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Ordered That they lie for consideration. AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the report of the cominittee appointed to consider the amendment proposed to the Constitution, in the mode of electing the President and Vice President of the United States.

Mr. ADAMS Suggested the propriety of postponing the question this day, as a member was absent indisposed, (Mr. ANDERSON,) who was the representative of a small State. He was ready on Saturday to give his vote on the main question and on the incidental question; but as he understood the number three to be a sine qua non with the gentleman from Virginia, he thought it better the subject should be postponed until the House should be full.

Mr. COCKE said, that number was not with him a sine qua non; he would vote for the amendment with either number; though, from a more deliberate consideration of the arguments he had heard, he was disposed to think three the best number, as it promised to bring the election closer to the people. He was not apprized how his colleague meant to vote.

Mr. FRANKLIN was against a postponement. His mind was perfectly made up on the subject, and it was time the Senate should come to a decision. The Legislature of his State was in session; their sentiments were decidedly in favor of the amendment, and he wished it to reach them before Christmas, as they would most likely rise about that time.

Mr. WHITE said that he, as well as other gentlemen, was ready to vote on the main and incidental questions, and was fully aware of the importance of an early decision. His mind was made up, as a member from a small State, for the number five, and he understood that the member absent was in favor of the same number. He wished, on his account, therefore, to postpone, though ready himself. The gentleman might be able to attend to-morrow.

Mr. NICHOLAS thought there was no necessity whatever to delay a decision. If the indisposition of a member was a good reason for delay, business might be postponed forever; but even if the gentleman absent was solicitous to deliver his

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sentiments, the filling up the blank with any number need not prevent it, as the number might be withdrawn to afford him that opportunity, and the discussion of the main question might still proceed.

Mr. DAYTON was opposed to that mode of proceeding. Upon the issue of the number five or three, it was probable that the whole question would depend.

Mr. TRACY was for a postponement. He felt himself unwell.

Mr. COCKE was indifferent; whether decided now or to-morrow, it would be the same. Postponed.

TUESDAY, November 29.

Mr. BRADLEY presented the petition of Elijah Brainard, stating that he had received a wound in the service of the United States during the late Revolutionary war, and that he is thereby reduced to great distress, and wholly incapacitated for sion list, although his claim may be barred by the bodily labor, and praying admission on the penstatute of limitations; and the petition was read,

and ordered to lie on the table.

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

To the Senate and House of

Representatives of the United States :

heretofore given on the subject of Louisiana. You I now communicate an appendix to the information will be sensible, from the face of these papers, as well not, and could not, be official, but are furnished by difas of those to which they are a sequel, that they are ferent individuals, as the result of the best inquiries they had been able to make, and now given as received from them, only digested under heads to prevent repetitions.

NOVEMBER 29, 1803

TH. JEFFERSON.

The Message and papers therein referred to were read, and ordered to lie for consideration.

The bill entitled "An act to repeal an act, enti tled 'An act to establish an uniform system of bankruptcy throughout the United States," was read the second time.

Ordered, That the further consideration thereof be the order of the day for to-morrow.

AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION. The order of the day being called up on the amendments to the Constitution-a considerable time elapsed, when

Mr. DAYTON rose and said, that since no other gentleman thought proper to address the Chair, although laboring himself under a very severe cold, which rendered speaking painful, he could not suffer the question to pass without an effort to arrest it in its progress; and should consider his last breath well expended in endeavoring to prevent the degradation which the State he represented would suffer if the amendment were to prevail.

As to the question immediately before the Senate for filling the blank with five, he felt himself indebted to the member from Tennessee for renewing the subject. He was grateful, also, to

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the member from Maryland (Mr. WRIGHT) for other House for allowing the privilege of frankdeclaring he would support it, as well as for giving a few letters to a gentleman who sat there as ing the assurance that he was disposed to consider and spare the interests of the small States as far as possible, consistently with the great object of discrimination.

delegate, and had travelled about thirteen hundred miles from the banks of the Mississippi to inform us that it was inhabited by other creatures than alligators, the bill was opposed by that very gentleman, upon the ground that the dignity of Georgia would be wounded, and her rights injured by the passage of that bill. It was afterwards committed and recommitted, whilst the unhappy delegate (since put in his grave, poor man! no doubt of a broken heart) was compelled to wait several weeks without writing under privilege and without drawing a shilling of money, until the gentleman from Georgia could find leisure to secure the rights and dignity of his State from being injured by allowing the delegate to frank his billets.

In a more recent and far more important transaction, it might be recollected also, how dexterously, how zealously, and how very successfully he advocated the interests of a little corner of the Union known by the name of Georgia. On the list of expenditures there would hereafter be seen between one and two millions accounted for by being paid over to the treasury of the State he represents, as the fair fruits of his zeal and address. He may now be ready, since he has ob tained thus the extent of his wishes, to banish all local attachments pending this question. He would give him credit for his assertion, and for two reasons: first, because the gentleman himself had said so; and next, because he should, on any other principle, be at a loss to account for the vote he was about to give.

Every member who had spoken on this subject seemed to have admitted, by the very course and pointing of their arguments, even though they may have denied it in words, that this was really a question between great and small States, and disguise it as they would the question would be so considered out of doors. The privilege given by the Constitution extended to five, out of which the choice of President should be made; and why should the smaller, for whose benefit and security that number was given, now wantonly throw it away without an equivalent? As to the Vice President, his election had no influence upon the number, because the choice of President in the House of Representatives was as free and unqualified as if that subordinate office did not exist. Nay, he said, he would venture to assert that, even if the number five were continued, and the Vice Presidency entirely abolished, there would not be as great a latitude of choice as under the present mode, because those five out of whom the choice must eventually be made, were much more likely hereafter to be nominated by the great States, inasmuch as their electors would no longer be compelled to vote for a man of a different State. The honorable gentleman from Maryland (Mr. SMITH) has said, he was not surprised that those who had seats in the old Congress, should perplex themselves with the distinctions; but he could tell that gentleman, that it was not in the old Congress he Since these instances of State attachment, and had learnt them, for there he had seen all the of the good fruits of it, were so fresh in the recolvotes of the States equal, and had known the lection of the Senate, it was to be hoped the gencomparatively little State of Maryland control- tleman from Georgia would allow members from ling the will of the Ancient Dominion. It was other States, sometimes, to imitate his commendin the Federal Convention that distinction was able example, by taking a little care of the intermade and acknowledged; and he defied that mem-ests of their constituents-not in the more trivial ber to do, what had been before requested of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, viz: to open the Constitution, and point out a single article, if he could, that had not evidently been framed upon a presumption of diversity (he had almost said, adversity) of interest between the great and small States.

The gentleman from Georgia, too, (Mr. JACKSON,) is very much afflicted that the State distinctions had been introduced on the occasion, and admonished the Senate to put away all local considerations. That gentleman may now be prepared to do so, since he has obtained all his heart could wish for his immediate constituents; but if there was a single member who had more ably, more perseveringly, and more successfully and warmly contended for the rights and interests of his particular State, than any or all the other members on that floor, he was that member. The gentleman had not only been quickly, but tremblingly alive to every measure that could in the most distant degree affect the interests of his State. It would be remembered that in the session before last, when a bill came up from the

question of franking letters or of a few dirty acres, but in a question so very serious in its nature as to strike at their sovereignty itself.

Some attention was due to the remarks of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. MACLAY,) who went into an ingenious but subtle distinction between civil and political rights, artfully calculated to divert the attention of the Senate from the true distinction upon which this motion and the main question turned, by amusing them with an ingenious disquisition on the rights of men in society, distinguishing them under the heads of political and civil. But without following him through his regular chain of reasoning, he would make shorter work, and reduce all that gentlemen had said to the test of analysis. To those Representatives of small States who should vote with him, his disquisition was intended doubtless as a sort of justification; and to those of them who, although voting against him, must be compelled to submit, it was kindly meant as a consolation under the new dispensation of State influence. They were told that their rights were of two kinds, viz: political, in relation to their standing

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as members of a State, and civil in reference to their rights as mere individuals; that their political rights might be abolished or abridged, or their State sovereignties invaded and prostrated, but their civil rights might remain unimpaired; that they might, to be sure, be less respected as Jerseymen, Rhode Islanders, or Georgians, but they would not therefore be less respected and regard ed as members of the Union, or Americans. Mr. D. said he liked the gentleman's illustration of his argument much better than the argument itself; and he approved the machinery he had employed much more than the use he had made of it. With his leave, therefore, he would take the materials he had furnished for the occasion, and put them into plain and simple allegory.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania had compared the great and small States confederated, to rich and poor men associated in one community. Let the comparison for argument's sake, be admitted to be just, and let the analogy be pursued. Suppose these rich men, four in number, and the poor men thirteen, had entered into a compact which required that a chief should be chosen from among them once in four years, and that, as their votes would be in proportion to their wealth, the four men would have a preponderance over the other thirteen. Suppose them allowed to vote for themselves exclusively, but with this stipulation, that if, on the first ballot, a majority should be found for one, it should devolve upon the whole seventeen to decide upon a chief, with equal voices; would it not in this case be the interest of these four to limit the choice to the three highest on the list, and of the thirteen to extend it to five? In the first case of three, they would be compelled to elect one of the three rich, however unworthy; and in the other case, they would be at liberty to choose one of their own number, if they thought him better qualified than any of the other four. They might, it was true, risk the displeasure of the four rich men, but why debar themselves from doing it, if the case should justify their running the risk? This could with propriety be said to be such a case, or, to drop all figure, a question between the great and small States. The Constitution allowed a choice from the five highest on the list, and why should we debar ourselves of the right of such a choice? It was a privilege which ought to be persisted in, even though the resentment of the great States might be aroused. As expressed in the animated language of the honorable gentleman from Virginia," their power was great, and he could hear the menace of a former day reverberating through the Senate Chamber;" its effects would perhaps be best ascertained by the vote which was to follow.

Mr. WRIGHT rose only to correct an error into which the gentleman from New Jersey had fallen, concerning the number five, which he had spoken in favor of on a former day; he had never admitted nor argued that the number five or three would affect the Constitution or the small States; he had, on the contrary, declared that all he wanted was the discriminating principle; and so that was effected, he cared not whether the choice was

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to be made from five or from twenty. As he had not used such arguments, he supposed he must have been imposed upon, by the misrepresentation of his sentiments in an infamous paper, called the Washington Federalist, in which nothing said on his side of the House was reported truly; that paper had falsified his speech, and he took that opportunity to state that, whosoever was the reporter of his speech in that paper, was guilty of a lie.

Mr. DAYTON observed that the allusion he had made was to the support which the gentleman certainly gave to the number five; as to what the paper alluded to might say, he had nothing to answer.

Mr. WRIGHT had repeatedly advocated the discriminating principle, and he had been represented as holding opinions which he did not hold, that the amendment was an attack on the small States; now, as he had never entertained that opinion, and as that infamous paper had so misrepresented him, he must repeat, that whoever wrote that charge in that paper, wrote a lie.

Mr. DAYTON hoped the gentleman did not mean to connect him in his observations; he could not certainly suspect him as the author of any piece in that paper.

Mr. COCKE had also come in for a share of the gentleman's thanks, but there were none due, as he had acted as one of the majority, and was willing by giving them an opportunity to say all they had to say in favor of the number five. With him, at first, it was a matter of indifference, so he obtained the discriminating principle. His constituents were unanimous in favor of this principle, and he had their instructions to that effect. He preferred the number three for the reasons he had already given; it brought the election closer to the people; five would give a greater latitude, and subject it to the Legislature, which he did not wish to see take place. As to those dreadful consequences, and all this depredation of States, he could not see how those things could happen. What if the larger States were foolish enough to attempt the enslavement of the smaller States, were the small States so feeble and so few as not to be able to prevent them? As to this degradation of small States, he could recollect the time when it was said that if Pennsylvania would give an unanimous vote, New Jersey would give a vote to counteract it. He knew nothing that would degrade a State so much as intrigues of such a nature; and, it was to avoid that degradation, he wished for the amendment. He wished the President not to be an intriguer; he wished to have him what he now is, the man of the people; and, for that purpose, he would vote for three.

Mr. JACKSON had intended to have given only a naked vote on this question, but the profusion of compliments heaped upon him for merely discharging his duty, demanded some return; he had been sent to that body to watch the interests of his State, and to do, to the best of his judgment, justice between it and the United States. He had conceived the rights of Georgia invaded, and he felt it to be his duty to seek justice according to

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the Constitution. Whatever gentlemen may insinuate about dirty acres, nof State of the Union was so much oppressed as Georgia had been; not by the large States, from which the gentleman apprehends so much, but by the small. Let any gentleman consult the Convention at New York, and they will find that not a single small State came forward to support her protest against a great wrong when a treaty was sanctioned that violated her rights and parcelled out her territory. As well might the Union pretend to give up Philadelphia to Great Britain, as the county of Talassee to a parcel of tomahawking Indians. Had that gentleman been a Representative no doubt he would have come down upon them in thunder, he would have with a loud voice rent the Hall of Congress with the wrongs of the State, and the ravage and carnage to which it was exposed; he would have described the children torn from their mothers' arms by the unfeeling savage, and dashed to pieces; the matron abused and murdered; and deplored that, to the authors of such cruelties, the territory had been consigned.

Gentlemen either knew not or cared not for these wrongs; and, after several years supplication, it was only two years ago that half justice was done; for half what was taken away by usurpation, has not been restored by justice. We had paid other States for defending the Union, but Georgia had not yet been paid, and it remains yet to be known, whether the widow, bereaved of her husband in battle, or murdered by treachery, while defending his country, or the orphan who survived her murdered parents, are to be remunerated even for their country and equitable demands. Government by a law seized upon this territory and legislated for it. It was for that territory a Delegate was sent, to whom the gentleman advert ed. He opposed the extension of the privilege of franking to any Delegate, because agreeing to it would be to acknowledge the title of injustice.

No State had ever been oppressed by Georgia; year after year they had sent petitions demanding payment for the service of the militia which had protected the frontiers, but they had not been paid to this hour.

Upon the merits of the question of numbers, he had wished to remain silent, but, as he was up, he would intrude upon the House a few observations. He preferred the number three, for several serious reasons; he wished to prevent the choice from devolving upon the House of Representatives; he wished it to be out of their power, if it should devolve upon them, to elect any man not evidently intended by the people; the smaller number would render this more certain; he did not consider it a matter of any consequence from what State a President was chosen; he believed the small States had never offered a candidate; the period was too short, since the existence of the Government to admit of many States having an opportunity to bring forward a candidate; and various good causes had contributed to make the selections that had been from large States. While parties existed there would be a champion chosen by each; if New Jersey has not brought forward

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one, it cannot be for want of inclination; and where Princeton College exists it would be ungracious to suppose that the requisite talents could not be found there. Georgia had never wished to bring forward a candidate, neither had Tennessee, nor several other States. He believed that wherever a man should be found in the Union distinguished by his virtues, his genius, and his devotion to republican principles, that he would be taken up, without concern for the State in which he has his residence.

This league of the large States, so much harped upon, he could not comprehend; where was it to be formed, and how? Are we certain that Massachusetts and Virginia. Pennsylvania and New York, will, notwithstanding their distance, several interests, and views, combine to tie the small States, hands and feet? No, sir, we find the large States disagreeing and as jealous of each other as the small; and with more reason, if the argument has any weight at ali.

He preferred the number three in the amendment, as it brought the election two degrees nearer to the people; because a Constitution was not intended for the convenience of the servants, but for the use of the Sovereign-the people. Out of five persons the provision for a choice was before directed to be made; the Constitution as now proposed to be altered would approach to the principle and number of five in a safer and more certain way, for the President would be chosen out of the three highest, and the Vice President out of two others. It was not proper that any man should have a chance of being placed in a situation of so much consequence, contrary to the intention of the people. It is, therefore, our duty to prevent such an occurrence; and we ought to send cur amendment to the people as free from defects as possible, because their rights are involved therein; neglect their rights, and they will form a Constitution for themselves; or, in seeking to reform it, they will incur the dangers, either of a sanguinary revolution, or of the establishment of a Government like that of Great Britain, sustained by corruption and wretchedness of the people.

Mr. TAYLOR Would trespass on the House with a few observations. With other gentlemen, he was not so much disposed to dispute about the number five or three, as strenuous to obtain the principle of designation. The argument of those who opposed the amendment, he perceived, had been all along founded on extreme cases, which, even if they were to happen, would not produce the affirmed effects on the small States. The number three he certainly preferred, because it gave a greater certainty to popular choice; the extreme case of this would be an election by the House of Representatives; if the number were three, how would this operate in the House? Would not the small States have a greater share of influence than the large States, in the proportion of thirteen to four? Another case is, that election should remain in the divisible electoral bodies, as heretofore, or, in the extreme, be elected by an accumulated body in the House of Representatives.

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Would this latter be in favor of the small States? Would the election by a Diet be preferable or safer than the choice by Electors in various places so remote as to be out of the scope of each other's influence, and so numerous as not to be accessible by corruption? It is true, that the number three has a greater tendency to give the choice to the people; it cannot be true that the small States would wish to place it in the House of Representatives, because three would give the people the choice; and, even if they did wish to take the choice out of the hands of the people, it ought to be opposed, because it is contrary to the spirit and intent of the Constitution.

The division of election is one of the soundest principles of the Constitution; elections are more free and less liable to passion and corruption in the state of division; for experience has shown that elections, any more than Executive powers, cannot be so well effected by accumulative bodies. Your Constitution directs elections in States, not assembled in one place. And why? To prevent the evils to which Diets or Legislative bodies are exposed. Does not three, then, adhere infinitely more to the leading principle of your Constitution, by placing it in the power of the numerous election districts, and keeping out of the reach of the numerous or accumulate body the choice? Is it not necessary to guard, by every means, against what has proved fatal to so many Republics?

Let the extreme cases, on the other hand, be taken. The number five is adopted. For what end? To carry the election to the House of Representatives; will the small States be benefited by five more than three? Will they not, from the number, be more likely to be divided; and would not a number of the large States then possess all the advantages of number and union? For the gentlemen consider this union of the large States as certain, and they cannot refuse their own arguments, or the consequences of them.

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full majority of nine States, they will deny themselves the power of self-government? It is a principle of heroism, or something else, which enables minorities to govern; but it is a principle of reason and virtue, which gives the Government to majorities in a free Government. Are we, then, in making the designating principle, to adhere to the form and desert the substance? How does the Constitution now stand? We choose from five the President and Vice President. How, if we adopt three? Then the President would be chosen from three, and the Vice President from twomaking five. Here preserving the substance, and indirectly the form. How, if we adopt the designating principle, and leave the number five? Then, we would choose the President from the five, and the Vice President from two othermaking seven! The more the subject is examined the more we must be convinced that three should have the preference.

Before he sat down he would say a word more on the subject of the threat alleged to have come from the Ancient Dominion. If he mistook not there were intimations held out in the course of the debate, that bloodshed would be the result of the amendment of the Constitution; and many other expressions of that nature had been employed, which by no means argued decorum, and could not serve as argument with any member of that House. The malignant passion of jealousy was conjured up, to be the herald of this civil discord, and the most disastrous afflictions were predicted as the consequence. In glancing at these unwarranted and unwarrantable sentiments, he had assumed it as a principle not to be overthrown, that free governments must exist upon moral rectitude, or perish; and that if the United States were capable of being actuated to rage by their pernicious and destructive passions, rectitude and morality would no longer exist among them, and they must be destroyed by each other. What, sir, because there are strong and powerful States, must the weak be tolerated to menace them with injury and bloodshed, without the liberty of war

Suppose the elective power of the people annihilated, and transferred solely to the Legislature? Would the small States consent to this? Would they be so blind? Yet, by adopting five, you pro-ring against the fatal consequences? Are strong mote this evil; by three you prevent it. And yet gentlemen say they look upon this as only a contest of small and large States.

The gentleman from New Jersey had talked something of a threat, alleged to have been thrown out in that House, by him in a former day's debate. He would beg leave to say, that the gentleman had most egregiously misrepresented or misconstrued him. But he could see in it a very shallow stratagem; he thought the gentleman possessed more skill; had his generalship been as great as his reputation he would not have planted his ambuscade where the enemy must see him from all sides, and expose all his force by this state of his advance party. When he heard this clamor about the danger of small States, he was led to ask, what was their number? And, looking round that House, he found that there were thirteen represented, and only four large States! Are the Representatives of the small States in this Senate, then, so blind to their danger, that, possessed of a

men bound to bear the wrongs done them by the weak? Are the rich to fold their arms and bear to be robbed by the poor with silence, and without remonstrance? Yet such is the inference that must be made from what the gentleman has undertaken to call a threat. Wherefore threaten with good? Can evil be the result of good, or good of evil? Natural and moral consequences flow from moral actions; and when there are any who undertake to do evil, it is but strict justice he should suffer. He found some difficulty in bringing himself to notice this charge of a threat, because he had perceived, particularly in the paper published in this city, a common practice of misrepresentation. In a former day's debate he had alluded to the fatal effects which the British Government had produced on the liberty and prosperity of that country, by the means of the rotten boroughs; and he had been misrepresented as depreciating the small States and describing them as the rotten boroughs of America. It must be obvious that a

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