the committee, but was ready to accede to the compromise they had reported. Some compromise was necessary; and he saw none more convenient or reasonable.
Mr. WILLIAMSON hoped that the expressions of individuals would not be taken for the sense of their colleagues, much less of their states, which was not and could not be known. He hoped, also, that the meaning of those expressions would not be misconstrued or exaggerated. He did not conceive that (Mr. Gouverneur Morris) meant that the sword ought to be drawn against the smaller states. He only pointed out the probable consequences of anarchy in the United States. A similar exposition ought to be given of the expressions of (Mr. Gorham). He was ready to hear the report discussed; but thought the propositions contained in it the most objectionable of any he had yet heard.
Mr. PATTERSON said, that he had, when the report was agreed to in the committee, reserved to himself the right of freely discussing it. He acknowledged that the warmth complained of was improper; but he thought the sword and the gallows little calculated to produce conviction. He complained of the manner in which Mr. Madison and Mr. G. Morris had treated the small states.
Mr. GERRY. Though he had assented to the report in the committee, he had very material objections to it. We were, however, in a peculiar situation. We were neither the same nation, nor different nations. We ought not, therefore, to pursue the one or the other of these ideas too closely. If no compromise should take place, what will be the consequence? A secession, he foresaw, would take place; for some gentlemen seemed decided on it. Two different plans will be proposed, and the result no man could foresee. If we do not come to some agreement among ourselves, some foreign sword will probably do the work for us.
Mr. MASON. The report was meant not as specific propositions to be adopted, but merely as a general ground of accommodation. There must be some accommodation on this point, or we shall make little further progress in the work. Accommodation was the object of the House in the appointment of the committee, and of the committee in the report they had made. And, however liable the report might be to objections, he thought it preferable to an appeal to the world by the different sides, as had been talked of by some gentlemen. It could not be more inconvenient to any gentleman to remain absent from his private affairs than it was for him; but he would bury his bones in this city rather than expose his country to the consequences of a dissolution of the Convention without any thing being done.
The first proposition in the report for fixing the representation in the first branch, "one member for every forty thousand inhabitants," being taken up,—
Mi. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS objected to that scale of apportionment. He thought property ought to be taken into the estimate as well as the number of inhabitants. Life and liberty were generally
