Speech of Patrick Henry,

On the expediency of adopting the Federal Constitution delivered in the convention of Virginia, June 24, 1788. Enunciating views which have ever since been accepted by the

Democratic party.

which that proposal is silent. Is that the language of the bill of rights in England? Is it the language of the American bill of rights, that these three rights, and these only, are valuable? Is it the language of MR. CHAIRMAN:-The proposal of rati- men going into a new government? Is it fication is premature. The importance of not necessary to speak of those things bethe subject requires the most mature fore you go into a compact? How do these deliberation. The honorable member must three things stand? As one of the parties, forgive me for declaring my dissent from we declare we do not mean to give them it, because, if I understand it rightly, it up. This is very dictatorial; much more admits that the new system is defective, so than the conduct which proposes alteraand most capitally; for, immediately after tions as the condition of adoption. In a the proposed ratification, there comes a compact, there are two parties one acdeclaration, that the paper before you is cepting, and another proposing. As a not intended to violate any of these three party, we propose that we shall secure these great rights the liberty of religion, liberty three things; and before we have the asof the press, and the trial by jury. What sent of the other contracting party, we go is the inference, when you enumerate the into the compact, and leave these things at rights which you are to enjoy? That those their mercy. What will be the consenot enumerated are relinquished. There quence? Suppose the other states will call are only three things to be retained-reli- this dictatorial: they will say, Virginia has gion, freedom of the press, and jury trial. gone into the government, and carried with Will not the ratification carry every thing. her certain propositions, which, she says, without excepting these three things? ought to be concurred in by the other Will not all the world pronounce, that we states. They will declare, that she has no intended to give up all the rest? Every right to dictate to other states the condithing it speaks of, by way of rights, is tions on which they shall come into the comprised in these three things. Your union. According to the honorable memsubsequent amendments only go to these ber's proposal, the ratification will cease to three amendments. I feel myself distressed, be obligatory unless they accede to these because the necessity of securing our amendments. We have ratified it. You personal rights seems not to have pervaded have committed a violation, they will say. the minds of men; for many other valuable They have not violated it. We say we will things are omitted. For instance: general go out of it. You are then reduced to a warrants, by which an officer may search sad dilemma-to give up these three rights, suspected places without evidence of the or leave the government. This is worse commission of a fact, or seize any person than our present confederation, to which without evidence of his crime, ought to be we have hitherto adhered honestly and prohibited. As these are admitted, any faithfully. We shall be told we have vioman may be seized; any property may be lated it, because we have left it for the intaken, in the most arbitrary manner, with-fringement and violation of conditions, out any evidence or reason. Every thing, the most sacred, may be searched and ransacked by the strong hand of power. We have infinitely more reason to dread general warrants here, than they have in England; because there, if a person be confined, liberty may be quickly obtained by the writ of habeas corpus. But here, a man living many hundred miles from the judges may rot in prison before he can get

which they never agreed to be a part of the ratification. The ratification will be complete. The proposal is made by one party. We, as the other, accede to it, and propose the security of these three great rights; for it is only a proposal. In order to secure them, you are left in that state of fatal hostility, which I shall as much deplore as the honorable gentleman. I exhort gentlemen to think seriously before that writ. they ratify this constitution, and persuade Another most fatal omission is, with re-themselves that they will succeed in makspect to standing armies. In your bill of ing a feeble effort to get amendments after rights of Virginia, they are said to be dangerous to liberty; and it tells you, that the proper defence of a free state consists in militia; and so I might go on to ten or eleven things of immense consequence secured in your bill of rights, concerning

adoption. With respect to that part of the proposal which says that every power not granted remains with the people, it must be previous to adoption, or it will involve this country in inevitable destruc. tion. To talk of it is a thing subsequent, not as one of your inalienable rights, is * Upon the resolution of Mr. Wythe, which proposed, leaving it to the casual opinion of the con "That the committee should ratify the constitution, and that whatsoever amendments might be deemed necessary gress who shall take up the consideration should be recommended to the consideration of the con- of the matter. They will not reason with tion, to be acted upon according to the mode prescribed you about the effect of this constitution. They will not take the opinion of this com

gress, which should first assemble under the constitu

therein "

mittee concerning its operation. They | people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their will construe it as they please. If you peace and tranquillity gone away. I replace it subsequently, let me ask the con- peat it again, that it would rejoice my very sequences. Among ten thousand implied soul that every one of my fellow-beings powers which they may assume, they may, was emancipated. As we ought with if we be engaged in war, liberate every one gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven of your slaves, if they please. And this which has numbered us among the free, we must and will be done by men, a majority ought to lament and deplore the necessity of whom have not a common interest with of holding our fellow-men in bondage. you. They will, therefore, have no feeling But is it practicable, by any human means, for your interests. to liberate them, without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences? We ought to possess them in the manner we have inherited them from our ancestors, as their manumission is incompatible with the felicity of the country. But we ought to soften, as much as possible, the rigor of their unhappy fate. I know that in a variety of particular instances, the legisla ture, listening to complaints, have admitted their emancipation. Let me not dwell on this subject. I will only add, that this, as well as every other property of the people of Virginia, is in jeopardy, and put in the hands of those who have no similarity of situation with us. This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to congress.

Here Mr. Henry informed the committee, that he had a resolution prepared, to refer a declaration of rights, with certain amendments to the most exceptionable parts of the constitution, to the other states in the confederacy, for their consideration, previous to its ratification. The clerk then read the resolution, the declaration of rights, and amendments, which were nearly the same as those ultimately proposed by the convention, for the consideration of congress. He then resumed the subject.] I have thus candidly sub

It has been repeatedly said here that the great object of a national government is national defence. That power which is said to be intended for security and safety, may be rendered detestable and oppressive. If you give power to the general government to provide for the general defence, the means must be commensurate to the end. All the means in the possession of the people must be given to the government which is intrusted with the public defence. In this state there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states; but there are few or none in the Northern States; and yet, if the Northern States shall be of opinion that our numbers are numberless, they may call forth every national resource. May congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general: but acts of assembly passed, that every slave who would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to bring this event about: slavery is detested; we feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these considerations, at some future period, press with full force on the minds of congress. Let that urbanity, which I trust will dis-mitted to you, Mr. Chairman, and this tinguish America, and the necessity of na- committee, what occurred to me as proper tional defence-let all these things operate amendments to the constitution, and the deon their minds, and they will search that claration of rights containing those fundapaper, and see if they have power of manu- mental, inalienable privileges, which I mission. And have they not, sir? Have conceive to be essential to liberty and hapthey not power to provide for the general piness. I believe, that, on a review of defence and welfare? May they not think these amendments, it will still be found, that these call for the abolition of slavery? that the arm of power will be sufficiently May they not pronounce all slaves free, strong for national purposes, when these and will they not be warranted by that restrictions shall be a part of the governpower? There is no ambiguous implica- ment. I believe no gentleman, who option, or logical deduction. The paper poses me in sentiments, will be able to disspeaks to the point. They have the power cover that any one feature of a strong in clear, unequivocal terms, and will government is altered; and at the same clearly and certainly exercise it. As much time your inalienable rights are secured by as I deplore slavery, I see that prudence them. The government unaltered may be forbids its abolition. I deny that the terrible to America, but can general government ought to set them free, loved, till it be amended. You find all because a decided majority of the states the resources of the continent may be have not the ties of sympathy and fellow-drawn to a point. In danger, the presifeeling for those whose interest would be dent may concentre to a point every effort affected by their emancipation. The ma- of the continent. If the government be jority of congress is to the north, and the slaves are to the south. In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the

never be

constructed to satisfy the people and remove their apprehensions, the wealth and strength of the continent will go where

public utility shall direct. This govern- | Give me leave then to say, that dangers ment, with these restrictions, will be a from beyond the Atlantic are imaginary. strong government united with the priv- From these premises, then, it may be conileges of the people. In my weak judg- cluded, that, from the creation of the world ment, a government is strong, when it ap- to this time, there never was a more fair plies to the most important end of all gov- and proper opportunity than we have at ernments the rights and privileges of the this day to establish such a government as people. In the honorable member's pro- will permanently establish the most tranposal, jury trial, the press, and religion, scendent political felicity. Since the revand other essential rights, are not to be olution there has not been so much exgiven up. Other essential rights-what perience. Since then, the general interests are they? The world will say, that you of America have not been better understood, intended to give them up. When you go nor the union more ardently loved, than at into an enumeration of your rights, and this present moment. I acknowledge the stop that enumeration, the inevitable con- weakness of the old confederation. Every clusion is, that what is omitted is intended man says, that something must be done. to be surrendered. Where is the moment more favorable than this? During the war, when ten thousand dangers surrounded us, America was magnanimous. What was the language of the little state of Maryland? "I will have time to consider. I will hold out three years. Let what may come I will have time to reflect." Magnanimity appeared everywhere. What was the upshot?— America triumphed. Is there any thing to forbid us to offer these amendments to the other states? If this moment goes away unimproved, we shall never see its return. We now act under a happy system, which says, that a majority may alter the government when necessary. But by the paper proposed, a majority will forever endeavor in vain to alter it. Three fourths may. Is not this the most promising time for securing the necessary alterations? Will you go into that government, where it is a principle, that a contemptible minority may prevent an alteration? What will be the language of the majority?— Change the government-Nay, eighths of the people of America may wish the change; but the minority may come with a Roman Veto, and object to the alteration. The language of a magnanimous country and of freemen is, Till you remove the defects, we will not accede. It would be in vain for me to show, that there is no danger to prevent our obtaining those amendments, if you are not convinced already. If the other states will not agree to them, it is not an inducement to union. The language of this paper is not dictatorial, but merely a proposition for amendments. The proposition of Virginia met with a favorable reception before. We proposed that convention which met at Annapolis. It was not called dictatorial. Turn away from American, and consid- We proposed that at Philadelphia. Was er European politics. The nations there, Virginia thought dictatorial? But Virwhich can trouble us, are France, Eng-ginia is now to lose her pre-eminence. land, and Spain. But at present we know Those rights of equality, to which the for a certainty, that those nations are engaged in a very different pursuit from American conquests. We are told by our intelligent ambassador, that there is no such danger as has been apprehended.

Anxious as I am to be as little troublesome as posible, I cannot leave this part of the subject without adverting to one remark of the honorable gentleman. He says, that, rather than bring the union into danger, he will adopt it with its imperfections. A great deal is said about disunion, and consequent dangers. I have no claim to a greater share of fortitude than others; but I can see no kind of danger. I form my judgment on a single fact alone, that we are at peace with all the world; nor is there any apparent cause of a rupture with any nation in the world. Is it among the American states that the cause of disunion is to be feared? Are not the states using all their efforts for the promotion of union? New England sacrifices local prejudices for the purposes of union. We hear the necessity of the union, and predilection for the union, re-echoed from all parts of the continent; and all at once disunion is to follow! If gentlemen dread disunion, the very thing they advocate will inevitably produce it. A previous ratification will raise insurmountable obstacles to union. New York is an insurmountable obstacle to it, and North Carolina also. They will never accede to it till it be amended. A great part of Virginia is opposed, most decidedly, to it, as it stands. This very spirit which will govern us in these three states, will find a kindred spirit in the adopting states. Give me leave to say, that it is very problematical whether the adopting states can stand on their own legs. I hear only on one side, but as far as my information goes, there are heart-burnings and animosities among them. Will these animosities be cured by subsequent amendments?

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meanest individual in the community is entitled, are to bring us down infinitely below the Delaware people. Have we not a right to say, Hear our propositions? Why, sir, your slaves have a right to make

their humble requests. Those who are in the | stage of the debate, not to take any part meanest occupations of human life, have in the discussion of the details of the meaa right to complain. What do we require? sure. But, as I trust, what I now have to Not pre-eminence, but safety; that our citizens may be able to sit down in peace and security under their own fig-trees. I am confident that sentiments like these will meet with unison in every state; for they will wish to banish discord from the American soil. I am certain that the warmest friend of the constitution wishes to have fewer enemies-fewer of those who pester and plague him with opposition. I could not withhold from my fellow-citizens anything so reasonable. I fear you will have no union, unless you remove the cause of opposition. Will you sit down contented with the name of union without any solid foundation?

Speech of John Randolph

Against the Tariff Bill, delivered in the House of Represent

atives of the United States, April 15, 1824.

I AM, Mr. Speaker, practising no deception upon myself, much less upon the house, when I say, that if I had consulted my own feelings and inclinations, I should not have troubled the house, exhausted as it is, and as I am, with any further remarks upon this subject. I come to the discharge of this task, not merely with reluctance, but with disgust; jaded, worn down, abraded, I may say, as I am by long attendance upon this body, and continued stretch of the attention upon this subject. I come to it, however, at the suggestion, and in pursuance of the wishes of those, whose wishes are to me, in all matters touching my public duty, paramount law; I speak with those reservations, of course, which every moral agent must be supposed to make to himself.

say upon this subject, although more and better things have been said by others, may not be the same that they have said, or may not be said in the same manner. I here borrow the language of a man who has been heretofore conspicuous in the councils of the country; of one who was unrivalled for readiness and dexterity in debate; who was long without an equal on the floor of this body; who contributed as much to the revolution of 1801, as any man in this nation, and derived as little benefit from it; as, to use the words of that celebrated man, what I have to say is not that which has been said by others, and will not be said in their manner, the house will, I trust, have patience with me during the time that my strength will allow me to occupy their attention. And I beg them to understand, that the notes which I hold in my hand are not the notes on which I mean to speak, but of what others have spoken, and from which I will make the smallest selection in my power.

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Sir, when are we to have enough of this tariff question? In 1816 it was supposed to be settled. Only three years thereafter, another proposition for increasing it was sent from this house to the senate, baited with a tax of four cents per pound on brown sugar. It was fortunately rejected in that body. In what manner this bill is baited, it does not become me to say; but I have too distinct a recollection of the vote in committee of the whole, on the duty upon molasses, and afterwards of the vote in the house on the same question; of the votes of more than one of the states on that question, not to mark it well. I do not say that the change of the vote on that question was affected by any man's It was not more to my surprise, than to voting against his own motion; but I do my disappointment, that on my return to not hesitate to say that it was effected by the house, after a necessary absence of a one man's electioneering against his own few days, on indispensable business, I motion. I am very glad, Mr. Speaker, found it engaged in discussing the general that old Massachusetts Bay, and the provprinciple of the bill, when its details were ince of Maine and Sagadahock, by whom under consideration. If I had expected we stood in the days of the revolution, now such a turn in the debate, I would, at any stand by the south, and will not aid in private sacrifice, however great, have re- fixing on us this system of taxation, commained a spectator and auditor of that dis-pared with which the taxation of Mr. cussion. With the exception of the speech, Grenville and Lord North was as nothing. already published, of my worthy colleague I speak with knowledge of what I say, on my right (Mr. P. P. Barbour), I have when I declare, that this bill is an attempt been nearly deprived of the benefit of the to reduce the country, south of Mason and discussion which has taken place. Many Dixon's line and east of the Alleghany weeks have been occupied with this bill (I mountains, to a state of worse than colonial hope the house will pardon me for saying bondage; a state to which the domination so) before I took the slightest part in the of Great Britain was, in my judgment, far deliberations of the details; and I now preferable; and I trust I shall always have sincerely regret that I had not firmness the fearless integrity to utter any political enough to adhere to the resolution which sentiment which the head sanctions and I had laid down to myself, in the early the heart ratifies; for the British parlia

ment never would have dared to lay such | the noisome exhalations, the incessant duties on our imports, or their exports to labor of these accursed manufactories. us, either "at home" or here, as is now Yes, sir, accursed; for I say it is an accursproposed to be laid upon the imports from ed thing, which I will neither taste, nor abroad. At that time we had the com- touch, nor handle. If we were to act here mand of the market of the vast dominions on the English system, we should have then subject, and we should have had those the yellow fever at Philadelphia and New which have since been subjected, to the York, not in August merely, but from June British empire; we enjoyed a free trade to January, and from January to June. eminently superior to any thing that we The climate of this country alone, were can enjoy, if this bill shall go into opera- there no other natural obstacle to it, says tion. It is a sacrifice of the interests of a aloud, You shall not manufacture! Even part of this nation to the ideal benefit of our tobacco factories, admitted to be the the rest. It marks us out as the victims most wholesome of any sort of factories, of a worse than Egyptian bondage. It is are known to be, where extensive, the very a barter of so much of our rights, of so nidus (if I may use the expression) of yelmuch of the fruits of our labor, for politi-low fever and other fevers of similar type. cal power to be transferred to other hands. In another of the advantages of Great It ought to be met, and I trust it will be Britain, so important to her prosperity, we met, in the southern country, as was the are almost on a par with her, if we know stamp act, and by, all those measures, how properly to use it. Fortunatos nimiwhich I will not detain the house by re-um sua si bona norint-for, as regards decapitulating, which succeeded the stamp act, and produced the final breach with the mother country, which it took about ten years to bring about, as I trust, in my conscience, it will not take as long to bring about similar results from this measure, should it become a law.

fence, we are, to all intents and purposes, almost as much an island as England herself. But one of her insular advantages we can never acquire. Every part of that country is accessible from the sea. There, as you recede from the sea, you do not get further from the sea. I know that a great Sir, events now passing elsewhere, which deal will be said of our majestic rivers, plant a thorn in my pillow and a dagger about the father of floods, and his tributary in my heart, admonish me of the difficulty streams; but, with the Ohio, frozen up all of governing with sobriety any people who the winter and dry all the summer, with a are over head and ears in debt. That state long tortuous, difficult, and dangerous naviof things begets a temper which sets at gation thence to the ocean, the gentlemen of nought every thing like reason and com- the west may rest assured that they will mon sense. This country is unquestionably never derive one particle of advantage from laboring under great distress; but we can- even a total prohibition of foreign manunot legislate it out of that distress. We factures. You may succeed in reducing us may, by your legislation, reduce all the to your own level of misery; but if we country south and east of Mason and were to agree to become your slaves, you Dixon's line, the whites as well as the never can derive one farthing of advantage blacks, to the condition of Helots: you from this bill. What parts of this councan do no more. We have had placed be- try can derive any advantage from it? fore us, in the course of this discussion, for- Those parts only, where there is a water eign examples and authorities; and among power in immediate contact with navigaother things, we have been told, as an ar- tion, such as the vicinities of Boston, Progument in favor of this measure, of the vidence, Baltimore, and Richmond. Peprosperity of Great Britain. Have gentle-tersburg is the last of these as you travel men taken into consideration the peculiar south. You take a bag of cotton up the advantages of Great Britain? Have they river to Pittsburg, or to Zanesville, to have taken into consideration that, not except-it manufactured and sent down to New ing Mexico, and that fine country which Orleans for a market, and before your bag lies between the Orinoco and Caribbean of cotton has got to the place of manufac sea, England is decidedly superior, in point of physical advantages, to every country under the sun? This is unquestionably true. I will enumerate some of those advantages. First, there is her climate. In England, such is the temperature of the air, that a man can there do more days' work in the year, and more hours' work in the day, than in any other climate in the world; of course I include Scotland and Ireland in this description. It is in such a climate only, that the human animal can bear without extirpation the corrupted air,

ture, the manufacturer of Providence has received his returns for the goods made from his bag of cotton purchased at the same time that you purchased yours. No, sir, gentlemen may as well insist that because the Chesapeake bay, mare nostrum, our Mediterranean sea, gives us every advantage of navigation, we shall exclude from it every thing but steam-boats and those boats called Kar' ¿ox", per emphasin, par excellence, Kentucky boats- a sort of huge square, clumsy, wooden box. And why not insist upon it? Hav'n't you “the