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country in the hands of your enemies; those garrisons will be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to congress, also, in another part of the plan ; they will therefore act as they think proper; all power will be in their own possession; you cannot force them to receive their punishment."

"He continued to ridicule the expected splendor of the new government, and the other imaginary checks and balances which were said to exist in this. Constitution. If we admit, said he, this consolidated government, it will be because we like a splendid one. Some way or other we must have a great and mighty empire. We must have an army, and a navy, and a number of other things! When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different. Liberty was the primary object. And, again, this Constitution is said to have beautiful features. When I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to be horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting; it squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the heart of every true American?"

He then goes on to say how it could be done, and that we must not always depend on having good men in office; and he asked where there was ever a country which had depended on such a chance, that had not lost their liberties? He then shows how the president may make himself king; and, with his power, it could be done; and then what will become of your rights? and upon this danger it is said he became so eloquent the reporter could not follow him in his flights.

He then summed up the chief objections to the Constitution under the following heads:

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"1. That it was a consolidated instead of a confederated government; that the delegates of Philadelphia had transcended the limits of their commission; changed fundamentally the relation which the States chose to bear to each other; annihilated their respective sovereignties; destroyed the barriers which divided them, and converted the whole into a solid empire. To this leading objection almost all the rest had reference, and were urged principally with the view to illustrate and enforce it.

"2. The vast and alarming array of specific powers given to the general government, and the wide door opened for the unlimited extension of those powers, by the clause 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 form of construction arising from that clause, congress might do any thing and every thing it chose, under the pretext of giving effect to some specific power.

“3. The unlimited power of taxation of all kinds. The States were no longer required, in their federative character, to contribute their respective proportions toward the expenses and engagements of the general government. It authorized congress to go to the pockets of every man in the country;" and he thought that, over so vast acountry, taxes by the general government could not be regulated in such a manner as would be equal, or would be submitted to. "It was resolved, he saw clearly, that we must be a great and spendid people; and, in order to be so, immense revenues must be raised from the people; the people were to be loaded down with taxes, direct and indirect, and a swarm of federal tax-gatherers were to cover this land, to blight every blade of grass, and

every leaf of vegetation, and to consume its productions for the enrichment of themselves and their masters, &c.

"4. The power of raising armies and building navies, and, still more, the control given to the general government over the militia of the States, was most strenuously opposed. This country, whose best policy was peace, was to be saddled with the expense of maintaining standing armies for no other purpose than to insult her citizens, to afford a pretext for increased taxes, and an augmented public debt; and, finally, to subvert the liberties of the people. Her militia, too, the last remaining defence, was gone," and he asked Mr. Madison candidly to tell him, "when and where did freedom exist when the sword and purse were given up from the people? Unless a miracle in human affairs shall interfere, no nation ever did, or ever can, retain its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse, &c.

"5. He objected to the judiciary system, and the power of congress of multiplying inferior courts, -a power he thought they would not fail to exercise, in order to swell the patronage of the president to their own emolument, &c.

"6. He contended the trial by jury was gone in civil cases, and in criminal ones it was worse than gone. In the first place, because the Supreme Court had appellate power over the law and the facts in every case, and which thereby enabled that tribunal to annihilate both the verdict and judgment of the inferior courts; and that in criminal cases, also, the trial by jury was worse than gone, because it was admitted that the common law, which alone gives the challenge for favor, would not be in force as to the federal courts; and hence à jury might in every instance be packed to suit the purposes of prosecution.

"7. The authority of the president to take command of the armies of the United States, &c.

"8. The cession of the whole treaty-making power to the president and senate was considered one of the most formidable features in the instrument." He thought the

lower house ought to be included.

"9. The immense patronage of the president was objected to.

10. The irresponsibility of the whole gang of federal officers [as they were called] was found fault with. He considered the power of impeachment that was pretended to be given in some instances was mere show and mockery.

“11. It was insisted, if we must adopt a Constitution, ceding away such vast powers, expressed and implied, and so fraught with danger to the liberties of the people, it ought at least to be guarded by a bill of rights; that, in all free governments, and in the estimation of all men attached to liberty, there were certain rights inalienable and imprescriptible, and of so sacred a character that they could not be guarded with too much caution. Among these were the liberty of speech and of the press : what security have we that these sacred privileges shall not be invaded? Congress might think it necessary, to carry into effect the given powers, to silence the clamors and censures of the people; and, if they meditated views of LAWLESS AMBITION, they certainly will so think. -What, then, will become of liberty of speech and of the press?

"Several objections of a minor character were urged, such as,

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"1. The ambiguity with which the directions for publishing the proceedings of congress was expressed, &c. "2. That the 9th section of the 1st article, professing to set out restrictions upon the power of congress, gave

them, by irresistible implication, the sovereign power over all subjects not excepted, and thus enlarged the constructive power ad infinitum.

"3. That congress had the power of involving the Southern States in all the horrors which would result from the total emancipation of their slaves; and that the Northern States, uninterested in the consequences of such an act, had a controlling majority which possessed the power, and would not probably want the inclination, to effect it. "4. That the pay of the members was to be fixed by themselves." 1

He made these, together with many other objections, and, in reply to Mr. Madison and Mr. Corbin, who said the "Constitution was of a mixed nature; ""it is in a manner unprecedented; we cannot find one express example in the experience of the world; it stands by itself; in some respects it is a government of a federal nature; in others it is of a consolidated nature; " "it was a representative federal government, as contradistinguished from a confederation," he said, —

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"This government is so new it wants a name! wish its other novelties were as harmless as this. We are told, however, that, collectively taken, it is without example! that it is national in this part, and federal in that part, &c. We may be amused, if we please, by a treatise of political anatomy. In the brain it is national; the stamina are federal; some limbs are federal, others national. The senators are voted for by the State legislatures; so far it is federal. Individuals choose the members of the first branch; here it is national. It is federal in conferring federal powers, but national in re

1 Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, pp. 299-305.

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