please. They may regulate the number of votes by the quantity of property, without involving any repugnancy to the Constitution. I should not have thought of this trick or contrivance, had I not seen how the public liberty of Rome was trifled with by the mode of voting by centuries, whereby one rich man had as many votes as a multitude of poor men. The plebeians were trampled on till they resisted The patricians trampled on the liberties of the plebeians till the latter had the spirit to assert their right to freedom and equality. The result of the American mode of election may be similar. Perhaps I may be told that I have gone through the regions of fancy—that I deal in noisy exclamations and mighty professions of patriotism. Gentlemen may retain their opinions; but I look on that paper as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people. If such be your rage for novelty, take it, and welcome; but you never shall have my consent. My sentiments may appear extravagant, but I can tell you that a number of my fellow-citizens have kindred sentiments; and I am anxious, if my country should come into the hands of tyranny, to exculpate myself from being in any degree the cause, and to exert my faculties to the utmost to extricate her. Whether I am gratified or not in my beloved form of government, I consider that the more she has plunged into distress, the more it is my duty to relieve her. Whatever may be the result, I shall wait with patience till the day may come when an opportunity shall offer to exert myself in her cause.
But I should be led to take that man for a lunatic, who should tell me to run into the adoption of a government avowedly defective, in hopes of having it amended afterwards. Were I about to give away the meanest particle of my own property, I should act with more prudence and discretion. My anxiety and fears are great lest America, by the adoption of this system, should be cast into a fathomless bottom.—Mr. Henry then concluded that, as he had not gone through all he intended to say, he hoped he would be indulged another time.
Mr. LEE, (of Westmoreland.) Mr. Chairman, when I spoke before, and called on the honorable gentleman (Mr. Henry) to come forward and give his reasons for his opposition in a systematic manner, I did it from love of order
