Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/307

paper money; this engine of iniquity is universally reprobated. But conventions give power, and conventions can take it away. This observation does not appear to me well founded. It is not so easy to dissolve a government like this. Its dissolution may be prevented by a. trifling minority of the people of America. The consent of so many states is necessary to introduce amendments, that I fear they will with great difficulty be obtained. It is said that a strong government will increase our population by the addition of immigrants. From what quarter is immigration to proceed? From the arbitrary monarchies of Europe? I fear this kind of population would not add much to our happiness or improvement. It is supposed that, from the prevalence of the Orange faction, numbers will come hither from Holland, although it is not imagined the strength of the government will form the inducement. The exclusive power of legislation over the ten miles square is introduced by many gentlemen. I would not deny the utility of vesting the general government with a power of this kind, were it properly guarded. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it occurs to me that Congress may give exclusive privileges to merchants residing within the ten miles square, and that the same exclusive power of legislation will enable them to grant similar privileges to merchants in the strongholds within the states. I wish to know if there be any thing in the Constitution to prevent it. If there be, I have not been able to discover it. I may, perhaps, not thoroughly comprehend this part of the Constitution; but it strikes my mind that there is a possibility that, in process of time, and from the simple operation of effects from causes, the whole commerce of the United States may be exclusively carried on by merchants residing within the seat of government, and those places of arms which may be purchased of the state legislatures. How detrimental and injurious to the community, and how repugnant to the equal rights of mankind, such exclusive emoluments would be, I submit to the consideration of the committee. Things of a similar nature have happened in other countries; or else from whence have issued the Hanse Towns, Cinque Ports, and other places in Europe, which have peculiar privileges in commerce as well as in other matters? I do not offer this sentiment as an opinion, but a conjecture, and, in this doubtful agitation of mind on