on the English model, for did not everyone know that the British system established a standing army, abridged the liberties of the press, overtaxed property of all kinds and infringed all the rights of conscience ?4

Corbin saw in the new government not a consolidated, but a representative Federal Republic, which would place the remedy for public evils in the hands that would feel

1 Id., 86-97; June 6, 1788.

2 Nicholas, Id., 102.

It runs through the debates; Elliot, III, 97-219.

4 Id., 103.

90

RANDOLPH'S VIEWS.

them and not within the keeping of those who caused the disorder; he saw nothing in the extent of the country that could render the proposed government oppressive.1 With larger vision than had most of his contemporaries, he saw in the new government a political system that might extend over all the western world, and indeed one which could know no limitation of territory. This was the more remarkable, because Hamilton, Morris and the more ardent Federalists in the Philadelphia Convention had hesitated to attempt a representative government for a country extending like ours from Canada to the Floridas and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.3 Expansionists were rare in 1787.

5

6

Mason wished to limit the general government, first, to requisitions, and not until these had been refused,1 to suffer it to exert the power of taxation, but Randolph replied that refusal or neglect would produce war; a sufficient reason for approving this part of the plan, and he objected to the unconnected and irregular manner in which the Anti-Federalists attacked detached parts of the Constitution, without considering the whole, and as Rutledge had said of Lowndes' argument in the South Carolina convention, Randolph now stigmatized Henry's as "disingenuous and unreasonable." Henry quoted the

1 Id., 107. See objections to the proposed plan from extent of territory answered in the Federalist, No. XIV, by Madison. It first appeared in the New York Packet, November 30, 1787. This number may have been republished in some of the Virginia papers. See Washington to Madison, December 7, 1787; Sparks, 285; to Hamilton, November 10, 1787; Id., 275.

2 Elliot, III, 108.

3 Elliot, V, 202.

4 As proposed by one of the South Carolina amendments. 5 Elliot, III, 118.