ed, under a free and wise government, to increase in a ratio incalculable. This state, within a century, must contain a population of many millions. Are we amending our constitution to last our own lives only? Are we establishing fundamental principles for this and the next generation only? No, sir. If we are wise, we must take a prospective view, and we must endeavour, as far as humanity will allow, to impress on our doings the seal of immortality-We must fashion our constitution to suit the present and future times. In this view, as we have repeatedly been admonished upon this floor, we must contemplate, that the condition of the community will change, that other interests will spring up; that we are to become a manufacturing state; that commerce and the mechanical arts will be widely and extensively established. At present the agricul. tural interest predominates; but who can foresee, that in process of time, it will not become the minor body? And what is there to protect the landed interests of the state, the cultivators of the soil, if the wide and broad proposition on your table be adopted; admitting the whole mass of the adult male population of the state to vote not only for governor, lieutenant-governor, and assem→ bly, but senators also? He would venture to predict, that the landed interests of the state will be at the mercy of the other combined interests; and thus all the public burthens may be thrown on the landed property of the state.

It may be said that the smallness of the number, and the duration of the office of senators for four years, will give the requisite dissimilarity between the two branches, and thus obviate the necessity of a distinction in the qualification of the electors. This he conceived to be a mistake. The duration of the office may make the senators somewhat more independent, but it can neither alter nor change the identity of their composition; and the smallness of the number can have no other effect than to promote a more familiar discussion.

However subdivided the legislature may be in its several branches, if it be composed of persons exactly similar in quali cations, and be elected by persons having the same qualifications, it will be virtually one and the same body. Put one body in an upper house, the other in a lower house; call one lords, and the other commons, it avails nothing; they are but one body, possessing the same feelings, the same sympathies, and the same objects. It was a conviction of this immutable truth, which led the framers of our constitution to establish a difference in the qualification of the electors; and I may confidently appeal to the intelligence of this Convention, that hitherto its operation has not been injurious to the interests of society; on the contrary, we have lived securely, we have enjoyed every protection, and we have prospered beyond example.

Let me ask, sir, whether this great, this radical, this fundamental change. which goes to break down a barrier of our constitution, has been demanded by the sober sense of this community? I again say, that I have no knowledge of any disposition existing to any considerable extent, to make this deep, and, as I firmly believe, dangerous innovation.

Is it desirable that we should remove the safeguards of property, and destroy the incentive to acquire it, by rendering it insecure. By removing these guards, we repress industry, frugality, temperance, and all those exertions to the acquisition of landed property, which make good citizens. Are we jealous of property, that we should leave it unprotected? To the beneficence and liberality of those who have property, we owe all the embellishments and the comforts and blessings of life. Who build our churches, who erect our hospitals, who raise our school houses? Those who have property. And are they not entitled to the regard and fostering protection of our laws and constitution? Let me not be suspected of a disposition to infringe or curtail the rights of any portion of the community. I would impart the right of electing the assembly, the most numerous branch of legislation, to every man whom we believe will exercise the right with independence and integrity; and thus the rights of every portion of the people will be protected. I have said on a former occasion, that the rule adopted must necessarily be a general rule; but let us take care, whilst we nominally give the right of voting to a particular description of our citizens, that we do not in reality give it to their employers. The man who feeds, clothes, and Jodges another, has a real and absolute control over his will. Say what we may,

the man who is dependant on another for his subsistence, is not an independent man, and he will vote in subservience to his dictation. Let us, then, take care, whilst we abominate aristocracy, that we do not actually organize it, by giving to the rich an undue influence, and by creating venal votes to be bought.

Here it would be profitable to look to that country from which most of us are derived; I mean England. Independently of the rotten boroughs, which send fifty or sixty members to parliament, and which are owned by individuals, there are districts containing from one hundred to five hundred electors, and sending upwards of one hundred members to the house of commons, who notoriously and publicly buy their seats, by different modes of corruption and bribery. In some places the electors have long been habituated unblushingly to receive for their votes a fixed and standard price. In others, it is managed with more decency; but the corruption is gross and palpable; and who has not heard, and read, of the tumults, the riots, the mobs, and the murders attending their elections? At no very remote period, when luxury and vice shall have extended their empire among us, as they assuredly will, may we not expect, if we admit the mass of our adult male population to vote for every branch of the government, to see these disgusting scenes acted among us?

Ought not these considerations to induce us as wise men, to endeavour to preserve to the landed interest of the country, one branch of the legislature, by adhering to the principles established by our fathers, and sanctified by experience?

Mr. S. said he was aware that he might be misunderstood and misrepresented; for this he had no anxiety; he had endeavoured to act according to the dictates of his best judgment, and he had the approval of his conscience. We had a record, and on that imperishable evidence, he should be willing to transmit to future ages, his vote on this solemn and important occasion.

CHANCELLOR KENT. I am in favour of the amendment which has been submitted by my honourable colleague from Albany; and I must beg leave to trespass for a few moments upon the patience of the committee, while I state the reasons which have induced me to wish, that the senate should continue, as heretofore, the representative of the landed interest, and exempted from the control of universal suffrage. I hope what I may have to say will be kindly received, for it will be well intended. But, if I thought otherwise, I should still prefer to hazard the loss of the little popularity which I might have in this house, or out of it, than to hazard the loss of the approbation of my own conscience.

I have reflected upon the report of the select committee with attention and with anxiety. We appear to be disregarding the principles of the constitution, under which we have so long and so happily lived, and to be changing some of its essential institutions. I cannot but think that the considerate men who have studied the history of republics, or are read in lessons of experience, must look with concern upon our apparent disposition to vibrate from a well balanced government, to the extremes of the democratic doctrines. Such a broad propo sition as that contained in the report, at the distance of ten years past, would have struck the public mind with astonishment and terror. So rapid has been the career of our vibration.

Let us recall our attention, for a moment, to our past history.

This state has existed for forty-four years under our present constitution, which was formed by those illustrious sages and patriots who adorned the revolution. It has wonderfully fulfilled all the great ends of civil government. During that long period, we have enjoyed in an eminent degree, the blessings of civil and religious liberty. We have had our lives, our privileges, and our property, protected. We have had a succession of wise and temperate legislatures. The code of our statute law has been again and again revised and corrected, and it may proudly bear a comparison with that of any other people. We have had, during that period, (though I am, perhaps, not the fittest person to say it) a regular, stable, honest, and enlightened administration of justice. All the peaceable pursuits of industry, and all the important interests of education and science, have been fostered and encouraged. We have trebled our numbers within the last twenty-five years, have displayed mighty resources, and have made unexampled progress in the career of prosperity and greatness,

Our financial credit stands at an enviable height; and we are now successfully engaged in connecting the great lakes with the ocean by stupendous canals, which excite the admiration of our neighbours, and will make a conspicuous figure even upon the map of the United States.

These are some of the fruits of our present government; and yet we seem to be dissatisfied with our condition, and we are engaged in the bold and hazardous experiment of remoddelling the constitution. Is it not fit and discreet: 1 speak as to wise men; is it not fit and proper that we should pause in our career, and reflect well on the immensity of the innovation in contemplation? Discontent in the midst of so much prosperity, and with such abundant means of happiness, looks like ingratitude, and as if we were disposed to arraign the goodness of Providence. Do we not expose ourselves to the danger of being deprived of the blessings we have enjoyed ?-When the husbandman has gathered in bis harvest, and has filled his barns and his graneries with the fruits of his industry, if he should then become discontented and unthankful, would he not have reason to apprehend, that the Lord of the harvest might come in his wrath, and with his lightning destroy them?

The senate has hitherto been elected by the farmers of the state-by the free and independent lords of the soil, worth at least $250 in freehold estate, over and above all debts charged thereon. The governor has been chosen by the same electors, and we have hitherto elected citizens of elevated rank and character. Our assembly has been chosen by freeholders, possessing a freehold of the value of $50, or by persons renting a tenement of the yearly value of $5, and who have been rated and actually paid taxes to the state. By the report before us, we propose to annihilate, at one stroke, all those property distinctions and to bow before the idol of universal suffrage. That extreme democratic principle, when applied to the legislative and executive departments of government, has been regarded with terror, by the wise men of every age, because in every European republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has terminated disastrously, and been productive of corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny. And dare we flatter ourselves that we are a peculiar people, who can run the carcer of history, exempted from the passions which have disturbed and corrupted the rest of mankind? If we are like other races of men, with similar follies and vices, then I greatly fear that our posterity will have reason to deplore in sackcloth and ashes, the delusion of the day.

It is not my purpose at present to interfere with the report of the committee, so far as respectsthe qualifications of electors for governor and members of assembly. I shall feel grateful if we may be permitted to retain the stability and security of a senate, bottomed upon the freehold property of the state. Such a body, so constituted, may prove a sheet anchor amidst the future factions and storms of the republic. The great leading and governing interest of this state, is, at present, the agricultural; and what madness would it be to commit that interest to the winds. The great body of the people, are now the owners and actual cultivators of the soil. With that wholesome population we always expect to find moderation, frugality, order, honesty, and a due sense of independence, liberty, and justice. It is impossible that any people can lose their liberties by internal fraud or violence, so long as the country is parcelled out among freeholders of moderate possessions, and those freeholders have a sure and efficient control in the affairs of the government. Their habits, syınpathies, and employments, necessarily inspire them with a correct spirit of freedom and justice; they are the safest guardians of property and the laws: We certainly cannot too highly appreciate the value of the agricultural interest: It is the foundation of national wealth and power. According to the opinion of her ablest political economists, it is the surplus produce of the agriculture of England, that enables her to support her vast body of manufacturers, her formidable fleets and armies, and the crowds of persons engaged in the liberal professions, and the cultivation of the various arts.

Now, sir, I wish to preserve our senate as the representative of the landed interest. I wish those who have an interest in the soil, to retain the exclusive possession of a branch in the legislature, as a strong hold in which they may find safety through all the vicissitudes which the state may be destined, in the course

of Providence, to experience. I wish them to be always enabled to say that their freeholds cannot be taxed without their consent. The men of no property, together with the crowds of dependants connected with great manufacturing and commercial establishments, and the motley and undefinable population of crowded ports, may, perhaps, at some future day, under skilful management, predominate in the assembly, and yet we should be perfectly safe if no laws could pass without the free consent of the owners of the soil. That security we at present enjoy; and it is that security which I wish to retain.

The apprehended danger from the experiment of universal suffrage applied to the whole legislative department, is no dream of the imagination. It is too mighty an excitement for the moral constitution of men to endure. The tendency of universal suffrage, is to jeopardize the rights of property, and the principles of liberty. There is a constant tendency in human society, and the history of every age proves it; there is a tendency in the poor to covet and to share the plunder of the rich; in the debtor to relax or avoid the obligation of contracts; in the majority to tyranize over the minority, and trample down their rights; in the indolent and the profligate, to cast the whole burthens of society upon the industrious and the virtuous; and there is a tendency in ambitious and wicked men, to inflame these combustible materials. It requires a vigilant government, and a firm administration of justice, to counteract that tendency. Thou shalt not covet; thou shalt not steal; are divine injunctions induced by this miserable depravity of our nature. Who can undertake to calculate with any precision, how many millions of people, this great state will contain in the course of this and the next century, and who can estimate the future extent and magnitude of our commercial ports? The disproportion between the men of property, and the men of no property, will be in every society in a ratio to its commerce, wealth, and population. We are no longer to remain plain and simple republics of farmers, like the New-England colonists, or the Dutch settlements on the Hudson. We are fast becoming a great nation, with great commerce, manufactures, population, wealth, luxuries, and with the vices and miseries that they engender. One seventh of the population of the city of Paris at thisday subsists on charity, and one third of the inhabitants of that city die in the hospitals; what would become of such a city with universal suffrage? France has upwards of four, and England upwards of five millions of manufacturing and commercial labourers without property. Could these kingdoms sustain the weight of universal suffrage? The radicals in England, with the force of that mighty engine, would at once sweep away the property, the laws, and the liberties of that island like a deluge.

The growth of the city of New-York is enough to startle and awaken those who are pursuing the ignis fatuus of universal suffrage.

it had 21,000 souls.

In 1773
1801

It is rapidly swelling into the unwieldly population, and with the burdensome pauperism, of an European metropolis. New-York is destined to become the future London of America; and in less than a century, that city, with the operation of universal suffrage, and under skilful direction, will govern this state. The notion that every man that works a day on the road, or serves an idle hour in the militia, is entitled as of right to an equal participation in the whole power of the government, is most unreasonable, and has no foundation in justice. We had better at once discard from the report such a nominal test of merit. If such persons have an equal share in one branch of the legislature, it is surely as much as they can in justice or policy demand. Society is an association for the protection of property as well as of life, and the individual who contributes only one cent to the common stock, ought not to have the same power and influence in directing the property concerns of the partnership, as he who contributes his thousands. He will not have the same inducements to care, and diligence, and fidelity. His inducements and his temptation would be to divide the whole capital upon the principles of an agrarian law.

Liberty, rightly understood, is an inestimable blessing, but liberty without

wisdom, and without justice, is no better than wild and savage licentiousness. The danger which we have hereafter to apprehend, is not the want, but the abuse, of liberty. We have to apprehend the oppression of minorities, and a disposition to encroach on private right-to disturb chartered privileges-and to weaken, degrade, and overawe the administration of justice; we have to apprehend the establishment of unequal, and consequently, unjust systems of taxation, and all the mischiefs of a crude and mutable legislation. A stable senate, exempted from the influence of universal suffrage, will powerfully check these dangerous propensities, and such a check becomes the more necessary, since this Convention has already determined to withdraw the watchful eye of the judicial department from the passage of laws.

We are destined to become a great manufacturing as well as commercial state. We have already numerous and prosperous factories of one kind or another, and one master capitalist with his one hundred apprentices, and journeymen, and agents, and dependents, will bear down at the polls, an equal number of farmers of small estates in his vicinity, who cannot safely unite for their common defence. Large manufacturing and mechanical establishments, can act in an instant with the unity and efficacy of disciplined troops. It is against such combinations, among others, that I think we ought to give to the freeholders, or those who have interest in land, one branch of the legislature for their asylum and their comfort. Universal suffrage once granted, is granted forever, and never can be recalled. There is no retrograde step in the rear of democracy. However mischievous the precedent may be in its consequences, or however fatal in its effects, universal suffrage never can be recalled or checked, but by the strength of the bayonet. We stand, therefore, this moment, on the brink of fate, on the very edge of the precipice. If we let go our present hold on the senate, we commit our proudest hopes and our most precious interests to the waves.

It ought further to be observed, that the senate is a court of justice in the last resort. It is the last depository of public and private rights; of civil and criminal justice. This gives the subject an awful consideration, and wonderfully increases the importance of securing that house from the inroads of universal suffrage. Our country freeholders are exclusively our jurors in the administration of justice, and there is equal reason that none but those who have an interest in the soil, should have any concern in the composition of that court. As long as the senate is safe, justice is safe, property is safe, and our liberties are safe. But when the wisdom, the integrity, and the independence of that court is lost, we may be certain that the freedom and happiness of this state, are fled forever.

I hope, sir, we shall not carry desolation through all the departments of the fabric erected by our fathers. I hope we shall not put forward to the world a new constitution, as will meet with the scorn of the wise, and the tears of the patriot.

GEN. ROOT. I rejoice that this proposition has presented itself distinctly to the committee, and hope that its rejection may be had in a plain and unequivocal manner. It divides itself into two branches.-1st. Whether the senate and assembly ought to be elected by different persons, so as to possess genius and feelings hostile to each other; and, 2dly. Whether it is properly provided for by the amendment that is now proposed.

That these two branches should be so organized as to possess different genius, the honourable gentleman from Albany (Mr. Spencer) has referred to the writings of illustrious statesmen to prove. I have no objection to hear eulogies upon departed statesmen and illustrious individuals. But however justly those eulogies may be pronounced in respect to personal worth, I do not feel that the people of this state are to regard their opinions with the reverence due to holy writ. I am not disposed to detract from the merits of the illustrious Hamilton. But I do desire, that we may not be carried away by speculations, merely because they were advanced by eminent men. Sir Robert Walpole and William Pitt the younger, were great and illustrious men; but we all know that their doctrines were hostile to liberty, and however suitable for a monarchical government, were not at all calculated for a republican or democratic people. And if