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them, to make the proposition to the Legislatures and let them decide for themselves.

Whatever may or can be said in favor of instructions generally, cannot be applicable to this case. For the purpose of obtaining amendments to the Constitution, Congress can only propose and the State Legislatures ratify. The duties are appropriate and distinct, and the uninfluenced independent act of both requisite. The Legislatures cannot ratify till a proposal is made. This subject can be elucidated and enforced by familiar examples. The House of Representatives alone can originate a bill for raising revenue, but it cannot become a law without the concurrence of the Senate. Would not the advice and instruction of the Senate to the House, intimating our desire that they would originate and send to us for concurrence, a revenue bill, be thought improper, indelicate, and even unconstitutional? The President and Senate can appoint certain officers, but they have distinct and appropriate agencies in the appointment. The President can nominate, but cannot appoint without the advice and consent of the Senate.

But the Senate cannot nominate, nor could their advice to the President to make a nomination, be either binding or proper. The character of the several independent branches of our Government, forming Constitutional checks upon each other, cannot be exemplified more fully than in the mode of producing amendments. And an interference of one independent body, upon the appropriate and distinct duties of another, can in no instance have a more prejudicial effect. Can it be thought, then, either proper or Constitutional for the State Legislatures to assume the power of instructing to propose to them a measure when the power of proposing is not only not given to them but given exclusively to Congress? As well and with as much propriety might Congress make a law attempting to bind the State Legislatures to ratify, as the Legislatures, by instructions, bind Congress to propose. In either case, the check which, for obviously wise purposes, was introduced into the Constitution, is totally destroyed. And we have not as much security against improper amendments, as we should have if the power were exclusively vested in the State Legislatures, and for this obvious reason, that, in this mode of operation, the responsibility for the adoption of an improper amendment is divided and destroyed. Is the sentiment correct, sir, that we shall be justifiable in sending forth this proposition to be considered by the State Legislatures, if we believe it ought not to be ratified? What would be thought of the Senate if they should pass a bill and send it to the House of Representatives for concurrence, the provisions of which they disliked entirely, and wished not to be established? And can any sound distinction be made between such a measure and the one now before us? In either case, the single act of the other body would be final, and in either case the people at large would be safer to have but one body in existence to legislate or make amendments; for all our agency, in both cases, would only tend to deceive and mislead, and, in

SENATE.

addition, to diminish if not destroy, as has just been observed, the responsibility of the other body. It has been said, sir, that the House of Representatives have twice given a sanction to this measure, and that their conduct, in this particular, adds weight to it. I wish to treat that honorable body with the highest respect, but I must deviate from the truth were I to acknowledge that their conduct upon this amendment has a tendency to convince me that they have a full understanding of the subject. Twice have they sent us a resolution, similar in its leading feature to that on your table, and made no provision that the person to be Vice President should be qualified for the highly responsible office, either in age, or citizenship; and, for aught that they had guarded against, we might have had a man in the Chief Magistracy from Morocco, a foreigner, who had not been in the country a month.

Mr. President,-it was suggested in a former part of the debate, by a gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. BUTLER,) that the great States, or ruling party of the day, had brought forward this amendment, for the purpose of preventing the choice of a Federal Vice President at the next election. And we are now put beyond the power of doubt, that this is, at least, one motive, by the observations of several of the majority, but especially by those of the gentleman from Virginia. He informs us, and I appreciate his frankness, that if the friends of this measure do not seize the present opportunity to pass it, the opportunity will never recur. He tells us plainly, that a minor faction ought to be discouraged, that all hopes or prospect of rising into consequence, much more of rising into office, should be crushed, and that this amendment is to produce a part of these beneficial effects; which amendment he compares to the bill which was introduced into the British Parliament, to exclude a popish successor to the Crown, commonly called the exclusion bill. Have the minority then, no right left, but the right to be trampled upon by the majority? This is identically the conduct which is mentioned in the quotation which I have had the honor to make from the Secretary of State; to which I ask leave to recur: "The majority, by trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in Republics, have more frequently than any other cause produced des'potism."

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What avails it then, that this country has triumphed over the invasion and violence of one oppressor, if they must now be victims to the violence of thousands? Political death is denounced now; what denunciation will follow? It would be a useless affectation in us to pretend to close our eyes upon either the cause or consequences of this measure.

The spirit of party has risen so high, at the present day, that it dares to attempt what in milder times would be beyond the reach of calculation. To this overwhelming torrent every consideration must give way.

The gentleman is perfectly correct, in supposing that now is the only time to pass this resolu

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tion; there is a tide in the affairs of party most emphatically, and unless its height is taken, its acme improved, the shallows soon appear, and the present demon of party give place to a successor. A hope is undoubtedly now indulged that one great and dominant passion will, like Aaron's rod, swallow up every other, and that the favorable moment can now be seized to crush the small States, and to obtain their own agency in the transaction. And when we recur to the history of former confederacies, and find the small States arrayed in conflict against each other, to fight, to suffer, and to die, for the transient gratification of the great States, have we not some reason to fear the success of this measure?

In the Senate, is the security of the small States; their feeble voice in the House of Representatives is lost in the potent magic of numbers and wealth. Never until now has the force of the small States, which was provided by the Constitution, and lodged in this federative body, as a weapon of selfdefence, been able to bear upon this question. And will the small States, instead of defending their own interest, their existence, sacrifice them to a gust of momentary passion? to the short-lived gratification of party prejudice?

DECEMBER, 1803.

having raised my feeble voice in defence of that Constitution, which is not only the security of the small States, but the palladium of my country's rights, and shall console myself with the reflection that I have done my duty.

Mr. TAYLOR. The opposition to this discrimi-
nating amendment to the Constitution is con-
densed into a single stratagem, namely: an effort
to excite the passion of jealousy in various forms.
Endeavors have been made to excite geographical
jealousies-a jealousy of the smaller against the
larger States-a jealousy in the people against
the idea of amending the Constitution; and even
a jealousy against individual members of this
House. Sir, is this passion a good medium
through which to discern truth, or is it a mirror
calculated to reflect error? Will it enlighten or
deceive? Is it planted in good or in evil-in
moral or in vicious principles? Wherefore, then,
do gentlemen endeavor to blow it up? Is it be-
cause they distrust the strength of their argu-
ments, that they resort to this furious and erring
passion? Is it because they know that
-"Trifles light as air,

Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ ?"

This resolution, if circumstances shall equivocally demand it, can pass at the next, or any future So far as these efforts have been directed tosession of Congress. But once passed, and its wards a geographical demarcation of the interests passage will operate like the grave; the sacrificed of the Union into North and South, in order to rights of the small States will be gone for ever. excite a jealousy of one division against another; Is it possible, sir, that any small State can sub- and, so far as they have been used to create susmit to be a satellite in the State system, and re- picions of individuals, they have been either so volve in a secondary orbit around great State? feeble, inapplicable, or frivolous, as to bear but Act in humble devotion to her will, till her pur-lightly upon the question, and to merit but little poses are gratified, and then content herself to be attention. But the attempts to array States thrown aside like a cast garment, an object of her against States because they differ in size, and to own unceasing regret, and fit only for the hand prejudice the people against the idea of amending of scorn to point its slow unmoving finger at? their Constitution, bear a more formidable aspect, Can the members of the Senate who represent the and ought to be repelled, because they are foundsmall States quietly cross their hands and requested on principles the most mischievous and inimithe great States to bind them fast, and to draw the ligature?

I am aware, sir, that I shall be accused of an attempt to excite the jealousy of the small States. Mr. President, I represent a small State, I feel the danger, and claim the Constitutional right to sound the alarm. From the same altar on which the small States shall be immolated, will rise the smoke of sacrificed liberty; and despotism must be the dreadful successor.

It is the cause of my country and of humanity which I plead. And when one vast, overwhelming passion is in exercise, full well I know, sir, that no warning voice, no excitement but jealousy, has been found sufficiently active and energetic to dissolve the wizard spell, and force mankind to listen to argument. Jealousy, hateful in private life, has perhaps done more in the preservation of political rights than all the virtues united.

I have made the stand, sir, in the Senate, which I thought the importance of the subject demanded. If I fail here, there is hope of success with the State Legislatures. If nothing can withstand the torrent there, I shall experience the satisfaction which is derived from a consciousness of

cal to the Constitution, and could they be successful, are replete with great mischiefs.

Towards exciting this jealousy of smaller States against larger States, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. TRACY) had labored to prove that the federal principle of the Constitution of the United States was founded in the idea of minority invested with operative power. That, in pursuance of this principle, it was contemplated and intended that the election of a President should frequently come into the House of Representatives, and to divert it from thence by this amendment would trench upon the federal principle of our Constitution, and diminish the rights of the smaller States, bestowed by this principle upon them. This was the scope of his argument to excite their jealousy, and is the amount also of sev eral other arguments delivered by gentlemen on the same side of the question. He did not question the words, but the ideas of gentlemen. Words, selected from their comrades, are easily asserted to misrepresent opinions, as he had himself experienced during the discussion on the subject.

This idea of federalism ought to be well dis

DECEMBER, 1803.

Amendment to the Constitution.

SENATE.

But the gentleman from Connecticut has leaped over all this ground, and gotten into the House of Representatives, without considering the principles of the Constitution, as applicable to the election of President and Vice President by Electors, and distinguishing them from an election by the House of Representatives. And by mingling and interweaving the two modes of electing together, a considerable degree of complexity has been produced. If, however, it is admitted that in an election of a President and Vice President by Electors, that the will of the electing majority ought fairly to operate, and that an election by the will of a minority would be an abuse or corruption of the principles of the Constitution, then it follows that an amendment, to avoid this abuse, accords with, and is necessary to save these principles. In like manner, had an abuse crept into the same election, whenever it was to be made under the federal principle by the House of Representatives, enabling a minority of States to carry the election, it would not have violated the intention of the Constitution to have corrected this suppose it to have been the intention of the Constitution that both the federal principle and the popular principle should operate in those functions respectively assigned to them, perfectly and not imperfectly-that is, the former by a majority of States, and the latter by a majority of the people.

cussed by the smaller States, before they will suffer it to produce the intended effect-that of exciting their jealousy against the larger. To him it appeared to be evidently incorrect. Two principles sustain our Constitution: one a majority of the people, the other a majority of the States; the first was necessary to preserve the liberty or sovereignty of the people; the last, to preserve the liberty or sovereignty of the States. But both are founded in the principle of majority; and the effort of the Constitution is to preserve this principle in relation both to the people and the States, so that neither species of sovereignty or independence should be able to destroy the other. Many illustrations might be adduced. That of amending the Constitution will suffice. Three-fourths of the States must concur in this object, because a less number or a majority of States might not contain a majority of people; therefore, the Constitution is not amendable by a majority of States, lest a species of State sovereignty might, under color of amending the Constitution, infringe the right of the people. On the other hand, a majority of the people residing in the large States can-abuse, also, by an amendment. For, sir, I must not amend the Constitution, lest they should diminish or destroy the sovereignty of the small States, the federal Union, or federalism itself. Hence a concurrence of the States to amend the Constitution became necessary, not because federalism was founded in the idea of minority, but for a reason the very reverse of that idea-that is, to cover the will both of a majority of the people and a majority of States, so as to preserve the great element of self-government, as it regarded State sovereignty, and also as it regarded the sovereignty of the people.

For this great purpose certain political functions are assigned to be performed, under the auspices of the State or federal principle, and certain others under the popular principle. It was the intention of the Constitution that these functions should be performed in conformity to its principle. If that principle is in fact a government of a minority, then these functions ought to be performed by a minority. When the federal principle is performing a function, according to this idea, a majority of the States ought to decide. And, by the same mode of reasoning, when the popular principle is performing a function, then a minority of the people ought to decide. This brings us precisely to the question of the amendment. It is the intention of the Constitution that the popular principle shall operate in the election of a President and Vice President. It is also the intention of the Constitution that the popular principle, in discharging the functions committed to it by the Constitution, should operate by a majority and not by a minority. That the majority of the people should be driven, by an unforeseen state of parties, to the necessity of relinquishing their will in the election of one or the other of these officers, or that the principle of majority, in a function confided to the popular will, should be deprived of half its rights, and be laid under a necessity of violating its duty to preserve the other half, is not the intention of the Constitution.

Under this view of the subject, the amendment ought to be considered. Then the question will be, whether it is calculated or not to cause the popular principle, applied by the Constitution in the first instance, to operate perfectly, and to prevent the abuse of an election by a minority? If it is, it corresponds with the intention, diminishes nothing of the rights of the smaller States, and, of course, affords them no cause of jealousy.

Sir, it could never have been the intention of the Constitution to produce a state of things by which a majority of the popular principle should be under the necessity of voting against its judgment to secure a President, and by which a minor faction should acquire a power capable of defeating the majority in the election of President, or of electing a Vice President contrary to the will of the electing principle. To permit this abuse would be a fraudulent mode of defeating the operation of the popular principle in this election, in order to transfer it to the federal principle-to disinherit the people for the sake of endowing the House of Representatives; whereas it was an accidental and not an artificial disappointment in the election of a President, against which the Constitution intended to provide. A fair and not an unfair attempt to elect was previously to be made by the popular principle, before the election was to go into the House of Representatives. And if the people of all the States, both large and small, should, by an abuse of the real design of the Constitution, be bubbled out of the election of Executive power, by leaving to them the nominal right of an abortive effort, and transferring to the House of Representatives the substantial right

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, though divorced from its administration, the of getting in again caused them to maintain ses, by which their avarice or ambition might 2 gratified upon the next turn of the wheel; just in Prussia, where divorces are common, nothg is more usual than for late husbands to affect lent passion for a former wife, if she carried from him a good estate! And the ins fearing national jealousy, and the prepossession against ending the form of Government, and meeting y abuses by new remedies, brought no relief to #nation. So that under every change of men uses proceeded.

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by these monarchical energies, to produce the same effects as in England; and I would hide my intentions by exciting a fanatical adoration for the Constitution, which I would endeavor to make a metaphysical idol; and which I would myself adore, in order to destroy. Whilst I pretended to be its devotee, it should become my screen.

This, sir, will be the consequence, if the people of the United States should become jealous of the amending the Constitution; and therefore this species of jealousy so industriously attempted to be excited, is calculated, if it could operate, to bring upon them the utmost calamity. Abuses of a political system will happen; and amendments only can meet abuses. Public opinion, and not an idolatrous tenet, is the element of our policy; and, however the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. PICKERING) may deride the opinion of the people, it is the element in which our policy is rooted, and which can at all times be safely entrusted with moulding their form of Government. [Mr. PICKERING here explained.]

The solution of this effect exists in the species of political craft similar to priestcraft. Mankind were anciently deprived of their religious liberty o a dissemination of a fanatical zeal for some ; in times of ignorance, this idol was of phyal structure; and when that fraud was detected, metaphysical idol in the shape of a tenet or dogma wis substituted for it, infinitely more pernicious in its effects, because infinitely more difficult of detection. The same system has been pursued Sir, I quote gentlemen's ideas and not their by political craft. It has ever labored to excite words. Is it not true that the gentleman ridiculed the same species of idolatry and superstition a recommendation of this very amendment, even for the same reason, namely, to conceal its own from a State Legislature, because of some gramauds and vices. Sometimes it sets up a physi-matical inaccuracy; and that he reasoned against Ca, at others a metaphysical idol, as the object of the possibility of knowing what the public opinion algar superstition. Of one, the former "Grand was; and yet, however inaccurately it may be Monarch of France;" of the other, the present expressed, that gentleman certainly has had sufChurch and State" tenet of England is an evi- ficient evidence to convince him that public opindence. And if our Constitution is to be made ion is really a noun substantive. like the "Church and State" tenet of England, a metaphysical political idol, which it will be sacrilege to amend, even for the sake of saving both that and the national liberty; and if, like that tenet, it is to be exposed to all the means which centuries may suggest to vicious men for its substantial destruction, it is not hard to imagine that it also may become a monument of the inefficacy of unalterable forms of political law to correct avarice and ambition in the new and multifarious shapes they are forever assuming.

It has been urged, sir, by the gentlemen in opposition, in a mode, as if they supposed we wished to conceal or deny it, that one object of this amendment is to bestow upon the majority a power to elect a Vice President. Sir, I avow it to be so. This is one object of the amendment; and the other, as to which I have heretofore expressed my sentiments, is to enable the Electors, by perfecting the election of a President, to keep it out of the House of Representatives. Are not both objects correct, if, as I have endeavored to prove, A Constitution may allegorically be considered the Constitution, in all cases where it refers elecas a temple for the preservation of the treasure tions to the popular principle, intended that prinof liberty. Around it may be posted one, two, or ciple to act by majorities? Did the Constitution three, or more sentinels; but unless these sentinels intend that any minor faction should elect a Vice are themselves watched by the people, and unless President? If not, then an amendment to prethe injuries they are frequently committing upon vent it accords with, and is representative of, the the temple are diligently repaired, such is the na- Constitution. Permit me here again to illustrate ture of man in power, that the very sentinels by a historical case. England, in the time of themselves have invariably broken into the tem- Charles the Second, was divided into two parties ple and conveyed away the treasure. And this-Protestants and Papists-and the heir to the because of the delusion inspired by political idolatry, which forbids nations to meet abuses by amending their Governments or constitutions; and teaches them that municipal law alone will suffice for their happiness.

Permit me, sir, to illustrate this argument by declaring how I would proceed, if such was my design to destroy the Constitution of the United States, premising that I speak prospectively and not retrospectively. I would have recourse to those very energies which constitute the English monarchy: armies, debt, Executive patronage, penal laws, and corporations. I would endeavor,

throne was a Papist. The Protestants, constituting the majority of the nation, passed an exclusion bill, but it was defeated, and the minor Papist faction, in the person of the Duke of York, got possession of Executive power. The consequences were, domestic oppressions and rebellions, foreign wars occasionally for almost a century, and the foundation of a national debt, under which the nation has been ever since groaning, and under which the Government will finally expire.

Had the majority carried and executed the proposed exclusion of James II. from Executive power, the English would have escaped all these

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