by Pennsylvania, and the other large states, that they, for the sake of peace, assented to the Confederation; can she now resume her original right without the consent of the donee?
And although it is now asserted that the larger states reluctantly agreed to that part of the Confederation which secures an equal suffrage to each, yet let it be remembered that the smaller states were the last who approved the Confederation.
On this ground, representation must be drawn from the states, to maintain their independency, and not from the people composing those states.
The doctrine advanced, by a learned gentleman from Pennsylvania, that all power is derived from the people, and that in proportion to their numbers they ought to participate equally in the benefits and rights of government, is right in principle, but, unfortunately for him, wrong in the application to the question now in debate.
When independent societies confederate for mutual defence, they do so in their collective capacity; and then each state, for those purposes, must be considered as one of the contracting parties. Destroy this balance of equality, and you endanger the rights of the lesser societies by the danger of usurpation in the greater.
Let us test the government intended to be made by the Virginia plan on these principles. The representatives in the national legislature are to be in proportion to the number of inhabitants in each state. So far, it is right upon these principles of equality. when state distinctions are done away; but those to certain purposes still exist. Will the government of Pennsylvania admit a participation of their common stock of land to the citizens of New Jersey? I fancy not. It therefore follows, that a national government, upon the present plan, is unjust, and destructive of the common principles of reciprocity. Much has been said that this government is to operate on persons, not on states. This, upon examination, will be found equally fallacious; for the fact is, it will, in the quotas of revenue, be proportioned among the states, as states; and in this business Georgia will have one vote, and Virginia sixteen. The truth is, both plans may be considered to compel individuals to a compliance with their requisitions, although the requisition is made on the states.
