1. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION

enemy can be apprized of your intention. Upon the same principle a
small army would be ridiculous. Nothing less than the Prussian number,
about 200,000 men would embrace this salutary object. And as you now
say-"no man that regards the dignity and safety of his country can
deny the necessity of a military force."-You will next affirm, that no
one, for the same reason, can deny the necessity of a large army. The
safety of the country, we have already experienced to depend, upon
the militia. Switzerland has often experienced the same. Why then, sir,
should you be so very positive, that for this purpose a military force is
necessary?-But for the dignity of the country, that is for the ambition
of its rulers, armies I confess are necessary; and not less in number
than other ambitious rulers maintain, by grinding the face of the peo-
ple. For every thousand in these armies a million of dollars must be
levied upon the public, and such armies-raised and supported, would
at once maintain the dignity of government, and ensure the submission
of the people. We shall be as dignified as the Turks, and equally free.-
The sole power of voting men, and money, is retained by the represen-
tative of the people in England. This is their shield and their defence
against arbitrary power. Never has the King been able to obtain the
extension of this vote beyond a year. But we are called upon, with all
the solemnity of a constitutional act, to give it up for two years. And
yet, sir, you talk of the controul and the restrictions which the new
Constitution provides. There is, I confess, some dexterity in the nega-
tive terms in which this power is conceived-not more than two years.
But what the Constitution permits, and what it grants are essentially
the same. And since it seemed necessary to this almost all confiding
Convention, to limit our confidence in this particular, the only rule
that observation suggests is, that of England; where this confidence has
never exceeded one year.
I come now, sir, to the most exceptionable part of the Constitution-
the senate. In this, as in every other part, you are in the line of your
profession, and on that ground assure your fellow citizens, that-"per-
haps there never was a charge made with less reason, than that which
predicts the institution of a baneful aristocracy in the Foederal Senate."
And yet your conscience smote you, sir, at the beginning, and com-
pelled you to prefix a-perhaps to this strange assertion. The senate,
you say, branches into two characters-the one legislative and the other
executive. This phraseology is quaint, and the position does not state
the whole truth. I am very sorry, sir, to be so often obliged to reprehend
the suppression of information at the moment that you stood forth to
instruct your fellow citizens, in what they were supposed not to under-
stand. In this character, you should have abandoned your professional

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