contained in the objection against granting legislative power would equally operate against granting executive power, would prove that the powers already vested in the Union are illegal and unconstitutional, would render a confederacy of the States in any form impracticable, and would defeat all those provisions of our own constitution which relate to the United States. I submit it to the committee, whether a doctrine pregnant with such consequences can be true; whether it is not as opposite to our constitution as to the principles of national safety and prosperity; and whether it would not be lamentable if the zeal of opposition to a particular measure should carry us to the extreme of imposing upon the constitution a sense foreign to it, which must embarrass the national councils upon future occasions, when all might agree in the utility and necessity of a different construction.
If the arguments I have used under this head are not well-founded, let gentlemen come forward and show their fallacy. Let the subject have a fair and full examination, and let truth, on whatever side it may be, prevail!
Flattering myself it will appear to the committee that the constitution, at least, offers us no impediment, I shall proceed to other topics of objection. The next that presents itself, is a supposed danger to liberty from granting legislative power to Congress.
But, before I enter upon this subject, to remove the aspersions thrown upon that body, I shall give a short history of some material facts relating to the origin and progress of the business. To excite the jealousies of the people, it has been industriously represented as an undue attempt to acquire an increase of power. It has been forgotten, or intentionally overlooked, that, considering it in the strongest light as a proposal to alter the Confederation, it is only exercising a power which the Confederation has in direct terms reposed in Congress, who, as before observed, are, by the 13th article, expressly authorized to propose alterations.
But so far was the measure from originating in improper views of that body, that, if I am rightly informed, it did not originate there at all. It was first suggested by a convention of the four Eastern States and New York, at Hartford, and, I believe, was proposed there by the deputies of this State. A gentleman on our bench, unconnected with Congress, who now hears me (I mean Judge Hobart), was one of them. It was dictated by a principle which bitter experience then taught us, and which, in peace or war, will always be found true—that adequate supplies to the Federal treasury can never flow from any system which requires the intervention of thirteen deliberatives between the call and the execution.
Congress agreed to the measure, and recommended it. This State complied without hesitation. All parts of the government — Senate, Assembly, and Council of Revision — concurred; neither the constitution nor the public liberty presented any obstacle. The difficulties from these sources are a recent discovery.
So late as the first session of the Legislature, after the evacuation of this city, the governor of the State, in his speech to both Houses, gave a decided countenance to the measure. This he does, though not in expressed terms, yet by implications not to be misunderstood.
The leading opponents of the impost, of the present day, have all of them, at other times, either concurred in the measure, in its most exceptionable form, and without the qualifications annexed to it by the proposed bill, or have, by other instances of conduct, contradicted their own hypothesis on the constitution, which professedly forms the main prop of their opposition.
The honorable member in my eye, at the last session, brought in a bill for granting to the United States the power of regulating the trade of the Union. This surely includes more ample legislative authority than is comprehended in the mere power of levying a particular duty. It indeed goes to a prodigious extent, much farther than, on a superficial view, can be imagined. Can we believe that the constitutional objection, if well founded, would so long have passed undiscovered and unnoticed? Or, is it fair to impute to Congress criminal motives for proposing a measure which was first recommended to them by five States, or from persisting in that measure, after the unequivocal experience they have had of the total inefficacy of the mode provided in the Confederation for supplying the treasury of the Union?
I leave the answer to these questions to the good sense and candor of the committee, and shall return to the examination of the question, how far the power proposed to be conferred upon Congress would be dangerous to the liberty of the people. And here I ask:
Whence can this danger arise? The members of Congress are annually chosen by the members of the several Legislatures. They come together with different habits, prejudices, and interests. They are, in fact, continually changing. How is it possible for a body so composed to be formidable to the liberties of States—several of which are large empires in themselves?
The subversion of the liberty of the States could not be the business of a day. It would at least require time, premeditation, and concert. Can it be supposed, that the members of a body so constituted would be unanimous in a scheme of usurpation? If they were not, would it not be discovered and disclosed? If we could even suppose this unanimity among one set of men, can we believe that all the new members who are yearly sent from one State or another would instantly enter into the same views? Would there not be found one honest man to warn his country of the danger?
Suppose the worst—suppose the combination entered into and continued. The execution would at least announce the design; and the means of defence would be easy. Consider the separate power of several of these States, and the situation of all. Consider the extent, populousness, and resources of Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania; I might add, of New York, Connecticut, and other States. Where could Congress find means sufficient to subvert the government and liberties of either of these States? or, rather, where find means sufficient to effect the conquest at all? If an attempt was made upon one, the others, from a sense of common danger, would make common cause; and they could immediately unite and provide for their joint defence.
There is one consideration, of immense force in this question, not sufficiently attended to. It is this—that each State possesses in itself the full powers of government, and can at once, in a regular and constitutional way, take measures for the preservation of its rights. In a single kingdom or state, if the rulers attempt to establish a tyranny, the people can only defend themselves by a tumultuary insurrection; they must run to arms without concert or plan; while the usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can employ the forces of the State to suppress them in embryo, and before they can have time or opportunity to give system to their opposition. With us, the case is widely different. Each State has a government, completely organized in itself, and can at once enter into a regular plan of defence; with the forces of the community at its command, it can immediately form connections with its neighbors, or even with foreign powers, if necessary.
In a contest of this kind, the body of the people will always be on the side of the State governments. This will not only result from their love of liberty and regard to their own safety, but from other strong principles of human nature. The State governments operate on those immediate familiar personal concerns to which the sensibility of individuals is awake. The distribution of private justice belonging to them, they must always appear to the senses of the people as the immediate guardians of their rights. They will, of course, have the strongest hold on their attachment, respect, and obedience. Another circumstance will contribute to the same end. Far the greatest number of offices and employments are in the gift of the States separately; the weight of official influence will therefore be in favor of the State governments; and, with all these advantages, they cannot fail to carry the people along with them in every contest with the General Government in which they are not palpably in the wrong, and often when they are. What is to be feared from the efforts of Congress to establish a tyranny, with the great body of the people, under the direction of their State governments, combined in opposition to their views? Must not their attempts recoil upon themselves, and terminate in their own ruin and disgrace? or, rather, would not these considerations, if they were insensible to other motives, for ever restrain them from making such attempts?
The causes taken notice of, as securing the attachment of the people to their local governments, present us with another important truth—the natural imbecility of federal governments, and the danger that they will never be able to exercise power enough to manage the general affairs of the Union; though the States will have a common interest,