Nay, I plainly foresaw that, in the dissensions of parties, a middle line would probably be interpreted into a want of enterprise and decision. But these considerations, how seducing soever, were feeble opponents to the suggestion of my conscience. I was sent to exercise my judgment, and to exercise it was my fixed determination; being instructed by even an imperfect acquaintance with mankind, that self-approbation is the only true reward which a political career can bestow, and that popularity would have been but another name for perfidy, if to secure it I had given up the freedom of thinking for myself.
It would have been a peculiar pleasure to me to have ascertained, before I left Virginia, the temper and genius of my fellow-citizens, considered relatively to a government so substantially differing from the Confederation as that which is now submitted. But this was, for many obvious reasons, impossible; and I was thereby deprived of what I thought the necessary guides.
I saw, however, that the Confederation was tottering from its own weakness, and that the sitting of the Convention was a signal of its total insufficiency. I was, therefore, ready to assent to a scheme of government which was proposed, and which went beyond the limits of the Confederation, believing that, without being too extensive, it would have preserved our tranquillity until that temper and that genius should be collected.
But when the plan which is now before the General Assembly was on its passage through the Convention, I moved that the state conventions should be at liberty to amend, and that a second General Convention should be holden, to discuss the amendments which should be suggested by them. This motion was in some measure justified by the manner in which the Confederation was forwarded originally, by Congress, to the state legislatures, in many of which amendments were proposed ; and those amendments were afterwards examined in Congress. Such a motion was, then, doubly expedient here, as the delegation of so much more power was sought for. But it was negatived. I then expressed my unwillingness to sign. My reasons were the following:—
1. It is said, in the resolutions which accompany the Constitution, that it is to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof, for their assent and ratification. The meaning of these terms is universally allowed to be, that the convention must either adopt the Constitution in the whole, or reject it in the whole, and is positively forbidden to amend. If, therefore, I had signed, I should have felt myself bound to be silent as to amendments, and to endeavor to support the Constitution without the correction of a letter. With this consequence before my eyes, and with a determination to attempt an amendment, I was taught by a regard for consistency not to sign.
2. My opinion always was, and still is, that every citizen of America, let the crisis be what it may, ought to have a full opportunity to propose, through his representatives, any amendment which, in his apprehension, tends to the public welfare. By signing, I should have contradicted this sentiment.
3. A constitution ought to have the hearts of the people on its side. But if, at a future day, it should become burdensome after having been adopted in the whole, and they should insinuate that it was in some measure forced upon them b being confined to the single alternative of
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