from every emission by the debtor states. We have seen retaliating acts on the subject, which threatened danger, not to the harmony only, but the tranquillity of the Union. The plan of Mr. Patterson, not giving even a negative on the acts of the states, left them as much at liberty as ever to execute their unrighteous projects against each other.
4. Will it secure the internal tranquillity of the states themselves. The insurrections in Massachusetts admonished all the states of the danger to which they were exposed. Yet the plan of Mr. Patterson contained no provisions for supplying the defect of the Confederation on this point. According to the republican theory, indeed, right and power, being both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous. According to fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an overmatch for the majority;—in the first place, if the minority happen to include all such as possess the skill and habits of military life, with such as possess the great pecuniary resources, one third may conquer the remaining two thirds; in the second place, one third of those who participate in the choice of rulers may be rendered a majority by the accession of those whose poverty disqualifies them from a suffrage, and who, for obvious reasons, must be more ready to join the standard of sedition than that of established government; and, in the third place, where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious.
5. Will it secure a good internal legislation and administration to the particular states? In developing the evils which vitiate the political system of the United States, it is proper to take into view those which prevail within the states individually, as well as those which affect them collectively; since the former indirectly affect the whole, and there is great reason to believe that the pressure of them had a full share in the motives which produced the present Convention. Under this head he enumerated and animadverted on—first, the multiplicity of the laws passed by the several states; secondly, the mutability of their laws; thirdly, the injustice of them; and, fourthly, the impotence of them;—observing that Mr. Patterson's plan contained no remedy for this dreadful class of evils, and could not therefore be received as an adequate provision for the exigencies of the community.
6. Will it secure the Union against the influence of foreign powers over its members? He pretended not to say that any such influence had yet been tried: but it was naturally to be expected that occasions would produce it. As lessons which claimed particular attention, he cited the intrigues practised among the Amphictyonic confederates, first by the kings of Persia, and afterwards, fatally, by Philip of Macedon; among the Achaeans, first by Macedon, and afterwards, no less fatally, by Rome; among the Swiss, by Austria, France, and the lesser neighboring powers; among the members of the Germanic body, by France, England, Spain, and Russia; and in the Belgic republic, by all the great neighboring powers. The plan
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